An odd thing has started to happen to us in the course of our consulting work. If it were just once or twice, we’d note it, and move on. Instead, […]
Footprints in the Sand
I came across a lot of ideas in graduate school. Some, like Test Driven Development, Extreme Programming and Scrum skyrocketed my career forward. Others were models – a way of […]
Save Our Scrum
Ken Schwaber, a co-creator of scrum, says that roughly 25% of teams trying the method realize the gains they had hope. More teams call themselves “Scrumbut”, “Scrumerfall”, or “Scrumish” than […]
New Articles — and an announcement
I just got back from interop, the conference for emerging technologies that connect business – from data center to cloud to switches, servers, and software. It was an incredibly busy […]
The Nine Forgettings
“If you measure the wrong thing, and you reward the wrong thing, don’t be surprised if you get the wrong thing.” — Lee Copeland Lee’s talk is about 34 minutes […]
Post Agile Scrum
I’ve been following the LeanAgileScrum discussion on to Agile Project Management list with some interest. Here’s the reply I sent recently: I would like to relate a story of a […]
The Process Process
Special thanks to Ben Simo, who just emailed me a link to this comic strip. The sad thing is, I’m pretty sure that I actually know the people in the […]
GASP? … or not.
Doctors have a rule for sterilization, or “Always Wash Your Hands.” Simple things that can be done to improve the outcome of every single project. At the recent, GLSEC keynote, […]
Where have all the sapient processes gone?
Most agile test automation is, well, clerical. To borrow an analogy from James Bach, it views testing as something like an inventory clerk at a Grocery Store. “It says here […]
To XP or Not?
I just posted this to the Xtreme Programming Yahoo group, and thought it was worth sharing. I start out quoting David Winslow … I want this project to succeed and […]
Project Scheduling Formulas
James Bach is running an on-line class for his Rapid Software Testing Course, that I am finding quite enjoyable. More fun than the lectures (which are good) is what I’m […]
SideBar
…(Administration) covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to […]
Rethinking Process Improvement – IV
Yesterday I suggested that a lot of process improvement is trying to eliminate the overlap between roles. For example, when people talk about making job descriptions “better”, that is often […]
Rethinking Process Improvement – III
If software development is an assembly line, then unclear roles is a real problem (see illustration.) You don’t know who is supposed to tightnen the nut. It might be tightend […]
Rethinking Process Improvement – II
This is image 2 from Winston Royce’s Paper – “Managing the Development of Large Software Systems“ Let’s look at each stage for the process – requirements, design, coding, testing … […]
Solid presentation advice …
Suggestions and Examples of What Not to Submit 1. Attendees are paying to take classes—they don’t want to hear a sales pitch, no matter how thickly veiled. Please do not […]
Rethinking Process Improvement – I
Most of our ideas about process improvement come from a factory analogy – which was Invented by Frederick W. Taylor at the beginning of the 20th century. His idea was […]
Run Corporate IT like a software company
I’m still on vacation, but this struck my eye as worth sharing … … corporate IT has to find ways to deliver the most important business capabilities as quickly as […]
Interesting Links
Scott Ambler has an article in this months Dr. Dobbs Magazine on Agile Testing: http://www.ddj.com/dept/debug/196603549 Yesterday, Sean McMillan sent me this link to Big Agile Up Front:
Canary in a Coal Mine
There is an interesting talk in Info.com by Ken Schwaber. Ken is a co-author of the agile manifesto and co-inventor of Scrum. If you don’t want to listen for an […]