Software Best Practices

State of the Practice Survey

Steve McConnell — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:21:00 GMT

Construx has developed the State of the Practice Survey with the goal of better understanding which software practices really work, which really don't work, and identify trends in practice adoption. Survey participants will receive a summary report of the findings later this year in advance of the published report. I hope you will share your views about the state of the practices in your organization. No one outside Construx will see any of the raw data, and information you share will be presented...(read more)

Kanban Blogosphere Roundup July 2nd

Agile Management Blog — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I'm unable to post these roundups everyday so they aren't always as timely as would be ideal. A couple of these blog posts appeared within two hours of me posting the last roundup on June 30th. Karl Scotland stirred up a lot of debate with his Read More......(read more)

Resources on Self-Organizing Teams for Agility

Brad Appleton's ACME Blog — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:33:05 GMT

In the past several blog-entries I've been focusing on the agile principle of self-organization, what it means, and what it implies for teams. So far, I've written about Agile Self-Organization versus Lean Leadership , Self-Organization and Complexity Read More......(read more)

Agile Self-Organizing Teams

Brad Appleton's ACME Blog — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:10:01 GMT

The previous blog-entry on self-organization was lots of jargon and technical mumbo jumbo that didn't say too much about what that means for teams of people. So let's shift from talking about self-organizing systems in complexity science to talking Read More......(read more)

Self-Organization and Complexity

Brad Appleton's ACME Blog — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:05:02 GMT

In my previous blog-entry I talked a little about how self-organization is a key aspect of software agility . I'd like to explore exactly what self-organization is a bit more in this posting. Self-organization comes from complexity science and the Read More......(read more)

Kanban Blogosphere Roundup June 30th

Agile Management Blog — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

It's been a week since I posted one of these summaries. I've been busy on other stuff and haven't had much time for blogging. Meanwhile, Kanban is generating on average 2 tweets per hour on Twitter and there has been some active new blogging Read More......(read more)

Kanban without Pull

Agile Management Blog — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

My younger daughter's pre-school uses a kanban system. I'd been staring at it for months without realizing it was a kanban system and after I did I was troubled by the fact that it wasn't a pull system. So I had to think about it a bit. First Read More......(read more)

WIP Limits are for Adults too!

Agile Management Blog — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

For some time now (at least since May 24th) Alistair Cockburn has been expressing a dissenting view about Kanban and the value of imposing WIP limits. I'd like to quote a number of his tweets on the topic. These are quotes from May 24th to 28th. You Read More......(read more)

Spirit of Waterfall

Earl Beede — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:34:00 GMT

It is not uncommon for me to see on blog posts, newsgroups, or presentations the phrase or comment that something is not, "in the spirit of Agile". In fact a project team could be doing many of the practices of Agile but, if it fails, the agilist will claim that the project was not Agile in “spirit”. And I was wondering, if that is the thing that was really wrong with the waterfall approach.

Consider it. It appears that many of the failings of agile or the miss application of agile is accredited to not being in the spirit. This occurs even when, if you look down a long checklist of practices, the team appears to be doing most all of the practices. However, because they were not empowered, or some other such factor, their experience is chalked up to bad execution, not bad methodology.

So maybe that is what is wrong with the waterfall approach. Sure, we have lots of practices that we were told to do, we have lots of activities the flow one from another, but we did we really understand its spirit? What would be the spirit of waterfall? I suggest this: the spirit of waterfall is “thinking”.

On the simplest level, the spirit of waterfall—thinking—is the look before you leap philosophy. Before you start doing something, think about it. Before I start doing design, I think about the requirements. Before I think about the requirements, I have a general understanding of what the heck this thing is supposed to be and the constraints I am under. Before I start doing code, do I have any clue about what the requirements or the design is? Did I think about it? Even better perhaps, as a team, did WE think about it?

“Thinking” of course does not mean solo cognitive work only. It means taking a rational approach that also identifies clearly the limits to what can be known and creating ways expose the unknown to make it known. (Flashbacks to Donald Rumsfeld are perfectly understandable at this point.)

On a more subtle level, the thinking was there as well. How much of the requirements were knowable? How much of the design was discernible? Those who ran the waterfall well (and yes, there were people who could run the waterfall approach well) were people who thought about those things. One of the big drivers that caused many waterfall/sequential projects to fail was that people didn't think about what was knowable and turned phases/stage-gates intended to be thinking/assessment points into document signing parties. They didn't think about what was right and, even if they did, they didn't share those thoughts with the stakeholders and steering committees; they just made sure the documents were signed. They knew that if the documents were not signed, there was heck-to-pay because the people on their steering committees didn't want to think either. And when the thinking stopped, the spirit of waterfall was defeated.

