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Essays on software development, teams and the craft of building things that last.
Essays from December 2013
5 essays from December 2013
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Why processes fail us, and what to do about it
Organizations go through different levels of maturity as they grow. Some will say that they “learn to perform”, others will say that they “become ossified and slow”, yet others would say that they “mature”. In my view neither of these classifications is accurate, they all touch on possible outcomes of a process of “aging”. Organizations …
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What is Chaos? And how we found out about it…
As he looked at numbers e noticed that the oscillations of his model did not repeat. In fact he entered the numbers again, and again, and again but his model would refuse to behave the same way twice. During our long education we were taught that given the initial state of a system (the present …
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The most valuable question for your software project
Every time a software project is started, a dance starts: the dance of project approval. Decision makers and project delivery team take different positions at a table, some ask questions, others do their best to respond, given that these questions are typically about the future. Some of the questions are so much into the future …
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My secret to flow and a productive day
As I start my day, I have this routine I do. I review all the loose threads that I have in my mind, and write them down (a mindmap, usually). After I write them down I quickly evaluate what are the most important goals for the day. Then I write those goals on a post-it …
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Use #NoEstimates to create options and deliver value reliably
Why do I use #NoEstimates? Certainly the first reason is obvious in the name of this movement. But there are may other reasons. One of the reasons that does not get enough airtime is that it creates more options than using pre-estimated methods to manage software projects. Value is unpredictable, generate options to explore the …
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