Agile Otter Blog

Tim Ottinger’s thoughts on software development.

 

Convenience Scripts for Projects

Recommended bash scripts for every project
Sep 30, 2025
 

Why is working faster not working?


Do you want to understand why that is?

Warning
Sep 12, 2025
 

Subjectivity: Who is to say what’s right?

 This is probably too snarky, but bear with me:
Jul 21, 2025
 

Who (the heck) Am I?

biography
agile otter
tim ottinger
specialties
skills
history
abilities
I’m Tim Ottinger.
Jul 9, 2025
 

A quick note on “At Scale”

 i will submit that the problem of scale is mostly that you
Jul 9, 2025
 

How much rework do you WANT?

Obviously, nobody wants to have errors and failures in their system. We would like to see 100% success rates, right? 
Jul 7, 2025
 

There is No Automatic Reset for Engineering

Mar 3, 2025
 

Pair Programming Listicle

listicle
There are many ways to collaborate, and pair programming is the first many people consider. 
Feb 11, 2025
 

Irresponsibility: Estimates and NoEstimates

Sometimes the argument is made that not estimating is irresponsible.
Dec 11, 2024
 

Basic Microphone Usage

How to use microphones (pay special attention to (3) and (12)!!!! :
Aug 6, 2024
 

Profitable Struggle and Unprofitable Struggle


May 24, 2024
 

Definition-by-Dysfunction

 I’ve done it. You’ve seen me.
Feb 27, 2024
 

Listicle on Flow and Teamwork

listicle
Some article links related to solo vs group, flow, productivity, and predictability.
Feb 27, 2024
 

Fundamentally Wrong

The Problem
Jan 15, 2024
 

Python Listicle!

listicle
People often ask me (directly, or just generally posting to some social site) how they can learn Python quickly.  
Jan 5, 2024
 

Leadership.

 I have this very simple/simplistic view on leadership.
Dec 20, 2023
 

Choose your Expression: Structural Matching, IF-ELSE, and Dictionaries

 So, I have a command line utility that collects and presents some time-series data.

What it is isn’t important, but dates are involved.
Nov 22, 2023
 

CSS Specificity Rundown

 CSS really is fun. 

No, seriously. I’m not being sarcastic here. 
Aug 30, 2023
 

Code Smells Listicle

listicle
 After many times looking up various resources on code smells and code smell taxonomies, I finally decided to make a listicle (list article) of these. 
Apr 6, 2022
 

What does Tim have against “private” methods?

 A big thread erupted, all full of misunderstandings and miscommunications, about the idea of “private” methods. 
Mar 14, 2022
 

Splitting Stories - A Resource Listicle

listicle
 I’ve noticed that for several years now, one of the most frequently asked questions in agile forums deals with the splitting of stories. 
Mar 3, 2022
 

Maximize Value, not Quantity


Feb 18, 2022
 

Can teams be accountable for delivery of features?

definition of done
Feb 15, 2022
 

The inefficiency of tests

So a given web application has an architecture that involves a UI and an API and under that some domain objects, data, etc.
Oct 11, 2021
 

FIRST: an idea that ran away from home


Sep 10, 2021
 

Reimagining Work vs Doing The Same Better

 (originally posted in march 2008, republished with edits)
Aug 11, 2021
 

Outliving The Great Variable Shortage

 
Aug 6, 2021
 

A Whole Lot Of Nope

In light of recent outrages, there are a lot of people posting bloodthirsty things on social media. If you post bloodthirsty things, I want you to know I don’t stand with…













Jun 1, 2020
 

Speech Hacks to be More Decisive

I was in a leadership program with Christoper Avery some years ago. In that program, people would say “don’t should on yourself.”

Another friend had years ago told me that…



























May 4, 2020
 

Some Covid-19 Information

Hello all.

From time to time, I will post something that is not on-brand for Agile Otter Blog at all, but is of concern at a point in time or in celebration or mourning.

T…












Mar 17, 2020

Image result for apple newton

The Laptop “Problem”

A few friends of mine have been pretty down on people using computing devices during meetings. The very presence of open laptops, tablets, phones, etc, gives them the…




































































Feb 27, 2020

I skip my break.png

Disciplined Breaks, Two Years On

I described Disciplined Breaks here in 2017.

Sometimes people ask me how that’s working.

I wish my answer was more confident and assertive, but what I can say is “it…



















































Oct 5, 2019
 

The Coward’s Confrontation: Leadership fail

I want to introduce you all to a term:

Cowards’ Confrontation: a rule made in order to avoid having an uncomfortable conversation with an individual, which rule is either…



















Sep 26, 2019

CantHandleTruth.png

Is It My Fault You Can’t Handle The Truth?

You can’t handle it!