If we use the argument put forth by agile zealots that when you violate the spirit, no matter how many practices you perform, you aren't really doing the method, then we could say that a vast majority of sequential/waterfall projects—even if they were executing a lot of the practices—were really not doing waterfall. Oh it may have looked like waterfall, smelled like waterfall, they even went around touting the waterfall name, but without the “thinking” it really wasn't waterfall.

So perhaps the “not in the spirit” argument can give a new lease of life to the waterfall approach to software development. Probably not. “Waterfall” is mostly used as a pejorative word in the software development community. However I say, “Long live the spirit of waterfall!” We could all use a bit more rational thinking.

The eternal optimism of the Clear mind

Joel on Software — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:32:01 GMT

Clear just closed down. Here’s how it worked while it was in business. You paid $200 for a one-year membership. You underwent a big, complicated background check to prove that you were extra-super-trustworthy. In exchange, in a few big airports, you got Read More......(read more)

Kanban Blogosphere Roundup June 23rd

Agile Management Blog — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Jon Miller has started using his own personal kanban system. Read his adventures of the first day and note how kaizen events to make improvement kicked in almost immediately. Note also that he doesn't feel the need to create a WIP limit for his "delegated Read More......(read more)

Where Everyone's a Pig!

Agile Management Blog — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

My latest Perspectives article for Borland has been published. It's not the as advertised look at Agile Maturity and Adoption. Those two articles will come later. They seem to be bogged down in the editing process while I try to hit the moving target Read More......(read more)

Facebook Page

Steve McConnell — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:13:35 GMT

I now have a public Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/n/?pages/Steve-McConnell/198720075270&mid=8a4602G316afb94G1ae8a37G4c . I plan to use this page for small scale blog entries, updates on what I'm reading, announcements, and so on....(read more)

Free Webinar: 10 Deadly Sins of Software Estimation

Steve McConnell — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:05:09 GMT

I'll be giving a free webinar tomorrow at 10:00 am Pacific time on the 10 Deadly Sins of Software Estimation. You can sign up here: http://www.sdtimes.com/content/webinars.aspx Here's the full announcement: The average project overruns its planned budget and schedule by 50%-80%. In practice, little work is done that could truly be called "estimation." Many projects are scheduled using a combination of legitimate business targets and liberal doses of wishful thinking. In this talk...(read more)

Kanban and Lean Roundup June 22nd

Agile Management Blog — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

In today's roundup, I'm covering some more general Lean stuff that is flying under the more specific flag of Kanban. It's amazing how people want to be associated with success. First off, who is this making Kanban t-shirts all of a sudden Read More......(read more)

Agile Self-Organization versus Lean Leadership

Brad Appleton's ACME Blog — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:31:05 GMT

Getting back to the agility cycle ... recall that I started with the business agility cycle and used that to derive the software agility cycle . There isn't a great deal of difference between the first two steps of the business-agility cycle and the Read More......(read more)

Kanban Blogosphere Roundup June 19th

Agile Management Blog — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Scrumban produces 2x productivity gain over Scrum Today we have an article describing a Scrum-Kanban hybrid & transition (Scrumban) from Charles Suscheck in Dr. Dobbs Journal, Experiences with Kanban . We've now had Kanban articles in both Dr Read More......(read more)

Value Proposition for Agility

Brad Appleton's ACME Blog — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:47:02 GMT

I'm sure I'm not the first person to think it, but I just came across the description of a newly published book whose title made me think about this subject. The book is: Reading Minds and Markets: Minimizing Risk and Maximizing Returns in a Volatile Read More......(read more)

Kanban Blogosphere Roundup June 18th

Agile Management Blog — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Today's roundup of all things Kanban includes a few articles from a month or two ago that I missed, but first I want to start with something brand new posted today. Mike Jones at About Agility blog, has been asking " What Can We Learn from Kanban Read More......(read more)

The Dynamics of Leadership-Team Behavior

Brad Appleton's ACME Blog — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:36:01 GMT

Interesting article in BusinessWeek from Jim Collins on the Dynamics of Team-Leadership Behavior . It's actually an excerpt from his latest book " How the Mighty Fall: and Why Some Companies Never Give In ." Anyway ... the Dynamics of Team Read More......(read more)

