How to create an enterprise with staff that evolves from following orders to autonomy and motivation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=youtu.be
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Finger pointing
In the Agile dev world, there is a rule saying 'no finger pointing'. This means not rubbing people's nose in something when they made a mistake. This to assure people don't become afraid of touching some code or making mistakes. I think it's also a way of being professional. Now here's the thing. Most people want to know when they made a mistake. So you need to tell them. It's about how you tell them of course. Polite and calm is the manner it should be.
This works for most people, but the rule has a couple of disadvantages: What do you do when someone really doesn't give a f*ck? You already told him 10 times to run the tests before check in and he still doesn't do it. What do you do then? I say finger point away! Finger point till he cries :)
DevOps
Nice post explaining what DevOps is:
http://blog.csanchez.org/2012/03/13/infrastructure-as-code/
http://blog.csanchez.org/2012/03/13/infrastructure-as-code/
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Existing principles interestingly explained
Here's an interesting video from Gojko Adzic stating that software quality is everyone's problem. Nothing revolutionairy, but I especially like the way he talks about removing team bottlenecks and the importance of job titles.
http://gojko.net/2012/02/17/sleeping-with-the-enemy-video/
http://gojko.net/2012/02/17/sleeping-with-the-enemy-video/
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Work to the rule
I want to share a piece of text that fascinates me in the exellent book 'Pragmatic Thinking and Learning - Refactor Your Wetware'. It fascinates me because it is a general piece of text, which imo can be applied to a lot of big Agile teams on projects that take some years to finish.
[Start quote from the book]
In industries or situations where one is not allowed a fullblown strike, a work slowdown is often used as a means of demonstration. Often this is called work to rule or malicious obedience, and the idea is that the employees do exactly what their job description calls for —no more, no less— and follow the rule book to the letter. The result is massive delays and confusion—and an effective labor demonstration. No one with expertise in the real world follows the rules to the letter; doing so is demonstrably inefficient. According to Benner (in From Novice to Expert: Excellence and Power in Clinical Nursing Practice [Ben01]), “Practices can never be completely objectified or formalized because they must ever be worked out anew in particular relationships and in real time.”
[End quote from the book]
Often, when the velocity of big teams is not good, the teams itself propose a number of rules to improve their velocity. Sometimes these rules deal with check-in procedures, refactoring unfamiliar domains should be reviewed by persons familiar with that domain, adhering to certain conventions and so on... That's all needed and all fine. But if the project takes a few years to finish, it can happen that the number of rules can grow a lot, or that the people who invented certain rules, and more importantly, that knew WHY the rule was needed, are gone.
When your project has an entire wiki full of rules, and not all of these rules are clear for the whole team, there is a danger of overregulation. This can lead to 'malicious obedience'.
[Start quote from the book]
In industries or situations where one is not allowed a fullblown strike, a work slowdown is often used as a means of demonstration. Often this is called work to rule or malicious obedience, and the idea is that the employees do exactly what their job description calls for —no more, no less— and follow the rule book to the letter. The result is massive delays and confusion—and an effective labor demonstration. No one with expertise in the real world follows the rules to the letter; doing so is demonstrably inefficient. According to Benner (in From Novice to Expert: Excellence and Power in Clinical Nursing Practice [Ben01]), “Practices can never be completely objectified or formalized because they must ever be worked out anew in particular relationships and in real time.”
[End quote from the book]
Often, when the velocity of big teams is not good, the teams itself propose a number of rules to improve their velocity. Sometimes these rules deal with check-in procedures, refactoring unfamiliar domains should be reviewed by persons familiar with that domain, adhering to certain conventions and so on... That's all needed and all fine. But if the project takes a few years to finish, it can happen that the number of rules can grow a lot, or that the people who invented certain rules, and more importantly, that knew WHY the rule was needed, are gone.
When your project has an entire wiki full of rules, and not all of these rules are clear for the whole team, there is a danger of overregulation. This can lead to 'malicious obedience'.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Testers being the fat kid up front
In the Certified ScrumMaster course, Jeff Sutherland said something that keeps running through my mind. The Agile principle is based on quick feedback cycles and quality of code (xP). A story is not finished until after a 'proxy customer' check. A 'mini acceptance' of the analist representing the customer, if you will. Later on, maybe after the sprint, the story is tested again in some form of integration environment.
To get that feedback in different phases early, he told us to treat the the proxy customers as fat boyscouts. If someone during a boyscout hiking trip can't keep up, it slows down the whole group. You should therefore walk beside them to motivate them. If they still can't follow, you take their backpack. If it's still going too fast, put them in front of the whole group. Make them determine the paste.
I think he's right. We should aid and guide our testers as much as we can. If during the daily scrum stand-up, you hear that someone is blocked from testing, this should deserve your immediate attention.
To get that feedback in different phases early, he told us to treat the the proxy customers as fat boyscouts. If someone during a boyscout hiking trip can't keep up, it slows down the whole group. You should therefore walk beside them to motivate them. If they still can't follow, you take their backpack. If it's still going too fast, put them in front of the whole group. Make them determine the paste.
I think he's right. We should aid and guide our testers as much as we can. If during the daily scrum stand-up, you hear that someone is blocked from testing, this should deserve your immediate attention.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Proposal based
A month ago I followed the ScrumMaster (CSM) course of Jeff Sutherland and I'm an official ScrumMaster now. It was interesting to hear the guy that invented SCRUM - a former Phantom fighter jet pilot in Vietnam - expressing his vision on the IT industry. A couple of things stood out in the WAY he said them. He likes to formulate things differently. In the Passionate Programmer they talk about the transistion of being technology-centric to being solution-centric. You could tell that Jeff had an infinite respect for the developer (more than for management) but made an interesting statement: 'Developers are always whining and complaining about what's not right. In stead they should offer management clear choices'. For instance in stead of complaining 'we don't get the time to write tests' we as a community should say: 'Either we test and it will save (x-amount of) money in the long run or we don't and it will us cost money'. He's right. I've seen a lot of peers whining :)
Another thing a lot of developers don't do which I always try to, is the way we report issues. Before I communicate a problem to management or the customer, I try to have a list of possible solutions in my mind to propose to them. Not everyone does this, even if the answer to the report of a problem mostly is 'ok, what can we do about it?'.
Another thing a lot of developers don't do which I always try to, is the way we report issues. Before I communicate a problem to management or the customer, I try to have a list of possible solutions in my mind to propose to them. Not everyone does this, even if the answer to the report of a problem mostly is 'ok, what can we do about it?'.
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