In 2018 or 2019, I was introduced to the idea of hyper-rationality. I think it was under another name (to be given shortly)…




Sep 23, 2019
 

Q and A on Velocity, part X


In the last installment we talked about communication between managers and employees, efficiency notions, and other key continuous improvement ideas.

This installment…
Sep 2, 2019
 

No Common Sense in Agile

People say that agile is “just common sense.” 

I wish.

I mean, it’s well-precedented and everything makes sense. But there is nothing common about it. 

It’s…

















Aug 26, 2019

Scrum v Agile.png

The relationship between Agile and Scrum

A lot of people’s first brush with Agile is during Scrum training.  There is usually some mention of the Agile Manifesto and its 12 Principles, maybe even 10 or 20 minutes…































Aug 24, 2019
 

Q and A on Velocity, Part IX

effectiveness
relationships
efficiency
productivity
management
10x
profluence
modern agile
velocity
communication
duplication
In the last installment, we talked about reasons that velocity goes up without any more accomplishment by the team. This is a disturbing occurrence to many managers who…














































Aug 23, 2019
 

My favorite Estimates and NoEstimates exchange so far.

Likewise, how much will you pay for electricity in the house you live in, all totaled up? Or my earlier grocery example. You don’t consider those “buying a lifetime’s…
Aug 23, 2019
 

Improve Your Unit Testing 12 Ways

QA
testing
automated testing
code quality
unit test
Everyone these days seems to understand that having unit tests are an important part of the work of developing software. Yet, people struggle with the practice. Here are…





























Apr 18, 2019
 

Software Development as Buying-A-Thing Or Co-Creating?

“When will it all be completed” is a question that many people can’t imagine not asking. 

“When will we start making money from this?” is maybe a better question. 
“I…







Mar 26, 2019
 

Signal-to-Noise: The Workspace Application

I have seen people who think open spaces rock, and people declaring them “the worst possible layout.”

Some people like offices (find them “essential”) and others hate…















Mar 11, 2019
 

Q and A on velocity, Part VIII

In our previous post, we discussed doing smaller units of work, and doing no more of them than we need to fulfill an end-user’s needs. This way, we get many things done, we…






































Dec 20, 2018

KentBeck-NoEstimates-tweet.png

Q and A on Velocity, part VII

In Part VI we discussed faux bottlenecks and blaming. These are often the result of having expectations that cannot be met, a phenomenon that was discussed in the last…













































Nov 5, 2018

Screenshot 2018-10-29 17.35.20.png

Q and A on Velocity, Part VI


In Part V, we examined the relationship between working harder and going faster. I hope that the message you came away with was that we want people to work less hard and…









































Oct 29, 2018
 

Q and A on Velocity, part V


In Part IV, we talked about the thorny clashes between the reality of promises, and the reality of development. This installment picks up on some truths about working…


























































Oct 24, 2018
 

Q and A on Velocity, Part IV

In our last installment, part III, we talked about the reality of reality and contrasted that to the made-up-ness of schedules and estimates and promises.

Today we take a…

























Oct 15, 2018

Screenshot 2018-07-27 10.26.16.png

Q and A on Velocity, part III


In Part II, we talked about velocity and the (glossed-over) line about making it easier to get work done instead of pushing harder.  A was asking if changing the units used…










































Jul 28, 2018

Screenshot 2016-05-15 17.01.16.png

Q&A on Velocity, Part II

See Part 1, in which we present a deep truth about velocity and story points. A’s team has turned in two sprints, with velocity of 19 on the first and 23 on the second.

A…






















































Jul 25, 2018
 

Don’t Be Dreadful

A few weeks back, I published a blog about people complaining in a company.  The article has received a lot of attention and love, and I appreciate all of you who retweeted…















































Jul 19, 2018
 

Q&A on Velocity, Part I


Having had many conversations about velocity (and many blog posts here and at the Industrial Logic Blog) one day I decided to write up an example of the conversation as if…









































Jul 17, 2018
 

The Scatter-Gather Method of Software Development

There is a certain theory of agile development which is built on factory thinking, using division and management of labor to accomplish large projects.


You have a big…



Jul 5, 2018
 

Peace and Curiosity against Righteous Indignation

All anger presents as righteous indignation.

Have you ever been angry without thinking you had every right to be so?

The person you’re angry with certainly seems to…





































Jun 27, 2018
 

Organizational Dysfunction

For decades now, people are taught a definition of “success”:
a successful team delivers the full scope on time and under budget.

It has been the mantra of project…



























Jun 26, 2018
 

Agile In A Nutshell

I had answered a question on LinkedIn, after which a friend was kind enough to quote my answer on twitter with a kind recommendation.

I decided to reproduce that answer…







Jun 25, 2018
 

Owner, Renter, Guest, Vandal?