Next Ltd WIP Society London Meeting June 30th

Agile Management Blog — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The London chapter of the Limited WIP Society will meet next at XTC on June 30th. Sign Up Here! [sadly, I won't be there. currently not scheduled in London until September.] Technorati tag: Agile, Lean, Kanban, Software+Engineering, Project+Management Read More......(read more)

Re-th!nk[ing IT strategy]

Agile Management Blog — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

My Lean compadre Hal Macomber , one the leading experts in Lean applied to construction project management and also a speaker at the forthcoming UK Lean Conference [sign up now to guarantee your place at the RSA in September] has beaten me to the punch Read More......(read more)

Jon Miller's Amazing Adventures of Kanban

Agile Management Blog — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Incredibly creative piece of writing by Jon Miller of Gemba Panta Rei - The Amazing Adventures of Kanban . Be sure to read it all the way to the end. I doff my cap to Mr. Miller for getting this out today and including work that I published less than Read More......(read more)

Limited WIP Society Buttons

Agile Management Blog — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I've been making some web assets for you to use on your own sites to link to the Limited WIP Society site. If you are an advocate of Lean and a practitioner of Kanban and you'd like to show your affinity or affiliation with the community then Read More......(read more)

Nice Examples of Cumulative Flow

Agile Management Blog — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

It took 6 months for this to come to my attention. Perhaps because the author chose to call the article Finger Charts rather than using the term Cumulative Flow Chart. I love so much about this story. I love the example diagrams. I love the explanations Read More......(read more)

Kanban Blogosphere Roundup June 15th

Agile Management Blog — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

A number of people are playing up the angle that there is a religious war between Scrum and Kanban or between XP and Kanban. It's interesting that none of these people are actually folks from the Kanban community. I think one of the issues was Henrik Read More......(read more)

BOOKS: The Passionate Programmer and the Nomadic Developer

Brad Appleton's ACME Blog — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:56:05 GMT

Gosh, when I write/say the titles of these two books together in one line it looks like the title of some kind of computer-geek romance novella. (maybe it will sell more books that way :-) Anyway, I'm mentioning these two books together because they Read More......(read more)

5S Qualities of Well Designed, Well-Factored Code

Brad Appleton's ACME Blog — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:34:04 GMT

The other day I was trying to explain to someone the properties of code that is well-factored and found myself using aliteration with 'S' words. That made me wonder if they were equivalent to Lean's "5S", which is as follows: Seiri Read More......(read more)

Platform vendors

Joel on Software — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:45:04 GMT

Dave Winer (in 2007): “Sometimes developers choose a niche that’s either directly in the path of the vendor, or even worse, on the roadmap of the vendor. In those cases, they don’t really deserve our sympathy.” iSmashPhone: 15 Apps Rendered Obsolete By Read More......(read more)

A visit to Microsoft and Google

Joel on Software — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:56:05 GMT

From my latest Inc. column : “Giant corporations such as Google and Microsoft are like cities full of relatively anonymous people: You don't actually expect to see anyone you know as you walk around. Going to lunch on either campus is like going to Read More......(read more)

Conferences in New York

Joel on Software — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:50:05 GMT

Andrew emailed to ask why we don’t have a StackOverflow DevDays day in New York City. That’s a fair question! There’s a big software development community here. There are two reasons New York is low on my list. The first is cost. Hotels, venues, and catering Read More......(read more)

HBR on Rebuilding Trust

Brad Appleton's ACME Blog — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:17:00 GMT

Some of you may recall some earlier blog-entries of mine on the topic of trust: Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity by Francis Fukuyama More Articles on Trust Building Trust: In Business, Poliotics, Relationship and Life by Solomon Read More......(read more)

Kanban Blogosphere Roundup June 10th

Agile Management Blog — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

In today's Kanban blog roundup, we have this very nice Kanban process description from the Going Agile - Learning to be Lean blog. This is a very left-brained process description, very dry reading. However, its a very accurate facsimile of Kanban Read More......(read more)

Join Lean Software & Systems LinkedIn Group

Agile Management Blog — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Do you use LinkedIn? Are you interested in Lean & Kanban? If so join the new Lean Software & Systems Consortium LinkedIn group . This will be your way to stay in touch and influence the development of the Lean SSC as we develop it into a major Read More......(read more)

Agile+CMMI Conference Anyone?

