Improving the world with software
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Essays on software development, teams and the craft of building things that last.
Essays from 2009
44 essays from 2009
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Agile Scales, Waterfall doesn’t – Video of a talk at Agile Eastern Europe
Sometime ago I did a talk about Scaling Software Development at Agile Eastern Europe in Ukraine. The slides are up in my slideshare account, but now you can see the video of the talk that Agile EE made available. In this talk I try to describe what “scaling” means and come to the conclusion that …
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We don’t need software engineering religion, we need software engineering science!
During the Scan-Agile ’09 conference there was a lot of discussion about why Agile works and if a specific flavor of it would be better than other flavors (you know, the Scrum vs Kanban fight). Despite those surface issues, there was a deeper debate going on. Why does Agile work? And in what context should …
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Opera Mini 5 is the king of mobile browsing, proof inside
In a discussion with @james_cooper and @iramo on twitter we came to argue about the performance of some mobile browsers. Now, if you are anything like me you hate propaganda as well as deceptive advertising. I raved on twitter about Opera Mini 5 (which I think is the best mobile browser out there, bar none!) …
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PMI vs Agile, the debate continues
Prompted by a comment by Murray on my first blog in this debate I wanted to expand some of the ideas that have not yet been explored. Here are the key excerpts from Murray’s comment: PMBOK V4 is compatible with and supportive of Agile processes. Here are some relevant quotes from CHAPTER 2 − PROJECT …
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We have Open Space for learning at Scan-Agile
I’ve been in many conferences, and without an exception the best part of every conference was the time I had to talk 1-on-1 or with a few people about some subject that really interested me. This normally started in the hallways, during the coffee breaks. We started talking and suddenly we realized that we had …
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What can Science teach us about Agile? (or why you must come to Scan-Agile)
I’m sure that you’ve heard many things during your life that made you think: “Boy, that guy/gal doesn’t get the basics of (put your favorite subject here)”. Well, there’s a reason for that. People make assumptions and claims that are false because they have a faulty model in their head. They simply don’t know better! …
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Why learning is *still* so important (or why you should attend Scan-Agile ’09)
Last year I wrote a very personal story about how learning made a huge difference in the life of two people of similar age and in a similar context. Check out my story about Grandpa Tony and Grandpa Frank (BTW: it’s a real story!). So, this year I thought of finding a different way to …
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About when I stopped worrying and embraced Engineering!
Product Managers often forget that they can make or break a project. If your team is using Scrum that is even more true, because Product Managers are (or should be) involved regularly in the planning of the work with the team. Either as Product Manager or in the role of Product Owner. It is therefore …
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The challenge to the Agile community: can’t we do better than PMBOK?
Another Knowledge Area in the PMBOK is Human Resource Management. The very name of the knowledge area already gives away the values behind it. It should not say “resource management”, it should say People Management! The old-skool project management is very much based on the values of Scientific Management and Hierarchical organizations that have permeated …
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“Déjà vu” all over again, or why PMI/PMBOK are dangerous for the agile movement
There are significantly different sets of beliefs between what I call Old-Skool project management (embodied by PMBOK) and what is emerging as Agile project management for Software Development. Old-skool project management is based on values and scientific breakthroughs that are over 100 years old. Scientific management (Frederick Taylor, circa 1911) Cost based management (optimizing costs …
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Response to Lynda Bourne on Agile and the Business message
The following is a comment to Lynda that I was not able to submit to her blog. You can find Lynda’s original post here. @Lynda Nice post. I’m glad that the conversation is continuing. Both PMI and Agile people need this dialogue. A couple of comments on your post. 1. I agree that Agile Advocates …
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On how PMBOK Change management creates variability and reduces predicatbility
In the last post I tried to point out how the analytical approach of any standard (and specifically PMBOK’s) will create problems for those actually having to implement those standards.Change management in PMBOK is a particularly large problem in this respect. Scope Control (PMBOK’s process for change management in scope) comes at 19 different activities. …
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