Improving the world with software
Better software. Better questions.
Essays on software development, teams and the craft of building things that last.
Essays, page 11
147 essays in the archive
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The world is not ready…
While reading a post and associated Twitter chatter between Karl Scotland and others I got to think that the world is not yet ready. For what? For flow. The idea that if you do one thing (to Done) first and then start working on another thing and get that to Done, you will be faster …
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Turku Agile Day 09
Our friends in Turku are organizing their own Agile day. Check it out here.
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The worst decision you could ever make, and will anyway do it…
I’m sure this has happened to you. Probably many times over your long career in software development. You wake up, take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror and courageously make that decision you had been wanting to take for the past few months. You go back to the office, take your manager …
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Learn from the Sensei
It is seldom that we have the opportunity to learn from the masters, the Sensei. Here’s a good post for those of us that are interested in TPS (Toyota Production System). I especially like this part: In 1943 Taiichi Ohno was transferred to the automotive side of Toyota from the Loom Works. The architect of …
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Estimation is needed but useless. Do it and throw away the numbers!
I’ve discussed this idea a few times with some friends, but I’ll concede that the ultimate argument for stopping to estimate altogether is still to come… In the meanwhile here is more food for thought. Rob Bowley argues why estimations are bad in software development. My favorite part of his presentation: [In a study discussed …
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The reason why top managers should questioned and challenged by us, the Lego edition
For many people that have read about the Toyota Production System (TPS) the image of Toyota has been improved and their willingness to buy a Toyota car has been positively affected (heck, I _want_ to buy a Toyota, I just can’t justify buying a car). But how about reasons not to buy a product from …
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The Toyota Way in the clothing industry, examples to pay attention
If you have been following this blog, it is no news for you that I’m a big fan of what is known as Toyota Production System and it’s ideas as described by Jeffrey Liker in the famous “Toyota Way“. What you don’t know is that I’m a big fan of many other companies that exhibit …
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Nokia goes agile. Will the rest follow?
Ari Jaaksi from maemo.org is blogging about Scrum in Nokia’s Linux/Open source projects.Also, Juha-Markus Aalto (of Object development fame) presented what I would call the “Nokia Agile Requirements Model” (and what Dean Leffingwell calls “Lean, Scalable Requirements Model“) at the Object days in Tampere. See the slides here(PDF alert). With all of this I can …
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Note to self, use more simulations…
Great simulation description by Elisabeth Hendrickson, and I’ve got great first-hand feedback from this simulation. I can’t wait to see it live! Check out the post here.
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The next step, Agile hungover
So, it is starting to happen. All around us we see people like James Shore or Rob Bowley proclaiming the end of Scrum, that we don’t really get it and that many teams do cycles, but forget about the rest. If you have been following the different waves of software process adoption this should be …
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What is Velocity? (in agile software development)
Velocity is a term used in agile software development to illustrate the “rate of progress” for a team or a set of teams (i.e. a project/program). The simplest way to define velocity is: the number or user stories a team/project can do in one sprint (“do” here means that it really is done and potentially …
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Punished by the Annual Performance Review
Many of us in the Agile community have voice our opposition to the individual performance reviews and target setting.Now, a professor from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has come out with a similar position and not less than in the serious Wall Street Journal (copy of the article), yes, the same that your …
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