Change Pro-Tip: I try to prioritize getting human judgments — opinions, reactions, feelings — because the quest for numbers holds too many easy traps. When I go to the doctor, she asks me how things are going. Here’s an answer I never ever give: "2.354". Could I? Sure. I could take all the numbers from […]
Seek Judgments Not Numbers Read More »
Coaching Pro-Tip: Thicken yourself. Do that by pursuing the backstory of any idea whatsoever that has nothing to do with your trade. That’s it. No thread.
Refactoring Pro-Tip: When I choose a side-by-side approach, I start by finding (or making) the "pivot mount". the place where the final switchover can take place safely. (So, I re-read that last muse, the one driving this, and I blanched. I didn’t say that very well. The price we pay for extempore musing, I spoze.
Finding the Pivot Mount Read More »
Refactoring Pro-Tip: As soon as I move beyond small-scope refactorings, I ask whether my change would be easiest side-by-side or in situ. Before we even start this conversation, remember remember remember: easiest nearest owwie first, and keep repeating it. This conversation happens after we’ve found everything we can do in a scope of one or
Refactoring: Side-by-Side v. In Situ Read More »
I was on the road half to two-thirds time for for about 25 years, nearly always visiting or working with software teams. I’ve worked with teams as small as 2 and as large as 500. I’ve worked in the US, much of Europe, and even a bit of China. The orgs involved might be centered
We Haven’t Seen It All Read More »
I’ll tell ya a story. Once upon a time there was a team that had it pretty good. They were internal-facing in a VBCA, supporting a variety of analysts of different types, with about 3 dozen small projects clustered around a large but mostly stable analysis model. The work was mostly about fronting the analysis
Change the Problem Read More »
I saw the five-minute meeting with developer thing again. Not offering it here cuz I don’t much want to give it the publicity. The gist: when you interrupt a developer the time-loss is far greater than the duration of the interruption. There are three cases being made. First, that developers are a special class of
About Interruptions Read More »
