Contracts: Two flavours of agile There are many forms of agile. Some do support setting price and scope up front. Here, I outline two overall flavours of agile – one which supports fixed scope and price, and one which does not. Background Much as the Old Town in a European city is the center of the city, but doesn’t itself… Read More
People Skills Video Over the past few years, I’ve been building up material on how we can all learn people skills. Late last year I finally got it all pulled together into a 30-minute presentation. The presentation includes several important things which I have not yet covered in writing on this blog. I presented the talk at last… Read More
Don’t be fooled by Myers-Briggs The Myers-Briggs personality test classifies you as Introvert or Extrovert, Thinker or Feeler, and so on. It gives you a four-letter type like “INTJ”. The catch is, Myers-Briggs is kind-of bad. If you’ve ever felt that Myers-Briggs seemed promising, but failed to deliver long-term benefits, here’s why. Reason 1: Labeling ourselves is harmful Myers-Briggs gives you… Read More
QBS and Novopay Here in New Zealand we’ve had a lot of press recently a Novopay, which is a system to pay school teachers that has suffered from significant, embarrassing (and very widely-publicised) problems. I was recently asked to write an article on the subject for the Institute of IT Professionals (IITP), explaining how I believe the emphasis… Read More
Faith, doubt and evidence – agile as religion versus agile as social science My first exposure to Agile was in the early 2000’s, when a friend leant me the Schwaber and Beedle Scrum book. It kept talking about mysterious “emergent properties”, which were apparently good things that would inevitably happen when you followed the process. But it never really explained why those properties would emerge and, to my… Read More
Compliance to Spec Considered Unprofessional In keeping with the theme of this blog, which is “the neglected essentials of software development”, I’d like to share something I’ve learned recently. It’s about how Professional people in other fields think – people like architects, town planners and doctors.… Read More