Improving the world with software
Better software. Better questions.
Essays on software development, teams and the craft of building things that last.
Essays, page 5
147 essays in the archive
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How injecting randomness into your project can help it succeed
Success and failure differ, very often, by very little. Take nature as an example. A small change in our DNA (a few mutated genes) can have catastrophic consequences. On the other hand, without these mutations humans would never have come into existence. Humans and other species in the planet evolved because of chance (although not …
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Why projects fail, is why (we think) they succeed!
When I started my career as a Project Manager, I too was convinced that following a plan was a mandatory requirement for project success. As I tried to manage my first projects, my emphasis was on making sure that the plan was known, understood and then followed by everyone involved. When I started my career …
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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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Which do we need the most, Project Managers or Line Managers?
Should we organize around the delivery of products or along the structure of our organization? Which organizational paradigm is the most effective or efficient? This is a question that most managers struggle with regularly. At least when they are asked to “re-organize” their respective organizations. In Europe (and I suspect elsewhere) this has led to …
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Using #NoEstimates when deciding which projects to take on
One of the questions (Part I, Part II) that emerged from the #NoEstimatesQuestions discussion on twitter was: “How do I choose between options or opportunities (without having estimates regarding the cost)?” The thinking goes: I can spend some time doing A or B, but which should I do first? To answer this question we can …
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The #NoEstimates questions, Part II
Last week we did not cover all the questions on #NoEstimates. Twitter gave us a lot more questions than could be listed last week, and even more interesting ones. Read on for the questions and my take on their meaning. How do I choose between options or opportunities (without having estimates regarding the cost)? Choices …
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Amazing content created by Agile practitioners can change lives
Have you heard of Scrum? An Agile methodology that swept the world by storm? Or Real Options? An approach that can change you manage risk and value in your projects? Or Impact Mapping? Probably the most revolutionary product management and requirements management approach created in the last 10 years? You can change people’s lives I …
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Story Points Considered Harmful – Or why the future of estimation is really in our past…
This article is the companion to a talk that myself and @josephpelrine gave at OOP 2012. We have a lot to learn from our ancestors. One that I want to focus on for this post is Galileo.Galileo was what we would call today a techie. He loved all things tech and was presented an interesting …
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