What is your role in the code base you find yourself in today? 
Owner? 
Renter?
Guest?
Visitor? 
Vandal?
I ask seriously because I’m learning that the answers matter. 
A…
Jun 14, 2018
 

Piecing it together without tests…

I wrote a thing yesterday…. it was in python, and I was using PyCharm (which is very nice, and a departure from using vim + sniffer).

It was something I didn’t know how to…























Jun 13, 2018
 

Complainers

When you hear “those people are always complaining” then you’re probably looking at a systemic problem. 

It’s probably not a personality flaw; it’s probably that the…





































Jun 12, 2018
 

The world, joyfully shining from a desktop.

Sometimes this world gives me joy.

I take photos as I travel. I also try to take some time to see the world and take extra photos.  One day I realized that I could set…













Apr 20, 2018

ImpossibleTweets.png

The Impossible Every Day

This is a slightly-edited re-presentation of a thread in Twitter. 

  • Original post
  • Unrolled post
As twitter is ephemeral, and blogs are longer-lasting (and easy to…







































Mar 9, 2018
 

Predictability as Maturity or System?

The predictability of a team is subject to the predictability of the work.

Duration of a task depends on three things primarily:
  1. Raw effort – fairly predictable…







Mar 5, 2018
 

A little signal-to-noise


Jan 31, 2018

Image result for if you do not take joy in the snow you will have less joy and just as much snow

How To Be Miserable (or Not)

I came across an interesting article the other day, stating:

EXPECTATION – OBSERVATION = FRUSTRATION

I think this is really good.

However, I think there should…














Jan 25, 2018
 

Feeling Safe?

I finally got around to watching Frozen.

I don’t have any small children of my own and wasn’t really interested in it for my own viewing pleasure, so it took a long time.…

































Dec 11, 2017

Screen Shot 2017-11-27 at 12.54.50 PM.png

Taking Breaks in a Disciplined Way

I worked with a team where everyone was trying to do pair-programming, but it was too hard for them.

I asked what made it so hard, and they told me it was simply so…


































































































































Nov 27, 2017
 

Why TDD?


Why do we care if people call what they’re doing TDD or BDD or why do we care if they actually do it?


When people mislabel what they’re doing and refer to it as “BDD”…

























































Sep 26, 2017
 

The 5 Ts

When I’m talking to Agile teams, we often talk about the role of management: whether it exists, and if so what it is.

I always fall back to the principles of the agile…




























































Sep 18, 2017
 

Can We Process Our Hurts Without Going To Categories?


People who are hurt and angry sometimes give in to two unproductive natural urges:
  1. Hurt the other back so they’ll think twice next time
  2. Disconnect oneself from…







Aug 18, 2017
 

A VERY brief note on certification..

I’m well-known for my distaste of certifications for software developers, trainers, and coaches.

What seems to be less-well-known is the reasoning behind that.

GETTING…





















Aug 15, 2017
 

There is no such thing as a scrum development team….

Yeah, I know that’s a heck of a clickbait title, but it’s also the thesis of this blog post.

According to the Scrum Guide (2016):

The Development Team consists of…











































Jul 19, 2017

ModernAgile_WheelWithText.jpg

Agile Training Roller Coaster

A long time ago, I was in a company that (like my current company) was known for training and coaching agile teams.

Some of our customers were continually asking us if we…












































Jul 12, 2017
 

A Surprising Demotivator

I almost took the elevator up to my room today.

A year or two ago, my wife bought me one of those step-counting devices, you know the ones which tell you how many steps…






















































Jul 7, 2017
 

The Genie Story

A clever man was crossing the ocean when his ship was capsized in a storm. He was the only survivor. Hungry, thirsty, and battered, he struggled to shore on a small island.

…

































Jun 22, 2017
 

Making people do what we want…

Amitai Schlier and Ryan Ripley conducted a session at Big Apple Scrum Day entitled “the care and feeding of T-shaped people” which was essentially a panel discussion taking…













May 16, 2017
 

Calibrate Your Dopplegangers


I once knew a woman who confided that she lived with the disapproving, exhausting ghost of her long-dead mother. It was a disembodied voice in her head that wouldn’t let…






























































































May 12, 2017

ModernAgile_WheelWithText.jpg

Make People Awesome? Give Them Superpowers!





We need to explain our primary statement of benevolence, expressed as “make people awesome.” This is intended to express that have an explicit goal of…






















































Mar 13, 2017
 

The Lightweight Tweetstream

Some innovators came through and invented radically different ways of working, usually through collaboration and teamwork.
The idea of simplifying the workflow was met with…
Mar 12, 2017
 

The Dev Goal

  • Write useful code only. 
  • Don’t write defects.
  • Don’t write code that invites others to create defects.
  • Don’t write code which hides or obfuscates defects (yours or…
  • Feb 10, 2017
     

    Getting stuff done.

    By the end of the day, the new change was relatively easy, and the code where the change must be implemented was all nicely “under test.” Several new techniques were all…







    Jan 16, 2017

    TroubledClass.png

    Implicit Time-Based Coupling - Inside a Class.

