The hidden problems with waterfall
There have been numerous posts recently about whether or not to waterfall. For many, the issue boils down to which approach to use under various conditions of uncertainty. While uncertainty is certainly one consideration, the more serious underlying problems with waterfall are its impact on organizational structure and communications. I received a phone inquiry in… Read…
Productivity measures are a myth held over from the 1980S
They didn’t work then, they don’t work now. I was aghast at the title of a recent McKinsey article, “Yes, you can measure software developer productivity.” I started to respond, but after reading thoughtful responses from colleagues Kent Beck and Dave Farley decide to wait, until Jennifer Riggins weighted in with her outstanding analysis. What… Read…
Agility: A Journey not a Destination
After the Lean-Agile DC conference, Sanjiv Augustine and Bob Payne and I sat around discussing the future of agility. one of the topics we talked about was that agility was not a transformation, but a transforming journey. In thinking about this we discussed the fitness landscape concept from complex systems and how to get across… Read…
Agile organizations need practices, not processes!
Long ago and far away I worked with a financial software product company with European customers whose purchasing requirements included ISO certification. The company jumped through all the hoops to become certified, which included documenting processes, etc., etc., etc. [Note: ISO certification may have gotten out of hand as there are now 24,000 different ones.]… Read…
Performance Hacking with Velocity
If you want to work in an agile company, ask one question, “Do you measure velocity and if so, how do you use it?” If 75% of American companies use agile and 20% of those are reasonably proficient, then this single question will help you find one of the 15% you want to work for.… Read…
Micromanaging the Right Way
Image generated by Microsoft Designer Micromanaging has gotten a bad rap that maybe it doesn’t deserve it. Consider two of the most successful technology CEOs—Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. No one had a sense of the image, brand, or product integrity like Gates or Jobs. They had insight and an esthetic sense of what image… Read…
The ghosts of project management’s Iron Triangle still haunt agile teams.
The Iron Triangle, a 60-year old project management metric structure, continues to frustrate agile project teams. Developed in 1969 by Dr. Martin Barnes, the Iron Triangle’s three dimensions are scope, schedule, and cost. This triangle should enable project managers to adjust as conditions change. However, too often in practice, managers view the three dimension as… Read…
Do You Need a “not to do” list?
Agility encourages “Doing Less.” Doing less can result in delivering more value, more throughput, more ROI, more creativity, and more focus. Do less low-value activity. It’s easy to think about what to put into a product. We often get suggestions from a wide variety of sources—engineers, customers, managers, executives, the janitor, and other teams. It’s… Read…
Making Self-Organization Work at a Tomato Processor*
Discipline without freedom is tyranny; freedom without discipline is chaos (Cullen Hightower). Morning Star is one of the largest tomato processor in the United States and grows by being innovative. Its website site states they are the “Industry leader in size and innovation.” We don’t often think of the tomato processing business and innovation in… Read…
Certification: It makes money, but does it make sense?
The issue of certification has been around forever. Every so often interest spikes again as people like Jonny Williams and Chris Stone reignite the debate (in LinkedIn). Software engineering in the 1980s aspired to be considered “Professional,” equivalent to the status given accountants (CPA), other Professional Engineers (PE), or lawyers. In the 1990s the big… Read…
Romeo, a delivery manager? ❤️
🏰How is Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, first staged in 1597, relevant today? What possible linkage could there possibly be between Romeo and a delivery manager? Romeo’s role requires actors to read lines, move about on stage, and engage with the audience. Leonardo DiCaprio was praised for his 1996 movie version, while Leslie Howard’s portrayal in… Read…
⚡️The One-Minute Methodology
❓Does your management insist on mission impossible delivery schedules? Want to develop software really fast? How about one minute? This methodology incorporates such exciting concepts as total data independence (the output has nothing to do with the input); the notion that management is not interested in information, only in being happy; and a one-minute life… Read…
Technical Debt is Rust you can’t see
Southwest Airlines’ recent holiday fiasco shed light into a dark corner of Information Technology. Consider the analogy of a car whose owner only added gas—no maintenance. After a time rust would appear and spread, tires would go slick, engine oil would become sludge, the air conditioning would stop working, and the pattern would intensify and… Read…
Agile on the Precipice
After 20+ years of growing influence, Agile appears to be standing on the precipice of irrelevance. In this time, Agile has spread wider than we Manifesto authors dreamed, but failed to spread as deeply as needed. Agile has lived up to Jerry Weinberg’s Law of Strawberry Jam, “As long as it has lumps, you… Read…
Writing To Learn
“Writing is a form of thinking, whatever the subject,” says William Zinsser in his book, Writing to Learn. Agile methods are driven by feedback and learning practices and so it’s important to understand how learning to write well is critical to learning well. The entire results of software projects are writings. Whether the output is… Read…