Friday, July 15, 2011
Create positive pressure around releases
Posted by Simon Baker
If you're working towards a key release, the pressure mounts for everyone involved as it approaches. For the technical team responsible for delivery the rising pressure in this situation is nearly always negative if left unchecked. As time runs out the drumbeat gets faster and faster as the team is whipped up to ramming speed, a bit like the galley slaves in Ben Hur.
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Thursday, July 14, 2011
Product-oriented development
Posted by Simon Baker
Presented at the Agile Evangelists Meetup:
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Wednesday, June 29, 2011
A basis for continuous delivery
Posted by Simon Baker
Watch Paul Boocock talk about how he is building a new product in a way that will support continuous delivery.
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Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Turning the showcase on its head
Posted by Simon Baker
We learned in the very early days to treat everything as a PR opportunity with the customer. So the showcase is a big thing for us. We run showcases every Tuesday. We prepare the demo environment with real-world data, put together an entertaining narrative that introduces and connects the new features for users, and rehearse it all a few times to ensure the showcase is a valuable and meaningful experience for the customer.
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Less is more, more or less
Posted by Simon Baker
CSS! Just the name elicits groans from the backend developer bench. Googling "css sucks" brings a back a wealth of comedy in about 10,100,000 results. Cascading as in a neutron fission reaction. Style as in every project does it differently. Sheet as in: "Shhhiit that didn’t do what I expected".
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Thursday, June 16, 2011
Continuous Integration for the Last Mile
Posted by Simon Baker
Watch Gus talk about Continuous Integration for the Last Mile. The session looks at leveraging continuous integration techniques to deploy and operate software all the way to the end user, exploring some of the difficulties and gotchas along the way.
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Friday, June 10, 2011
Energized Work book club
Posted by Simon Baker
From my own experience, many things I have learned started with reading something in a book. So in November 2009 I floated the idea of starting a book club at Energized Work. My motivation came from my failure to explain concepts based on my understanding of the deep theories and principles behind them. Given that, I explained my curiosity about the kind of discussions we could possibly have after we had gone to the source together, so to speak, and what that might mean for our continuous improvement. I also believe that reading sparks interest and gives oxygen to ideas.
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Thursday, February 17, 2011
We're better off finding out than farting around up front
Posted by Simon Baker
Fixing scope up front says win-lose to me. It's not the basis for a happy relationship. Everyone is best of friends while things appear to be tickety-boo, but that's just an illusion. The moment tickety-boo goes bang the contract kicks in to identify who can be blamed and penalized. But I digress.
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Monday, February 14, 2011
Financing IT versus managing assets
Posted by Simon Baker
There's something smelly about financing IT projects in return for a contracted return on investment. It’s not that there shouldn't be some expectation about return. There absolutely should. But given the uncertainty and the risk, isn't financing IT projects more like a funding venture? Isn’t it more about managing risk to achieve reward (the desired outcome or better) rather than managing cost and schedule? If it is, then the question to be asked more often is: What types of benefits are we seeing for this round of funding, and does the potential return at this stage warrant additional funding? And not: Are we on schedule and within budget? In this case, the IT department needs to replace specifications and sign-offs with measurements of risks and outcomes.
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Monday, February 7, 2011
More meaningful accounting to visualize software economics for more informed decision-making
Posted by Simon Baker
In this article Ross Maynard says it’s unhelpful, even dangerous, to use the same methods to compile management and financial accounts. Regarding financial accounts he talks about matching accruals:
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