book critique: lean software development an agile toolkit
Posted by jonathan - 29/01/08 at 06:01:30 am
I picked this one up coming out of the agile dev practices conference in Orlando. The speakers I meet, Jeff Patton, Rob Myers, Jean Tabaka, James Shore and some folks from Rally Dev were jazzed to hear the key note of the book’s author Mary Poppendieck. Mary’s keynote pitch, stuffed with an abundance of historical comparisons, focused on agile’s step onto the main stage. I’d have to agree, I met many people there from companies such as State Farm, Lockheed Martin, and UPS. Agile has now has the potential to fail just like any other management philosophy before it.
A relatively quick read, the book is divided into 8 chapters:
- Eliminate Waste
- Amplify Learning
- Decide as Late as Possible
- Deliver as Fast as Possible
- Empower the Team
- Build Integrity In
- See the Whole
- Instructions and Warranty
Overall I’d put the value of the book at a 9 out of 10. It highlights principles that manufacturing has honed but the young knowledge based software industry sometimes forgets. While some people might call these principles obvious the book has provided me with a richer vocabulary for describing some practices I have already been using. I’ll pontificate about just one and let you read the rest since the source can always explain it better.
In Jean Tabaka’s Collaboration Explained: Facilitation Skills for Software Project Leaders (The Agile Software Development Series)
In set-based development, communication is about constraints, not choices. This turns out to be a very powerful form of communication, requiring significantly less data to convey far more information.
You probably use this technique already. If you have a tight calendar then you know how to setup meetings in this fashion. Rather than asking the other person when they would like to meet or giving them one option you let them know you can meet Friday between 1-2 or Monday between 3-4. Always give them a face-saving way out, like “if these times do not work please let me know a better time within the next week.” This decision making process is much more efficient than asking open ended questions like, when can we meet? It usually only requires 1-2 rounds of negotiation rather than 3-4.
You might be wondering, what does this have to do with my current project? Well if your team struggles to move to convergence, and/or your development lifecycle is too long, then your set-based process will be in jeopardy as the divergence begins to affect product integrity. Communication about which state you are in convergence or divergence on any particular aspect of your development must be clearly stated.
If your attempting to “go agile”, read this book and then pass it on to your boss. And don’t forget to buy it through the link above :)
human rfid tracking
Posted by jonathan - 28/01/08 at 06:01:33 am
Last year at a dog fair in liberty state park I contemplated having my dog tagged with an rfid chip with one of the major companies that provide this service to track lost pets. Given my wife’s bleeding heart for pets and the shows on discovery channel about all the lost pets during Katerina my usually libertarian self had become comfortable with the concept. Its one thing for animals and quite another for humans.
Flying cars, pill-sized meals, moon colonies, ergonomic, yet-oh-so-revealing space suits; for some of us, these popular predictions for a futuristic 21st century have yet to come to fruition. But some sci-fi fantasies can be made real, as advocates for tracking chip technology have recently demonstrated. The United Kingdom prison system is moving towards an under-the-skin monitoring system for its inmates, and this same technology may be coming to an epidermis near you.
The UK Ministry of Justice is planning a widespread adoption of implanted tracking chips for prison inmates, parolees, and sex offenders. It’s rumored the paparazzi has called for implanting British royals as well to make their jobs easier. Each chip emits an individual Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) code that allows officials to keep tabs on the tagged individual’s location. The chip, which is about the size of two grains of rice and encapsulated in glass, would be implanted within the musculature of the subject’s right triceps muscle (lefties catch a break here). According to VeriChip Corp., the chip’s Florida-based manufacturer, those implanted with the RFID tag would not be able to feel the device under their skin, nor would they be subject to any health hazards (except the nagging feeling someone may be watching them).
