Let’s define blurgs. A ‘blurg’ is an event where a programmer understanding of "what my code does" is not "what my code does". Blurgs are an everyday part of programming, of course. We are more often "interim" than at a sign-off point. But I mean to restrict for this conversation the idea of a blurg […]
I’ve said in a bunch of different ways how skeptical I am of method. In software-for-money, applying method — structure, process, technique, algorithm, recipe, formula — seems to me to be so rarely successful across contexts as to be, idunno, the great collapsed souffle of the entire geek trade. By the time our abstraction-level has
Skeptical About Method: Another Stab Read More »
So. I dropped out of the conference scene by and large for a few years for a variety of reasons. The last couple of years I have been returning to it. I’m just home from two conferences in three weeks. I am not an extrovert, at conferences, I like to hang around with individuals or
Please Go Find Out Read More »
Always Small, Always Better, Always Wrong. This is the mantra for anyone who seeks change in virtually any genuinely complex environment. I’ve written a lot about small and better, but not so much about wrong, which is what I want to take up today, but first, a little refresher. The complex systems I deal with
Always Small, Always Better, Always Wrong Read More »
I’ve had some questions & comments about yesterday’s tweet: there are a million ways to slice stories. All the ones that slice it by layers are mistakes. Michael D. Hill (@GeePawHill) May 11, 2018 That’s natural and good and thanks to one and all. When one tweets a one-off like that, all pithy and telegraphic,
Slicing Stories? Don’t Use Horizontal Layers Read More »
I genuinely believe that nearly all the woe in software development, the whole socialtechnical enterprise, derives from the belief that we can sidestep increment & iteration, "a little better now" and "we’ll change it again later". This applies to the purest coding geekery, and it applies to the schmooshy marketing, and it applies to the
I&I: What Increment & Iterate Means Read More »
The seemingly insatiable demand for geekery creates a marketplace with many opportunities, but also many powerful distortions. Among them, the one that seems most puzzling to me is the trade’s notable disregard for the urgency of enculturating the "makers making" upon whom the entire business proposition rests. Successful geekery requires individual humans using individual judgment.
Beating The Human Wave Strategy In The Geek Trades Read More »
Yesterday, this popped out. two very common misconceptions: 1) that it is possible to organize your way into agility. 2) that the secret to sticky change is anything other than “changers feel better”. Michael D. Hill (@GeePawHill) April 19, 2018 Today I want to elaborate a little on that second point, that sticky change happens
Sticky Change: Changers Feel Better Read More »
Plumbers make this joke on day one of having a new hire. "The first law of plumbing: shit flows downhill." That line probably pre-dates western civilization. It’s good to make a noobie kid laugh a little nervously. Agility doesn’t flow downhill. Agility doesn’t flow downhill, it perks up from below. In one sentence, this is
Agility Perks From Below Read More »
I write things called "microtests" to do my development. Doing this yields me greater success than I’ve had using any other technique in a 40-year career of geekery, so I advocate, wanting to share the technique far & wide. Before we can talk seriously about how or whether this works, we need a strong grasp
The Technical Meaning Of Microtest Read More »
