From time to time, something happens that reminds me that our espoused theories aren’t always congruent with our theories in use (see this summary for some quick background info on those terms). The author of an article I had cited as an example of "binary thinking" posted a comment asking how I had gotten the idea that he was pro- or anti- anything. I took the question literally, and started thinking about how any of us might get the idea that another practitioner was pro- or anti- any given software development practice. Continue reading What development methods and practices do you support?
Tag: behavior
Elevator etiquette and self-organization
It’s common to borrow terms from the physical sciences and apply them to other domains. A football team can gain momentum during a game. People tend to cling to habits because they have inertia. A software development team tracks its velocity. When we investigate the nature of the interactions of individuals in a group, we talk about self-assembly and self-organization.
I suppose there’s no harm in this, provided we remember we’re using metaphor and we remain aware of the context. As the saying goes, "The map is not the territory." Continue reading Elevator etiquette and self-organization
Does pair programming work?
The fact this question continues to come up time and again after all these years prompted me to wonder why the matter hasn’t been settled by now. Thousands of people have tried their hand at pairing in a wide range of circumstances. Some swear by the practice and feel as if something is missing when they must work solo. Others are convinced pairing is pure waste and cannot possibly yield good results. Both opinions are informed by real-world experience. What specific differences in these situations resulted in such radically different outcomes?
We simple folk
I’m working as one of a team of coaches for a large client where we are introducing a basic “agile” development model. The external coaches and internal (client) mentors are having an off-site event soon to improve our cohesiveness as a team.
One of the things we’re doing to prepare for the event is to take an online self-assessment known as StrengthsFinder, offered by Gallup and based on the book, Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath. Unfortunately, my top five strengths are:
- Strategic
- Learner
- Connectedness
- Responsibility
- Deliberative
I say “unfortunately” because I can’t just let the assessment run its course. I feel compelled to take it apart, no doubt as a direct consequence of these particular “strengths.” Continue reading We simple folk
I know how to tie my shoes
Recently there have been numerous discussions online about the difficulty of convincing people to try unfamiliar software development techniques that technical coaches and mentors consider useful. The same discussions have been taking place for many years, with no progress. Why is there no answer?
Attitudes toward continuous improvement
Question: Is it a general pattern that organizations in need of improvement tend to be satisfied with the status quo, while organizations that pay attention to improvement tend to forget that they already do many things very well?
Here are sanitized descriptions of four client environments where I’ve worked in the past few years. Continue reading Attitudes toward continuous improvement
Perception
A post on this blog received a very interesting comment from a reader with the nom de pixel Malapine:
"…my problem isn’t boredom but fear: the codebase sucks, we have no idea whether the features are what customers want, and if the product doesn’t sell, some of us may get laid off. If that’s ever me, I am screwed: my resume will show two decades with the same employer, the vast majority of it on Waterfall or ScrumBut projects."
"Off the job, I read books on Agile, go to monthly dojos, etc.; but on the job I can’t even do TDD properly — builds take 20 minutes just to compile, and nobody else seems to care."
I felt this called for more than a response in the comment thread. It seems to me it illustrates that perception can be more important than reality, and that is of interest to me presently.