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Functionality Is Cheap
16 July 08 02:54 PM | Earl Beede | 2 comment(s)
Well, I better rephrase that. The functional part of a requirement is cheap. I can deliver the functional part of a requirement in as little time and in as small of a cost as you like if you let me control the non-functional parts of the requirement. That is a heck of a claim. So how do I back that up...
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B*tch'n and Moen
23 April 08 05:50 AM | Earl Beede | 1 comment(s)
Steve McConnell put up a post on his lack of a real estimate for a child's fort and how that was related to a software project. I have a similar example of an agile bathroom remodel. The Story Our existing bathroom had a small problem. Water was leaking through cracks somewhere in the older tile...
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Giving Up
03 April 08 07:12 PM | Earl Beede | 1 comment(s)
When is the right time to give up on a project, a design approach, or a requirement? What factors do you consider in coming to the decision that it is not in the organization's best interest to continue forward with the current approach? I know that the economically oriented folks will suggest that...
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Agile Complexity
09 March 08 03:09 PM | Earl Beede | with no comments
A couple of posts ago, I shared a concern with distributed agile development. A similar thing happened to me recently with another question from two different clients who work on a highly complex mobile operating system. "Can you be agile in highly complex environment with emergent system characteristics...
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Pair Mentoring
10 February 08 03:57 PM | Earl Beede | with no comments
What does it mean to be a mentor? While I can fancy myself as pretty knowledgeable in a couple of areas (mostly the proper way to eat an Oreo© cookie and how to make my wife angry), mentoring somebody else in that knowledge is another matter. As a Certified Software Development Professional (nice big...
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Distributed Agile
21 January 08 10:30 PM | Earl Beede | 3 comment(s)
I had an interesting discussion recently with two different people about moving toward a more agile development practice. The first was a potential client who had a small team in California. The second was a with the office staff of a services firm who wanted to better understand what agile is all about...
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Slow Ride
13 December 07 09:21 AM | Earl Beede | with no comments
My daughters like to square dance. They seem to, for whatever reason, really like the petticoats: the layers of fabric that make the square dance skirt get really poofy (as if poofy is a word). To support my daughters, I dance with them since there is a general shortage of males (even if we don't...
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Beyond Functional
02 November 07 10:34 AM | Earl Beede | 2 comment(s)
I am thinking of going on a crusade against functional requirements. Why? Functional requirements are overblown, over-specified, over-referenced, over-exampled, and we need to get over them. By the over-focus on functional requirements by tools, books, and pundits, we cajole our customers to attempt...
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Quality Time
02 October 07 06:50 PM | Earl Beede | 1 comment(s)
At Construx I teach both the Estimation seminar and the Advanced Quality seminar. One question I usually get during the Estimation seminar goes something like this, "How can I estimate how long quality will take?" Now this is a fascinating question in that it is so wrong and yet so important...
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Late Expectations
21 August 07 09:00 AM | Earl Beede | 3 comment(s)
I don't like being late. I have never gotten into the habit of arriving well after the party starts (under the euphemism of being "fashionable", like you couldn't get your clothes on) nor sending birthday cards after the fact (though I do admit the belated birthday cards are often funnier...
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Doing Justice to V&V
29 July 07 06:40 AM | Earl Beede | 4 comment(s)
One of my secret passions is to kill the man (or woman) who started to use the terms verification and validation in the software world. I know you are hiding out there and when I find you, I will do justice. I mean, first of all there is this horrible trick of using two words that sound soooo close in...
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Worst Companies to Work For, Part All
15 July 07 07:07 AM | Earl Beede | 3 comment(s)
Steve McConnell (my boss) is bragging about his company since it got voted the best small company to work for in Washington State. He is so proud that he needs to do the bragging in three parts! I have to admit, it is a pretty nice place to work. Did he mention the free beer? Anyplace that has free beer...
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Incremative
01 July 07 07:45 AM | Earl Beede | 1 comment(s)
In our 10x and Agile seminars, I talk about the role and purpose of incremental and iterative (incremative) development practices. On the surface incremative development is kind of wasteful. I mean, it is like asking me to drive to the grocery store and a I stop on each block, call home and ask my wife...
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Context Matters
17 June 07 10:21 AM | Earl Beede | with no comments
So, I was driving along, making a right turn into a driveway like I have done a thousand times before. I did what one always does when making a right turn: I checked carefully for pedestrians and watched the driveway to make sure nobody was coming down it. I then signaled my intentions and proceeded...
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Estimate THIS
03 June 07 03:25 AM | Earl Beede | 2 comment(s)
It used to be a common feedback I would get when I taught Construx's Software Estimation seminar. I would show the bright developers how to estimate their software projects several different ways and they respond with the whine, "This is all fine and good but our management won't let us...
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PEZ Development
20 May 07 03:41 AM | Earl Beede | with no comments
I was teaching an Agile seminar recently when the image of a PEZ candy dispenser popped into my head. Why, PEZ candy, I thought, is just like an Agile project. You work things in priority order by taking what is off the top of the stack of similar sized bits of work. We know that they are similar size...
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The Existential Pleasures of Flogging
06 May 07 12:17 PM | Earl Beede | 5 comment(s)
In my last post I spoke about how some moron is going to cause you to go Arrrgg! by doing something stupid with your product. Unfortunately, that appears to be a fundamental truth. I have been pondering why some moron does the stupid thing when Steve McConnell's inaugural post lead me to another...
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Lights... Camera... Arrrgg!
28 April 07 07:52 PM | Earl Beede | with no comments
There seems to be a third thing certain in life besides death and taxes. That thing seems to be the fact that the moment some moron uses the product or software that I have been working on, they are going to do something stupid. My brilliant work of pristine intellectual purity which functions just the...
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What's In a Name?
20 April 07 08:45 AM | Earl Beede | 1 comment(s)
We name just about everything. We name pets, cars, rocks, people, projects, releases, documents, uh, well change that. We name everything . So you think that with all that practice naming everything we come across that there would be a best practice. Somewhere, somebody probably has completed some sort...
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I Hate Project Management
24 March 07 09:36 AM | Earl Beede | 2 comment(s)
I really do. I mean, all those details you have to keep track of. Everybody coming up and asking you questions like you have some clue about what is really going on. And of course you pretend like you do. "Why, were are three days away from the googoo gate." What I really want to say is, "I...
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