    Dec 20, 2016
     

    The Employee’s Unapproved Feature

  • reign in your rogue employee 
  • give her more influence in deciding future features
  • ignore this one infraction since it worked out okay
    • Dec 14, 2016
     

    TDD: Start With A Failing Test

    The question was asked:
    Dec 2, 2016
     

    For those of you keeping track…



    It sounds like my blog has ranked this world the 14-millionth favorite, but I think it means the opposite.

    I have plenty of margin here so that I can improve without…
    Nov 14, 2016
     

    Support Each Other

    if we all could put curiosity and interest in others over the warm self-righteous glow of disdaining and judging, then we could do all things.
    Nov 9, 2016
     

    But In The Real World



    “In the real world” is a pretty arrogant thing to say, and frankly triggers me a bit.

    I’d like to say I was past this, but I still have to process the upset and forgive…



    Nov 2, 2016
     

    Political Correctness and Truth

  • Saying hurtful things
  • Not being politically correct
  • Telling the truth
    • Sep 30, 2016
     

    Heretics of Agile at DSM Agile 2016

    At the end of dsmAgile, we had a session full of “lean coffee” style meetings in a big noisy room with an open bar (so it wasn’t so much coffee people were sipping as much…

















    Sep 30, 2016
     

    14 Challenges For Agile Adoption

    The problem seems to be largely one of unlearning the way that software was done in the days before agile. People got used to working alone, being told what to do, being…







    Sep 28, 2016

    Screenshot 2018-10-29 17.35.20.png

    The Curiosity Space

    Sometimes we get what we expect.
    The reactions to that?
    Either satisfaction or no real reaction at all.

    When I put my bread in the toaster and it toasts it according to…









































    Aug 23, 2016
     

    The Relevance Ratio

    What it is:
    Aug 2, 2016
     

    The Intimidation Cycle

  • X is afraid of Y, so 
  • X tries to make Y afraid of them in return, and 
  • X escalates to make sure Y is the more afraid, so 
    • Aug 1, 2016

    CuriosityOverJudgmentEmoji.jpg

    Curiosity over Judgment: getting past defensiveness.


    But of course, to get past judgment and to an end, both people are probably going to have to have this conversation – in curiosity and not in blame or judgment.

    I wish the…
    Jul 7, 2016
     

    What is “Agile”?

    sooner
    Jul 1, 2016
     

    Naming is still hard.


    I welcome your comments and criticisms.

    Apr 5, 2016
     

    Sarah and Joe Write Features

    Excellent answers Michael, George, and Tom.

    If you don’t know these people, do look them up and give them a follow.


    Feb 18, 2016
     

    Naming good is what Position?




    Feb 3, 2016
     

    The Productivity Formula

    Rather than rant more on those, let’s cut to the chase and give the definition that most people really use:
    Dec 9, 2015

    PlateEmpty-Charlie.jpg

    Plate-Emptying



    Over at Reddit there is a discussion about my Stop Per-Person Swimlanes article at Industrial Logic.

    This surfaced what seems to be a common misunderstanding.



    Some…
































































































































    Nov 14, 2015
     

    What is “enterprise”

    Gathered answers: 
    Nov 11, 2015

    Screenshot 2015-10-16 15.13.10.png

    Dot-Programming your Object Oriented Code


    Let’s say the object is a “Playlist.” Don’t worry about what that means, just stay with me here. And assume you’re writing a report to say which playlists are used by which…































































    Oct 16, 2015
     

    What To Read

    There was an opportunity at a recent open space conference for Mike Rizzi and myself to conduct a short session on “what to read.”

    As expected, there is more here than…
    Oct 15, 2015
     

    Principles for Large Organizations

    agile at scale
    developers
    scale
    Scaled Scrum
    Big Companies
    SAFe
    Rules
    Corporate Culture
    Principles
    Scaling
    agile
    managers
    Culture
    large company
    I was speaking with my friend Bryan who, like myself, does a lot of work with very large organizations. Many of them are great places and have sincere interest in being…






















    Oct 2, 2015
     

    How Is The “Year of Living Shamelessly” Going?


    My Year Of Living Shamelessly is a developmental experiment.

    How is yours going?

    Oct 2, 2015
     

    The Manifesto Didn’t Start It All



    Not quite.

