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Solving the right problem
For several years now, I’ve been describing my business as “Making Your Software Project Not Suck.” Here’s where that catchphrase came from, and how I actually go about doing that. Where it came from...
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Rules for nothing
One blog entry from last year, “Look. This SOPA/PIPA Thing,” started out as an offhand blurb on my Facebook status. I think I spent two whole minutes writing it, which can be pretty effective when you...
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Cost of convergence
I was recently developing a significant new feature on an ASP.NET application. The client’s regular dev team is located in India, but for this new feature they wanted somebody whom they could work with...
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Adventures in Unix administration
I’ve been underground and off the blog for quite a while now. A lot of distractions have been going on, and the biggest project over my last couple of years has been under heavy non-disclosure, so...
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Pre-Announcement: Help for your tech startup!
Well! I just spent a lot of time with various tech-related startup companies. Some of them have Projects That Suck; others are simply getting started with new things. I’ve learned a lot more about what...
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Help right now for tech-dependent startups!
(tl;dr: Answer a few easy questions to see if I can help your startup!) Do you have a startup company that’s not yet all the way started up? Not quite done with the software tech product that defines...
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“Minimum Viable Product” jive
My college homie Dave is working on the “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP) version of his Baqbeat product. I’m always interested in what old friends are doing, so I asked him about it. Baqbeat is a little...
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Is it worth it?
I got a kick out of today’s XKCD comic strip. (Chart: “How long can you work on making a routine task more efficient before you’re spending more time than you save?”) It reminds me a lot of a...
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Things you can’t possibly know
My attention was drawn this morning to an article on “10 Technology Skills That Will No Longer Help You Get A Job.” I’m not so impressed, mainly because I spend a lot of time around people who do...
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Adventures in version control
So I spent a lot of the weekend refactoring my Healthy Homes database system. (I know, what a party animal.) And after getting some solid work checked in, I realized it was definitely time to do a...
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It’s a buzzword if you make it one
I saw this on LinkedIn a few years ago: The bulk of my professional career has been spent working on software solutions for start-up companies. These projects typically (1) do not have established...
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Agile Excellence, Part 1
So there I was, slogging away on some .NET code at a largish enterprise that was “really into Agile, we’ve been doing Scrum for like three years now!” We were a week into the current three-week sprint....
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How to mess up Scrum, Part 1
I was just reading that 83% of software developers responding to a survey are practicing some form of Agile. Probably, most of those are trying to practice Scrum. First thing, that’s probably wrong....
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How to mess up Scrum, Part 2
Continuing in the series of How to Mess Up Scrum! Last time I explained how adding work in the middle of the sprint wrecks the rhythm of the team and undermines the concept of setting priorities. Long...
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“You’re Doing Agile Wrong”
I saw this and just wanted to share it. What a great summary of how Agile development so often goes wrong! I love this part in particular: There needs to be an absolute lack of fear around punishment...
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How to Mess Up Scrum, Part 3
In prior installments, I described a couple of ways to mess up Scrum: Adding work during a sprint and scheduling work for future sprints. This time, I direct your attention to another closely related...
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.NET people make everything so difficult
I do lots and lots of development with the .NET platform, mainly because the corporations in the Cleveland area that have money to fund large projects are Microsoft shops. I used to have a real problem...
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Legacy Code: Wrap a method
I’m a big fan of Michael Feathers’s book Working Effectively With Legacy Code, and now and then I reread it because there’s always something to refresh or remind me. Right now I’m looking at the “Wrap...
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How to Mess Up Scrum, Part 4
Another way to mess up Scrum, since I’ve already gone into adding work during a sprint, scheduling future sprints, and failing to prioritize, is… Fake Reporting Fake reporting is endemic in...
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“Hardening” sprints considered harmful
Some Scrum teams–whether formally or informally–have a recurring “hardening” sprint after every few regular sprints, in which they fix outstanding defects and make the system actually ready for...
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