Agile Complexification Inverter

I've made a transition from gray tones to living color - much like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (the first color motion picture). Dog Groomer's have a natural capability to accept a being for what they are and how they present, as well as what their humans may desire.  This is a wonderful ability - we should learn from them.  I had a great conversation with my local groomers at the Blissful Bark Dog Wash , about peoples expectations and inherent biases based upon look, job title, etc.  This capability of acceptance and a deeper level of judgement came to me as they asked about my hair color choices.  They told of the judgements that a dog groomer receives - one even equated the title's status to that of a stripper (good company if you can have friends in low places). From this and other conversation I've had as a result of a choice to live with more color, I've made some interesting observation about you people. You humans are preoccupied by noticing inconse...

What makes a team?  Is there a continuum upon which sits the term team?  Some have referred to difficulty comparing apples to oranges - I find it quite easy. Apple <-> Orange <-> Pomegranate <- Team ---- Group -> List of English terms of venery, by animal Why do we not list HUMAN in the animal column when listing group names? For example,  horses are know in groups as:  team in harness haras or harrase herd stable string stud Humans are know in groups as:  mob, group, team, squad, army, click, .... We have a whole system of dealing with collective nouns . How do we distinguish between the behaviors of a team and the behaviors of a group?  Have you noticed that manager's refer to people that report to them as a team?  Regardless of the behaviors that the group may exhibit - rarely a team like behavior...   I've always said just because we all wear the same color jersey doesn't mean we ar...

A video that cannot be unseen.  If you want to truly understand the difference between a unit test and integration tests. Watch what happens when you write plenty of unit test - but skip the integration test . I found this GIF on the web today ... junior dev: It works! tech lead: . . . . . . . . . [facepalm] #coderlife #fail pic.twitter.com/goYsZP5Ol0 — #CoderLife (@thecoderlife) August 16, 2017 See Also: The 21st century definition of TEST  I would like to define that within the modern software world that the word test have a more specific meaning. I propose: Test - (verb) a  highly repeatable  measure to check the quality, performance or reliability of (something), esp. before (something) is created and then put into use or practice. Traditional Test Engineering is DEAD "In this shift to agile, late cycle or manual testing efforts are often dropped or, worse, the program management and development teams embra...

Have you seen the new automobile vending machines.  It appears we could put anything in a vending machine.   So what would you put into the vending machine?

What do these phrase have in common - what is their inherent consistent meaning? Zero Defects Take the time to do it Right Repeatability and Reliability Process Maturity Model Measure twice, cut once Six Sigma Rework is Waste, Lean processes remove Waste They are ironically consistent in their purpose to reduce variability.  Don Reinertsen will attempt to convince us that in the domain of product development (unlike other domains) variability may not be the enemy of good.  He will argue that it is the economic payoff-function of this outcome that is of upmost concern in design. Voltaire 's aphorism :   Perfect is the enemy of good. I'm in a group at work that is reading books on Agile software development topics to what purpose... well to learn I hope.  After Lyssa's book on Coaching Agile Teams  we turned the knob up to 11 with Don Reinertsen's Principles of Product Development Flow .  Since it's such a tough read, a dense book with so m...

Truth is a wonderful concept - but can we really know it? I'm very excited about the 2017 release of a Wonder Woman movie.  Can't wait - it looks great, I always love the first in a series.  I like the character development, the WHY of the foundational aspects of the character.  From the preview it looks like we will see  Princess Diana of Themyscira  grow up and the reasons she finds her self in America.  Fascinating... I learned a bit about the truth of the back story of the back story of ... well the history of the creator of the Wonder Woman myth in of all places... a training course on DiSC by Dr. Abelson .  [ Queue the spooky dream sequence music. ] The inventor of the Wonder Woman myth is William Moulton Marston . Wonder Woman made her debut in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941), scripted by Marston.  If you have one in the garage I'll buy it from you.  Apparently, Marston designed Wonder Woman as an allegory for the true lead...