    It got a name and a manifesto then, but it was a gathering of practitioners of “lightweight methods” (and one waterfall guy: Hi Steve) who gathered and wrote…















    Sep 24, 2015
     

    Confirmation Bias and The Twelve-Day Technical Problem

    Charlie is a developer. He’s just been assigned/volunteered to take on an interesting technical challenge. It will involve research, learning, and experimentation so it is…



















    Sep 17, 2015
     

    Making Data Relationships Obvious

    explicit code
    test
    microtest
    obvious relationships
    clean code
    intention

    Sep 9, 2015
     

    Sick of Eating: Planning Stress

    What if we only needed to plan for a month at a time? It is much easier. We can find out in mere weeks what a customer likes or doesn’t like. A new feature that is not 100%…







    Sep 6, 2015
     

    Struggling is Not Lying


    That’s a nice story, maybe, but what the heck is it doing on the Agile Otter blog? Isn’t this a software blog?

    Well, yes it is.

    The point is that organizations and people…




















    Sep 1, 2015

    Screenshot 2015-08-26 18.21.18.png

    We Value Things On The Left More….

    tools process
    agile tools.
    collaboration
    takeBackAgile
    agile manifesto
    interaction
    value
    take back agile
    Aug 31, 2015
     

    Singh’s Inevitable Avoidance Principle


    I’ve been conversing with others who have the same sense of Take Back Agile and a few whose sense of departure from non-agile “agile methods” are a bit more pointed.  I…

    Aug 27, 2015
     

    An End To Dueling Strawmen?

    “I don’t see Agile as a silver bullet for all software development problems in the world.” 
    Aug 25, 2015
     

    Product Owners Maximizing Value

    Clearly expressing Product Backlog items;
    Aug 24, 2015
     

    Workspace improvements from Agile Practices Workshop at Agile 2015

  • All workstations in one room
  • White boards and writing utensils
  • Post-it Notes
  • Videoconferencing Tools
  • Proper & available hardware for testing and experimenting.
    • Aug 15, 2015
     

    (Revisionist) History of QA Departments

    In due course, adversarial QA was considered good management and seldom questioned by professionals. It had crossed the line from “common practice” to “moral imperative.

    I…

    Aug 13, 2015
     

    The BS Line

    responsibility
    testing
    retrospective
    code review
    self-awareness
    agile
    improvement
    mastery

    Aug 12, 2015
     

    Write Me An Online Agile Tool



    I would rather work with physical tools than online, but frankly my own team is highly distributed and so we sometimes need to be able to visualize and communicate our…
















































    Aug 7, 2015
     

    The #NoEstimates Hashtag



    Jul 23, 2015
     

    The Poo-shoe Effect

    unfortunate
    punishment
    unwanted roles
    software
    best you can do
    helping
    poo-shoe
    serving
    I’ve had enough questions and references to this that I need to explain this odd effect with the fashionably Asian-sounding name, which is being mentioned in boardrooms and…

























    Jul 17, 2015
     

    A Quick Rundown on Performance Appraisals and Reviews.


    Jul 14, 2015
     

    Interview at QCon London with Ben Linders

    I just realized that I should post my interview from London which is titled “The Importance Of Technical Practices in Agile.”

    Ben Linders and I sat down and talked. Sadly…









    Jul 3, 2015
     

    Taking Back Agile at QConLondon with Ruud Wijnands

    Jul 3, 2015
     

    Insincerity and Process

    I read a lot of disappointed tweets, reddit posts, etc about agile development processes, especially since the whole Take Back Agile thing started.

    There is an honest…

























    Jun 22, 2015
     

    Male Privilege


    If I get a hair cut and dress up nice, nobody calls me a whore, nor is a stranger likely to feel entitled to have a grab or fondle.

    I’d like to extend this from male…
    Jun 16, 2015
     

    My Life On The Road

    personal
    tradeoffs
    travel
    social
    consulting

    It’s weird, but it’s also pretty cool. I’ve seen the Great Wall of China, the great cities of Europe, including London, Edinburgh, Paris, Munich, Budapest and more. I’ve…









    Jun 10, 2015
     

    Writing the BDDs… Good Lord, NO!

    sounding stupid
    bdd
    morons
    dumb things people say
    bad grammar
    language
    behavior driven development
    software hicks
    abusing language
    writing BDDs
    BDDs
    Listen, you know how it is if you go out to eat and your friend has a big ole chive stuck to a front tooth and you are thinking that you don’t want to embarrass your friend…














































    May 28, 2015
     

    This is NOT the End.



    This is not the last sprint. There will be more after this. You don’t have to have everything this week, and it’s more important to deliver than to have every possible…
    May 19, 2015
     

    The Company: Can we talk about it?

    We talk a lot about changing cultures. There’s a lot of inspirational, humanistic content in agile conferences and forums and books and blogs. We tell our success tales in…



























    May 8, 2015
     

    Bonus for Productivity?

    Motivation
    bribes
    bonus
    HR
    leaders
    Scholtes

    At Industrial Logic, we have bonuses.

