yep, that's me

The Agile Business Analyst

Agile Business Analysts? I have recently been fleshing out my thoughts on the role of business analysts in an Agile team. This is something I have historically addressed on a case-by-case basis with clients, but when thinking about it last week at a client site, I realized that I do have a general take on [...]

More Expensive and Complicated Equals Better: Carseats and Software

So I finally got around to checking out the TED site; I've quickly become a fan. One of the first talks I watched was by Steven Levitt's child carseats talk. Both the talk and the feedback comments on the TED site reminded me of things I see in software development.

Just When a Wizard Would Have Been Most Useful: Coaching versus Contracting

I am very fond of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien; it would not surprise me to find that many of you recognize these words from the second chapter of The Hobbit titled "Roast Mutton". It occurred to me recently that there are parallels between Gandalf's role in The Hobbit and that of an Agile coach.

First 97 Things book is out, and I am in it

I received my author copy of 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know in the mail yesterday, which means it should be hitting shelves in bookstores soon. I contributed 2 of the 97 things, so I’m now published in some manner of speaking. You can see the book (yes, that’s me in the [...]

Pushing clouds with chopsticks

Perhaps if I hadn’t had a previous career outside of software it wouldn’t bug me so much, but I find the nebulous, amorphous task of software development thoroughly frustrating. It was back around 2003 that I was having a conversation about a project with my project manager at the time (who was old-school yet [...]

My “Why is Agile hard?” conversation is up on the Java Posse

The Why is Agile hard? conversation I convened at this year’s Java Posse Roundup made its way into the Java Posse podcast feed. That was an enjoyable session with discussion of the challenges groups face when adopting Agile. NOTE: The astute reader will notice that this entry has changed. My blog was compromised and [...]

Keep a long-term perspective; know your “sales cycle”

(This is part two in a series I have titled â€œSoft Skills in Softwareâ€, which came out of points I came up with for a panel discussion at CodeMash 2008.) When introducing change in a technology practice, you can save yourself some frustration by being aware of the “sales cycle” for new ideas within your group [...]

Believe in what you’re selling

(This is part one in a series I have titled “Soft Skills in Software”, which came out of points I came up with for a panel discussion at CodeMash 2008.) Let’s get right to the point, then we’ll unpack it. If you do not believe in what your company is doing, seriously consider finding work [...]

Mike Cohn on transitioning to Agile Software Development at Agile Atlanta

I found out yesterday that Mike Cohn was going to be speaking at Agile Atlanta. Given that our AJUG meeting had fallen through, I pulled some schedule gymnastics in order to make the meeting. Don’t pass up a chance to hear Mike. Succeeding With Agile: A Guide To Transitioning And Improving will [...]

Leopard for me so far

I recently read Dave Thomas’ recent post titled “The Canary Benefit“, and it reminded me that I had never made note of my switch back to OS X as my main operating system. My attempts to run my accounting and contact management on GNU/Linux over the past few years have been pretty dismal. [...]