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Showing posts from July, 2009

Craftsmanship Manifesto

Reading 'Managing Agile' blog - did you hear about a new Agile Software Craftsmanship Manifesto ? Charl Dreyer ask if we need a clarifying manifesto for the Agile Manifesto . I vote no. You can cast a vote also on his blog. I'm interested in the outcome. I like what the Craftsmanship group is saying, I think it well said. But just because you were late to the party, don't try to start your own party. Thereby spiting or confusing the group of party goers. I also believe they have started in the middle of a conversation. They are clearly (if you know the secret handshake) talking in reference to the Agile Manifesto, but have not given reference to it. If one doesn't know the Agile Manifesto then the Craftsmanship Manifesto doesn't have value. Now had they invited me to the Agile Manifesto meeting maybe they would have come up with the craftsmanship angle.... Why - because I would have been skiing up at Alta and having a blast. There is real craftsmanship

What's an Agile Complexification Inverter?

Juliet:  What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet . Well you could look up Agile , then Complexification , then Inverter and concate the meaning - or - you could just say it's a blog trying to simplify Agile software development theory and practice. Along with other rants & ramblings I may have on the world at large. The name derives from a company I use to work for, where one of the developers noted that our software was a 'complexifier'. The term has sticking power with me; although its not a word in your store bought dictionary, you know what it means instantly.   So what's in a name...  many have asked this question... here's a great essay on naming from Grok Earth - Earthly Naming

How is a Mental Model formed?

Computers should never be compared to a human brain. Computer just don’t measure up. What we know about the brain is amazing, what we don’t is unknown (I can just hear  Rumsfeld now… [sorry down that path leads to insanity] ). One of the funny things about what we know about brains - most of it, the predominate research is upon American graduate students, so this may give a unique bias to much of what we think we know about the brain, how it is structured and how it learns. Rules of memory 'beautifully' rewritten By James Gallagher, April 2017 - BBC News "The US and Japanese team found that the brain "doubles up" by simultaneously making two memories of events. One is for the here-and-now and the other for a lifetime, they found. It had been thought that all memories start as a short-term memory and are then slowly converted into a long-term one." http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_on_3_ways_the_brain_creates_meaning.html In this video you can wa

Hurry! Fetch the 2×4 stretcher.

The mythical 2×4 stretcher analogy. When I was in high school I worked with the school maintenance crew. This was in the late 1970s when schools were growing and therefore tearing down old buildings to construct new modern building on the site. Given that construction of the new building would take several years the problem of where to house classrooms durning the destruction/construction years was typically solved by building classrooms in the gym and auditorium. The first summer I worked with the crew we were constructing one of these temporary classrooms in a gym. I was the gopher for Ike, and old codger who was always up to something. One fellow was measuring and calling out dimensions and Ike and I were cutting 2×4s to length, as fast as we could go. I would hold the 2×4 on the saw horses and Ike would measure, mark, and cut, then I would run the piece over to a pair that would nail it in place. We were all working fast, a well functioning team. When Ike, exclaimed, “$#!T, I

Fist of Five – What does that mean?

So you use a Fist of Five consensus building technique to make decisions. That’s great! Does everyone in your group know what a five really means? While reading about building a shared vision in the organization today, I ran across several words that the authors made a particular point to define and distinguish between them. Those words were: commitment , enrollment , and compliant . When discussing a corporate shared vision the distention between these is very important! For to have your organization truly committed to the vision is very different that enrolled in the vision or just compliant with the vision. The author states that real commitment is rare in today’s organizations. In his experience “90 percent of the time, what passes for commitment is compliance” ( Senge, 2006 ). The committed person brings passion and energy to the endeavor, they don’t play by the rules of the game, they feel responsible for the game itself, and if required change the game to achieve the go