    We have a health-n-safety bonus which we spend making our lives better. Some pay gym memberships. Others buy standing desks or…







    Apr 18, 2015

    DeferringTasks.png

    Too Many Developers?

    agile at scale
    teams
    hiring
    swarming
    scale
    too many developers
    technical debt
    staffing
    large scale
    large teams
    10x developer
    agile
    cooley
    You already know some developers are more effective than others. 
    Apr 17, 2015
     

    Individual Work Assignments: Neither Agile Nor Team


    Apr 14, 2015
     

    Can Scrum Teams Have Managers.


    “Is it safe to say PM has to acquire new skills to make himself fit in the scrum process?” 
    This question was asked in a scrum forum on Linked In, and many interesting…









    Mar 30, 2015
     

    QCon London: Taking back development (Take Agile Back).

  • Take Back Agile: “If this is agile, take it back.”
  • Take Back Agile: “Give me my agile back.”
  • Take Back Agile: “… to your team.” 
    • Mar 6, 2015
     

    On The Agile Manifesto

    Everyone points to the four “preferences” part of the manifesto and ignores the more important first paragraph, and the far more important second page (“principles”).

    Key…



    Mar 4, 2015
     

    Sleep and Insight

    This sounds a lot like Wallas’ ideas of “incubation” and “enlightnment” come to light again.

    Fascinating.
    Feb 17, 2015
     

    Agile At Heart?


    This is not an agile team. Even if they all have experienced a personal agile conversion, and have agile written in their hearts, this is not an agile team.

    “Faith without…
























    Feb 17, 2015
     

    Smarter Teams

  • Equality
  • Empathy
  • More females in the population.
    • Jan 21, 2015
     

    Other side of the CAR, not the POST.


    Dec 30, 2014
     

    Years’ End, Years’ Begin


    2015 is the year I throw on as many skills as I can afford/tolerate/enjoy. Last year I learned a (very) little bit of Groovy and Swift and Javascript even though it was The…














    Dec 29, 2014
     

    Working Well Enough: the Four Questions

    great teams
    coaching
    continuous improvement
    team-based work

    If all four of those are true for a team, then that team probably doesn’t need help. Of course if those are true, then the team is poised to provide a lot of help to other…

    Dec 15, 2014
     

    My itsy-bitsy contribution to Git


    Dec 8, 2014
     

    Otter’s Law

    teams
    control.
    cargo cult
    profluence
    transformation
    corporations
    responsibility
    learned helplessness
    safety
    anhedonia
    xp
    scrum
    otters law
    methodology
    team-based work
    take back agile


    I’ve ranted about change gone wrong and methodologies followed badly and horrible oversales and undersales and all, but it comes down to otter’s law ultimately.

    Too many…
    Nov 19, 2014
     

    Wrong naming revisit


    Nov 4, 2014
     

    What is a Coach?

    I’m a software org/team/individual coach. What the heck does that mean?
    Nov 3, 2014

    Screenshot 2016-08-10 12.46.25.png

    Preplanning Poker: Is This Story Even Possible?

    defer
    cards
    explore
    accept
    preplanning poker
    story size
    estimation
    feature splitting
    agile games
    split
    reject
    planning poker
    story splitting
    agile
    Hold On A Second
    Oct 23, 2014
     

    Microtesting TDD: A Quick Checklist

  • See each test fail at least once (so you can trust it).
  • Make test fail messages helpful because they fail when you are working on something else.
  • Prioritize!
  • Use a…
  • Oct 20, 2014
     

    Your Transition Isn’t Very Agile

    process
    consulting
    learning
    coaching
    incremental
    agile
    transition
    Agile’s teaching of “thin, vertical slices” doesn’t apply just to features.
    Oct 17, 2014
     

    Programming Is Mostly Thinking

    programming thinking thought workers

    Pretend you have a really great programming day. 
    You only have to attend a few meetings, have only a few off-topic conversations, don’t get distracted or interrupted…








    Sep 29, 2014
     

    Dave Coplin Reimagines The Office

    thinking for a living
    Office
    distraction
    constant partial attention
    teams
    safety
    open office
    cubicles
    Understand your office situation better w/RSA Animate & David Coplin



    Raised many interesting points. I still see value in being able to pair and mob, and would like to…

    Sep 10, 2014
     

    Christopher Avery and The Responsibility Process (vid)

    psychology
    responsibility
    obligation
    justify
    blame
    avery
    coaching
    organizational psychology.
    Here is Christopher Avery shows us a mental model that will help us to become more responsible.

    I found it concise and helpful. I hope you may also.

