Avoiding Inertia
Michael Hill has produced a lovely essay about how TDD and Pair Programming ensure that the internal quality of your code doesn't cost you in future productivity. It is often difficult to grasp the benefits of TDD and Pair Programming due to the inevitable short term perceived hit in productivity. It is extremely important to recognise that the short term hit is however producing the desired side effect of highly maintainable code as a natural byproduct of producing high quality, well tested, simple code.
http://anarchycreek.com/2009/05/26/how-tdd-and-pairing-increase-production/
More Reasons to Pair
Pairing is perhaps the hardest sell of the agile practises, so it is extremely refreshing to see yet more compelling evidence, courtesy of Mark Needham, of how pairing is extremely effective, in this case in the context of a large-scale refactoring (although I wonder just how the business assigned value to this activity).
http://www.markhneedham.com/blog/2009/05/26/pair-programming-refactoring/
I would concur that refactoring is much more effective while pairing and it is often while refactoring that patterns emerge which makes up for the lack of upfront design, so having more than one brain looking for patterns will ultimately lead to better code...
The Downfall of Agile Hitler
I don't normally spend any time watching youtube, but did stumble across this one which is well worth the effort... Very funny...
Information Overload
The internet has now pervaded my life to such an extent I'm going to soon be looking to get a direct connection to my brain. But before I do, I'm in desperate need for a way to organise the constant, chaotic stream of information that is radiating from it...
Here's my list of basic requirements.
I want to be able to
- view all messages in a single application, regardless of source (rss, google reader, twitter, etc).
- post messages to any of the applications I use (twitter, blog, facebook, etc)
- Should also be able to post to multiple applications at once
- search and filter the content
- filtered messages, should still be available for future search/display
- use multiple platforms (phone, web, laptop, desktop) with them all kept in sync
- specify multiple ways of notifying me if anything relevant appears
- particularly important for mobile platforms
- switch between different modes (professional, private, meeting)
But MOST IMPORTANTLY
I DO NOT WANT TO:
- create YABA (yet another b****y account) to use yet another free online tool
- wait for hours while it downloads everything before I can view a single message
If anyone knows of such a tool, I'll be extremely happy to hear about it...
God Mentality
My recipe for developing a God Mentality.
Ingredients:
- a team of non-agile developers
- a single zealous (or inexperienced) agile coach
Method:
- Prepare a clean team working area
- Gently introduce the agile coach to the team
- Gently stir until a process emerges
- Trust the coach
- Allow process to fester
- Praise the coach
- Serve with a slight pinch of sarcasm
Adopting agile is extremely difficult and coaching is a great way to being in the necessary skills and expertise to a team. However, coaches are not infallible and will inevitably leave their own stamp on your project. Leave a single coach on a team for long enough and they will become an almost god like figure and the team will depend more and more on their advice and wisdom (KB/C3). A good coach will be able to adapt the processes and methodologies to suit your environment, but a zealot will probably insist on adapting your environment to match the methodology. To produce a really good God Mentality it is imperative that they are unquestioned in their approach and instead followed blindly. This works particularly well with a team of inexperienced (or long serving corporate) developers.
Unfortunately, if you fail to produce the perfect God Mentality, you're probably doomed to a life of perfect agile. The moment some diversity is allowed to challenge the preaching from God #1 you are on your way to never exalting a single guru (or their processes) again...
Unfortunately, the quality of agile coaches varies remarkably and this recipe may not always produce the perfect God Mentality.
- Crackle and pop? There's a snap for that.
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