Agile Management Blog — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

In a similar vein to the Lean & Kanban 2009 conference I am thinking of pulling together an Agile & CMMI event. I really feel that a small focused event is needed to kickstart the Agile CMMI community and energize potential adopters. After some Read More......(read more)

StackOverflow DevDays: Five New Cities

Joel on Software — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:30:02 GMT

Whoa. Less than a month ago, we announced first Stack Overflow DevDays and opened registration to 300 people in each of five cities. Well, that sold out pretty quickly. Ryan Carson , who is taking care of all the conference logistics, was pretty sure Read More......(read more)

Managing WIP isn't the same as Limiting WIP

Agile Management Blog — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Recently, with the growth of blog and Twitter traffic about Kanban, there have been several people who've come forward with commentary to the effect that "we've been doing that all the time." Some have left comments on this site. Some Read More......(read more)

Kanban Blogosphere Roundup June 9th

Agile Management Blog — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

New material on Kanban just keeps flowing. I'm seeing Kanban trending in Twitter to between 5 and 10 tweets per hour. Meanwhile, over night Nicole Kohari posted her second blog about Kanban and how she believes it helps teams form shared mental models Read More......(read more)

Managing WIP isn't the same as Limiting WIP: Part 2

Agile Management Blog — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

In Part 1 of this article I talked about how the evidence from the feature sets of popular Agile project management tools makes it evident that first generation Agile methods did not provide any guidance on limiting WIP or implementing a pull system. Read More......(read more)

Kanban Tool Product Owner Cheat Sheet

Agile Management Blog — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

So you are one of the many Kanbandwagon riders and your job is product owner prioritizing the feature list for your new Kanban management tool! Excellent! I commend your efforts. I love that there are so many new initiatives to create tooling for the Read More......(read more)

Kanban Blogosphere Roundup June 8th

Agile Management Blog — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

More Kanban chat on blogs today. Tomas Björkholm is one of Henrik Kniberg's colleagues at Crisp in Stockholm. He has his own take on Kanban in comparison to Scrum, on Agile Journal, What is best, Scrum or Kanban? and tries to choose what he prefers Read More......(read more)

Kanban Blogosphere Roundup

Agile Management Blog — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

There has been a lot of Kanban related blog traffic this past week. I'm sure this roundup isn't complete but these are the posts I've noticed from following #kanban on Twitter . Dennis Stevens replies to Boris Gloger's earlier blog reply Read More......(read more)

Rewiring the Primal Management Talent Code

Brad Appleton's ACME Blog — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:49:04 GMT

I came across an interesting book in Borders over the weekend, but didn't have the time to browse it more thoroughly. A few hours later, at home, I looked it up on Amazon.com . I found the description and review comments very interesting, and found Read More......(read more)

The Five Traits of Agile Projects

Brad Appleton's ACME Blog — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:43:00 GMT

I submit that any project which successfully executes their practices in accordance with Agile values and principles will exhibit the following key traits (Note the acronym formed): Adaptive -- responsive to change (based on feedback and learning), rather Read More......(read more)

Synchronous and Staged Integration

Brad Appleton's ACME Blog — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:42:00 GMT

I participated in a LinkedIn CM group discussion about Building Code before -vs- after Checkin. The discussion was kicked-off by Tracy Ragan, COO and Co-Founder, OpenMake Software : Many companies implementing a distributed SCM process make the mistake Read More......(read more)

Get a job

Joel on Software — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:39:05 GMT

The Joel on Software Job Board has been working well since we launched it almost three years ago . It logs about 220,000 unique visitors every 21 days, including many passive job seekers who have RSS subscriptions. But a few employers place ads and just Read More......(read more)

L&K2009: Proceedings Now Available

Agile Management Blog — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The proceeding book from the Lean & Kanban 2009 Conference in Miami are now available for purchase from Wordclay . Profits from this book will go towards funding the Lean Software & Systems Consortium . If you missed the event this is your chance Read More......(read more)

Lean Software Austin

Agile Management Blog — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Looks like new sponstaneously affiliating groups are shooting up all over. Some of the folks who attended Lean & Kanban 2009 are behind Lean Software Austin . Another potential hub for the Limited WIP Society . ;-) Reading Scott Bellware's tweets Read More......(read more)

Sensing and Sense-making in the Agility Cycle

Brad Appleton's ACME Blog — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:03:05 GMT

Part 1 of this series presented the Business Agility Cycle and from that derived the Software Agility Cycle in Part 2. Then part 3 elaborated upon the first step of that cycle, sensing the need for change using feedback-loops at all levels of scale. In Read More......(read more)

BOOK: Agile Testing

Brad Appleton's ACME Blog — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:59:02 GMT

I reviewed Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams for the May 2009 issue of The Agile Journal The book is exactly what its title says, and should quickly become “the bible” for all would-be agile testers. Right from the start it Read More......(read more)