    Sep 5, 2014

    MentalModel.png

    Getting Through To Each Other

    thinking for a living
    self-mastery
    mental model
    cognitive skills
    frustration
    communication
    thinking
    Communication is a very human process.
    Every being has its own mental model of a domain

    Connected to it is a hearing/understanding apparatus. When you tell me the sky is…
























































    Sep 2, 2014
     

    Why Your Code Has So Much Duplication

    C#
    dataflow.
    dotnet
    clarity
    refactoring
    signal:noise
    clean code
    maintenance
    ActionBlock writeToConsole1 = new ActionBlock( integer => Console.WriteLine( “Console 1:” + integer ) );
    Aug 26, 2014
     

    Being the Remote Programmer - A Reflection

    Being remote is a bit of a compromise. This is not my first time to reflect on the issues, but this one might be helpful and the topic stays fresh for me. 
    Aug 18, 2014
     

    The Good Guilt Trip

    shame
    guilt
    social
    responsibility
    thinking
    manipulation

    If these feelings are a good and useful adaptation to living socially,  I’m interested in information that will adjust or inform my opinion about this sense of social…









    Aug 7, 2014
     

    Process Improvement Principles

    process
    agreements
    simplicity
    discipline
    improvement
    anzeneer
    pull
    continuous improvement
    safety
    coaching
    agile
    anzen
    Pull is a better flow than Push
    Jun 11, 2014

    Defending Scrum Against Stupid Arguments

    apologetic
    methods
    adapt
    retrospectives
    grumpy
    tranparency
    planning
    inspect
    scrum
    arguments
    meetings
    agile
    criticism
    anzen
    I’m okay with all of that.

    All valid, informed arguments are welcome. I don’t have a sacred cow or beloved method that I’m unwilling to part with. I’m an Anzeneer, not…








    May 28, 2014
     

    Complicated Conversations Considered Keystone Hazards

    converations
    keystone hazard
    dysfunctions
    scarf
    agreements
    threats
    anzen
    confrontation
    In short, the fear is that the conversation will accomplish little other than making the initiator of the conversation feel belittled, confused, or marginalized.  This risks…



















    May 14, 2014
     

    Purist, Pragmatist, Iconoclast, Egotist

    delivery
    iconoclast
    bias
    egotist
    purist
    anzen
    pragmatist
    The egotist wants to please himself more than he wants to achieve a goal or support a cause. He will do what makes him feel safe, comfortable, at ease, powerful. He does…






















    May 5, 2014
     

    Agile, Post-agile, Beyond Agile… Where do we go next?

    We started with 1. Our processes went through all these stages until we got to XP and its fellow travelers. But XP and Scrum were sufficiently magic to start a ripple again…













    Apr 8, 2014

    Screenshot 2014-04-02 07.32.12.png

    Ignorance + Inspiration = What?!


    I suspect that “ignorance + inspiration” is really not the surefire recipe for success that inspirational speakers and feckless back-patters declare it to be.

    I want my…










    Apr 2, 2014
     

    Can I Start My Software Career As A Scrum Master or Coach?


    If you have the qualities that make a good SM, you should work on becoming a professional scrum master by developing/growing/proving your raw talents and training. You…

    Mar 27, 2014

    ModernAgile_WheelWithText.jpg

    3 Ways We Can Revive Agile

    shared learning
    spread the word
    blogging
    build
    movement
    evangelize
    take back agile
  • Remove barnacles
  • Reinstate values
  • Move forward
    • Feb 19, 2014
     

    I Want Agile Back

    agile at scale
    standup meetings
    projects
    technical practices
    iterations
    angst
    deathmarch
    scrum
    coaching
    sprints
    agile
    take back agile
    sick of agile
    Note: this was originally all plain text and a little shorter. 
    Feb 13, 2014
     

    David Gray on Russ Ackoff

    David Gray wrote a great article in a funny place, as a comment to a really great YouTube video.  
    Feb 11, 2014
     

    Agile and Waterfall: More Different Than You Think

    planning
    management
    waterfall
    agile
    uncertainty
    agile at scale.
    This is a mostly-verbatim post from a LinkedIn forum.  I thought it was worth sharing with the audience here, so you can help me refine my thinking.
    Jan 30, 2014
     

    Bug Teams v. The Nature Of Defects

    pair programming
    teams
    management
    defects
    decisions
    learning
    thinking
    programming
    You realize that you’re not getting as much done as you expected to get done. It’s troublesome because you have plans and promises and releases to deal with. You’re likely…




























































































    Jan 23, 2014
     

    Asking the Wrong Questions

    process
    classic
    management
    helping
    waterfall
    scrum
    agile
    communication

    Most of us who are over 30 and in the Agile camps have done exactly that. As an official greybeard I remember the “bad old days” quite well, and as a consultant I see that…






    Dec 19, 2013
     

    Parkinson’s Law:

    “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
    Dec 17, 2013
     

    Scrum Managers: are they the worst?

    xp
    scrum
    manager
    management



    Nov 28, 2013
     

    TDD: more to know

    pair programming
    microtest
    tdd
    testing
    refactor
    unit test
  • Everyone knows the basic cycle of TDD.
  • You should also know the improved Industrial Logic version of the TDD cycle.
  • You have heard Uncle Bob’s three rules.
    • Nov 12, 2013
     

    Safety Journey

    I’ve gotten into the idea of tech safety when it comes to testing and coding.