- read more @ ohmygov
Seems like VeriChip should have been watching Heroes and implanted the tracking device in the trapezius. Even better they should have gotten themselves a little product placement deal and some celebrity backing. While my baby will not get implanted at birth, I wonder what the odds are that my grandchild will not be?
fumbling around wordpress
Posted by jonathan - 24/01/08 at 11:01:39 am
I like to stay in touch with the people. When it comes to technology that means I test drive the software which non-nerd-tool people use to accomplish a task a software engineer might try and build himself, see blog.a.lish. In this case I chose to enable a wordpress blog through my hosting company, hostmysite.com. I have gotten past just kicking the tires and recently switched over to a calmer theme that I picked up from the best designer I know, forgetfoo. While the tagging structure of asp.net and php are similar, <%= “Hello 1 person reading this” %> to <?php echo “Hello 2nd person reading this” ?>, as a .net guy I sometimes feel like a fresh water fish in a salt water pond.
Only today did I fully realize that when you change a wordpress theme you change the header and footer files as well. To an asp.net guy a theme is a smaller more design oriented concept. For wordpress, a theme encompasses the entire css, js and php code for the site. Any custom code I had added in is gone. Doh! Bye-bye link to stylesheet, all done google analytics code, see you later ad words tweaks.
I put these items back into the theme, and decided to add the following mods to upgrade the the posting experience:
- css opacity on hover
- js code to throw in target=”_blank” on all external links
Check out the sample I setup here. If you view source on the html you will see link 3 has target=”_blank” defined already while link 4 does not. If you view the html post js processing, in firebug of course, you will see the target attribute added to the 4th link.
Do you have any custom code you’ve added to your blog for easilbity?
ebay to get a new captain
Posted by jonathan - 24/01/08 at 05:01:35 amApparently the people over at ebay have been reading my blog and figured it was time for a new captain of the ship.
In a top-order rejig at eBay Inc, Meg Whitman has resigned as its CEO, and would be replaced by John Donahoe while the world’s largest Internet auction firm has brought in India-origin former finance head Rajiv Dutta to the board.
In a late night announcement on Wednesday, eBay said that Whitman would step down as its president and CEO on March 31, currently head of its core auction business.
The company also announced that Rajiv Dutta, currently president of its PayPal unit, has been named executive vice president of eBay Inc and would replace Donahoe as president of auction business unit - eBay Marketplaces…..
Whitman had joined eBay in March 1998 and had been instrumental in its evolution from a US-only auction-based trading site with 500,000 registered users, just 30 employees, and $4.7 million in revenue at that time to hundreds of millions of users worldwide, more than 15,000 employees and nearly $7.7 billion in revenue.
- rediff
Glad to hear they are promoting from within and more importantly from PayPal the shining star of their portfolio. Whitman did a great jog growing the core company but I’m looking forward to see what comes from the new blood.
beer events
Posted by jonathan - 18/01/08 at 05:01:11 am
Woodie posted about Smuttynose the other day, which is not my favorite little brewery down the block, but I first had some of their stuff at the Vermont Brewers Festival. If you also want to checkout even more off the radar beers checkout the Cask Ale Festival
first harvest
Posted by jonathan - 16/01/08 at 07:01:28 amLast night I made chicken pesto with my first harvest from a strange christmas present I bought Mariana, the AeroGarden. Although I had friends in collage who dabbled, this was my first foray into hydroponics as well as an infomercialesque gadget.
Chicken Pesto Recipe
Pesto
In KitchenAid handheld blender
- 2 cups basil
- 1/4 cup pine nuts
- 2 cloves garlic
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp chick stock
- parmesan to taste
the secret here is the chicken broth as a thinning agent.
Other
In 12-Quart Stockpot 
In Calphalon 10″ skillet
- chicken, this time anti-biotic free
- pasta, this time fusilli
I assume you can handle the brief pasta and chicken directions.
EAT!
ghosts in the voicemail
Posted by jonathan - 15/01/08 at 06:01:19 amAs I posted about before I recently flipped over from verizon to comcast. A few weeks down the road I realized that I was missing the wonderful messages and the colorful back stories of the people that have invaded my home answering machine. That and mom asked me why I was not returning phone calls. Doh!
