I influence software delivery. Software delivery is abstract and complex. It is abstract because most people don’t really understand what happens behind the bit curtain. It is complex because it requires the translation across many layers of abstraction and back and sometimes the value is lost in translation. I say that I influence it, because…
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The Slide
Did ya ever work on a project that seemed like the schedule was too aggressive? Where the team had to constantly fight to stay on schedule, and to keep moving forward? Where things maybe got behind and we piled more resources on to catch up? Where things felt bad, but we kept on fighting until……
Yak Shaving Unleashed!
Yak shaving is the time honored tradition of needing to complete tasks that relate more to the path we have chosen than to the goal we seek. My most recent incident involved upgrading my wife’s version of Adobe Lightroom on her iMac. My wife is a professional photographer, and she uses Adobe Lightroom to…
Semantic Collision
Sometimes when you talk about application software, you find that the technicians and the customer are agreeing but don’t realize it. This happens when each party says something that is essentially the same semantically, but they don’t derive the same meaning from it. I have been in that situation many times, because of misunderstandings of…
Semantic Overloading
I spend a lot of time with software developers. Most of the time I spend is clarifying semantics between business domain and technical domain. Semantics have to do with the meanings of words or terms. In the business domain, when semantics are ambiguous it is often context that allows us to clarify. I work hard…
Just Good Enough
Just Good Enough. That is what we need. I need code just good enough to work, then you can make it beautiful, after its working. I need requirements just good enough to start a conversation, then we can refine and revise. I need architecture and design just good enough to ensure feasibility for a delivery…
What To Start
There are lots of people talking about “startups”. The talk is about starting a small tech company. Its interesting to techno-weenies, because of the potential payoff. I think that starting a small tech business is interesting to many because of the freedom, control and autonomy. But I am not only talking about a business. When…
A Fast Start
Sometimes, you have to get something started. At work, at home, where ever. You are starting something, because there is nothing. If there was something, you would just use it, do it, enjoy it, etc. Sometimes you can start by picking up where others have left off. Other times, you can start by putting together…
Problem Solving Revisited
Why is it that you always find the cause of a problem in the last place you look? The correct answer, I think, is because when you find it, you stop looking. This post is a response to a conversation that I had with a manager I work with. We were talking about why people…
Progressive Requirements Elaboration
In my former post about progressive elaboration, I promised some “examples” from different domains of software development. This is the first of these. As I said before, progressive elaboration is about acknowledging that we can’t know everything we need to get to done before we start. One of the difficulties of requirements elicitation is to…