What parallels are there between Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and the state of the Agile movement's union? Lincoln was a primary figure at the dedication of Soldiers' National Cemetery , in Gettysburg. He did not wish to upstage the keynote speaker, Edward Everett , and so summarized in 2 minutes the principle of human equality as defined by the Declaration of Independence and the Civil War.  Do you remember, the keynote speech?  Few people do. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address : Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.  Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nat...

Is a metaphor a form of lightweight model? "All models are wrong, some models are useful." -- George Box The metaphor of information radiation is quite well know to many in the software industry.  Did you ask why?  Maybe because much of our work is very hidden from view, until we run the program and the computer interprets the code to produce some desired outcome.  Even that outcome may be obscured from view, and we must produce reports upon the data that the program produced.  So in a world where smoke and mirrors are common, one antidote to the common problem of not knowing where one is along the path toward product completion, a visualization is a powerful tool. Generally speaking the information radiator has similar properties to the old fashion building heat radiator that used a steam media source to heat heavy iron and radiate the heat from the iron into the room.  It feels great to be standing next to a radiator when you've just come in from...

You are presented with a common business problem.  One technique that has always helped me to define the problem space is to invert the problem, take it to an extreme to explore the continuum of your domain.  Let's imagine that we want to redesign our software support department at MegaSoft Corporation.  Applying our inversion principle we will leave our MegaSoft support as is, and instead we will design the competitors support group. It's going to stink, people are going to hate to even call them, their people will be arrogant techies with no human compassion - they will actually hire with those skills required.  Let's pause and give this company a name...   TechHard sounds great. Who's time is most valuable?  At TechHard the support engineers time is very valuable, so we will have process that time how long a support tech. is on the call with a customer so that our process gurus can optimize for the use of this most valuable resource.  A typical c...

Some topic are taboo - not safe to discuss.  I've never appreciated that concept.  Those taboo topics are my favorite topics to discuss. Taboo Topics (ordered by fear of conversation) Gender - Sexual preferences - non-standard practices Religion as truth, my religion vs your wrong religion Politics - the correct way to govern a group the results in my opportunity Pay for services rendered - why my gender is paid more than yours counting - off by one errors and how to mask them; we're # 1 estimates - how wrong your estimate was and why I'm missing my commitment prioritization - ordering methods laziness - the art of not doing work I've recently been embroiled in a "dialogue" about the twitter topic of #NoEstimates.  I would write a summary of the topic but cannot do better that this one: Estimates? We Don’t Need No Stinking Estimates!  by Scott Rosenberg "How a hashtag ( #NoEstimates ) lit the nerdy world of project management aflame — or...

Is there a new form of leadership being envisioned in the 21st Century?  Is there someone challenging the traditional form of organizational structure? Leading Wisely - a pod cast with Ricardo Semler. Leading Wisely "Join organizational changemaker Ricardo Semler in conversation with leaders challenging assumptions and changing how we live and work." S1E01: Killing the Dinosaur Business Model (Part 1) with Basecamp’s Jason Fried & DHH S1E02: Killing the Dinosaur Business Model (Part 2) with Basecamp’s Jason Fried & DHH S1E03: Reinventing Organizations with Frederic Laloux S1E04: Self-organization with Zappos' Tony Hsieh S1E05: Busting Innovation Myths with David Burkus S1E06: Merit and Self-Management with Jurgen Appelo S1E07: Letting Values Inform Organizational Structure with Jos de Blok S1E08: Corporate Liberation with Isaac Getz S1E09: The Police & Self-Management with Erwin van Waeleghem S1E10: Season Finale: The Commo...

These are a few of the images that resonate with me. For me they are very close to a door of perception . Now I've never done a mescaline trip, so perhaps I've no clue to what a door frame of perception even looks like... but these images are pretty good with a few beers and some colleagues to discuss there deep meaning and what truth is. Would we even know the truth if it walked up and slapped our face? Translated: "This is not a pipe" Cover image of book: Godel Escher Bach This is Truth; while this and that are true In any article I write that mentions a door of perception - I would be remise if I didn't mention one of my all time favorite poets and musical group - Jim Morrison and the Doors.  Now do you know that the band is named for? Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception "Huxley concludes that mescaline is not enlightenment or the Beatific vision , but a "gratuitous grace" (a term taken from Thomas Aquin...