Agile

Sometimes we forget that other people have faced the same problems we face today in software development. These quotes are from the proceedings of the Nato Software Engineering conference in 1968. On the management of software projects: Programming management will continue to deserve its current poor reputation for cost and schedule effectiveness until such time as a more complete understanding of the program design process is achieved. We build systems like the Wright brothers built airplanes — build the whole thing, push it off the cliff, let it crash, and start over again. ...

I have been trying to reduce distractions in my computing environment lately. Apparently, our brains aren’t wired properly for task switching: …research has also found that multitasking contributes to the release of stress hormones and adrenaline, which can cause long-term health problems if not controlled, and contributes to the loss of short-term memory. I spend a lot of time in front of my computer every day. I discovered that over time, I have added so much attention-stealing stuff to my main work environment that I feel constantly interrupted. You get growl notifications, tweets, new email sounds, new email icons, RSS feed notifications and IM alerts. When you are reading stuff on the web you are constantly bugged by the latest in advertising technology. ...

Lately, there has been some really interesting presentations and articles on agile methods and how they fit into the big picture of software development. One that was particularly interesting was Scott Ambler’s 2007 IT Project Success Rates Survey (also see the Javapolis presentation). It presents some information that is different from how the Standish Group defines success in their often refered to CHAOS report. The Standish Group assumes that success is the traditional “on time, on budget and on scope”. In many ways this does not make sense as an estimate of time and budget are made when the least information is available (early in or before a project starts). ...

Two interesting quotes from Dietrich Kappe: So no, we don’t hire architects. We hire developers. In a small team, there is no room for management deadwood. I agree completely. My view is that the title “Software architect” is a misnomer for what most architects in the software industry do, or at least what they should be doing. It is part of the weird trend that career advancement means getting away from actual programming for some reason. Maybe that is part of a bigger problem when the only way to get a higher pay is to become a manager of some sort? A couple of years ago, most programmers I knew aimed for a project management position. Programming was a dirty job that you had to put up with during the first years in consulting. ...

Philip Su from Microsoft gives us a glimpse of the inner workings of one of the most complex software projects in the world. It is interesting to see that the same problems that sometimes plague small waterfall projects (lies, red tape) exist in an organization that have put a lot of effort into their development methodology. At a recent Scrum training session Ken Schwaber said “it’s all bout telling the truth”. Philip’s post contains some interesting quotes related to this topic: ...