Linda Gardner
I imagine her as a white lady in her late forties divorced and with 1 kid. Her difficult divorce and health problems do to chronic asthma have resulted in high medical bills for which she is dodging the credit collectors. Maybe she plays dance dance revolution to try and lose weight. Maybe its one of the ladies below.
Grace Ghizlane
I have a hard time picturing her, but she is a recluse who’s daughter buys her groceries. She rarely leaves the house but to watch the birds in the park.
Yussef ___
I never catch his last name, but despite the national register of historic places designation for his beautiful Beaux-Arts dickenson high school he apparently would rather hangout with his buddy Andre walking the streets of JC that can sometimes give 1984 Beirut a run for it’s money. Wandering from bodega to friend’s house he spends the day searching for the next rush mostly the teenage trifecta of chicks, video games and barley soda.
netflix, video’s sleeping giant.
Posted by jonathan - 15/01/08 at 06:01:56 am
My wife sent me a link about how netflix is getting into the set-top game with partner LG. I watched the first season of Heroes using the service and was pleasantly surprised by the show and the service. I hooked up my company issued lenovo thinkpad t60 to my newish lamsung 40 inch lcd. As if giving a presentation I flipped ctrl+f7 popped the video onto the tv, clicked on the full-screen button, plugged a headphone to rca cord (i knew that box of wires my wife wants to throw out was useful for something) into a spare college dorm panasonic mini-stereo and was good to go. I drafted this post a few weeks back and went back to the service last night to continue through season II. That is where the fun stopped.
Since my original draft and JW’s posting, netflix has:
In an attempt to counteract whatever announcements Apple will make at Macworld this week, Netflix has decided to let subscribers stream unlimited movies and TV shows, with almost every basic plan, the Associated Press is reporting.
My assumption is that netflix might be in danger of some growing pains, as evidence by the pixelated quality of the stream last night. I saw a similar drop in service in skype since its inception as call quality has dropped with popularity. As of this post skype has, 10,010,818 people online. It would be cool if netflix started showing you some usage stats as well.
Netflix has grown up as a category killer, besting blockbuster in the transition from getting your lazy ass up off the couch to rent a movie to having them delivered to your home. Now it is set to take over delivery through the wires, one because of its ron peil, “set it and forget it” subscription model and two because of its history of technical innovation. As evidence read this article about the evolution of the ubiquitous red envelope.
Just like Jason mentions in his homage to netflix, I have never spent a cent on itunes and never will. I have bought a couple cd’s since 2000, mostly live shows, but have purchased items on amazon, and mostly through allofmp3/mp3sparks. While only dropping a couple hundred dollars on pressed music from 2000-2007, my “pirate” russian friends at mp3sparks, plus npr’s all songs considered, seattle’s kexp, and bbc’s radio one have all increased my spending on live music for acts I would have never found on the radio. Will I see more live performances because I view movies I never would have scene in the theatre? Probably not. How do you think the transition will shake out for the movie and tv industries?
sir edmund hillary dies
Posted by jonathan - 11/01/08 at 07:01:11 am
Future generations might deemed sir edmund hillary, the first man known to conquer the world’s tallest peak (everest), the christopher columbus of mountain climbing. He brought the masses to everest thereby screwing the local shirpas. I still think what he accomplished was cool. I longingly dream of living in that time as there seems to have been many opportunities to discover and accomplish new things. In reality I probably would have been a factory worker instead of an office worker, but you can always dream. Thats the great thing about history you always romanticize living the high life because that is the narrative of the history.
1 person = 1 vote, 1 politician = n+ votes
Posted by jonathan - 11/01/08 at 12:01:55 amripted from an interesting post on ohmygov (in need of css spanking) The video below shows texas state reps castng votes for members who are not in session. I wonder if this is how it works in what is consider the crookedest county in politics, Hudson county new jersey.
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