    I get it as a value for deployment, setting up work environments, or practicing.

    When it comes…



















    Oct 9, 2013
     

    Working Agreements

    agreements
    shared learning
    learning organization
    teamwork
    debian

    Sep 20, 2013
     

    The Interplay of Failure, Learning, and Options

    risk management
    failure
    options
    learning
    agile
    iterative design
    We talk about failures a lot.
    Sep 11, 2013
     

    The new project…

    It’s been quiet on the blog lately, but not at home.

    My nine-year-old nephew has come to spend a year with us, to take advantage of Libby’s skill as a home schooler. He’s…









    Sep 6, 2013
     

    Three Steps to Safer Development

    continuous integration
    build server
    faster
    code
    management
    testing
    tech safety
    agile
    software quality
    technical debt
    Lean Startup

    Sound familiar?

    Interested?

    Read The Engineering Manager’s Lament 
    Jul 26, 2013
     

    Tests and Immersion in Code: The relationship

    python
    sniffer
    software
    observation
    CI
    testing
    interoperating
    ATDD
    autotest
    ruby
    slow tests
    build server
    test faster
    productivity
    tdd
    immersed
    programming


    If the build/test cycle is not incredibly fast, I will not participate in the code as fully and richly, instead falling back to rely on my IQ and memory and good…











    Jul 24, 2013
     

    It Can Still Be Awesome…

    geek joy
    dehumanizing
    software craft
    enjoying
    building
    dystopia
    joy
    happiness
    flying
    it can be awesome
    agile
    humanity
    Official communication is muddy and obscured by political phrasing and they don’t have clarity. They are matrix-managed and constantly interrupted. They don’t have the…








    Jul 10, 2013
     

    Bash function for finding & editing content


    I use this whenever I have a bunch of text files. It’s especially handy when you’re working with a markup language.

    I specifically wrote it to use ‘vim’ and the +/pattern …



    Jun 21, 2013
     

    Velocity and story point rundown

    I write a lot about velocity because people ask me a lot of questions about it. 

    Here are links to the write-ups I reference most in my daily work -- which I tend to…
    Jun 18, 2013
     

    Pressure To Produce


    May 16, 2013
     

    Wallas’ Four Stages of Creative Thought

    enlightenment
    incubation
    verification. Programming
    stages of creative thought
    agile
    theory of productivity
    graham wallas
    preparation
    The Art of Thought
    May 15, 2013
     

    Invisibility of Process, Visibility of Results

    extreme programming
    running tested features
    say:do
    metrics
    theory of productivity
    information radiators
    programming
    managers
    informative workspace
    agile manager
    May 14, 2013
     

    The Best Job They Know How To Do

    shared learning
    domain knowledge
    prime directive
    requirements
    best you can do
    retrospective
    understanding
    agile
    theory of productivity
    communication

    May 13, 2013
     

    Agile Documentation

    There might be other rules. To date, I don’t know them.
    May 7, 2013
     

    Hoarding Knowledge: sharing enhances productivity

    theory of productivity
    silo
    programming
    agile manager

    May 6, 2013
     

    Increasing Effort is Unsafe in Too Many Ways

    A common effect of putting teams under pressure is that they will reduce their concentration on quality and focus instead on “just banging out code”. They’ll hunker down…
    May 1, 2013
     

    Misunderstanding Quality

    Dr. Tsuda is saying that Western industry is satisfied to improve quality to a level where visible figures may shed doubt about the economic benefit of further improvement.…
    May 1, 2013
     

    Toward a New Theory of Productivity

    Standard theory says that productivity is output over input. That’s easy enough to grasp, and entirely right.
    Apr 26, 2013
     

    Tim’s 5 Observations About Estimating



    I’m always concerned about wasting a lot of time and effort (ie generating waste) in order to become good at something that does not make my customers more successful.

    …











































    Mar 28, 2013
     

    Waste = DOWNTIME

  • Defects
  • Overproduction
  • Waiting
  • Non-utilized talent
  • Transportation
  • Inventory
  • Motion
  • Extra processing
    • Mar 28, 2013

    Screen shot 2013-03-22 at 4.27.29 PM.png

    Product Health Rules!

    microtests
    build
    tdd
    testing
    distributed version control
    agile at scale.
    large scale agile
    distributed teams


    Mar 22, 2013
     

    The Agile Genie


    Feb 12, 2013
     

    Multitasking Considered Less Harmful?

    When so much of the writing resonates deeply with me, this particular paragraph’s ending is jarring.

    Could Dr. Wallas, writing in 1926, be entirely wrong about…







    Jan 31, 2013
     

    Continual Improvement In A Flash - edits underway

    Last month I released the first copy of Continual Improvement In A Flash, and you have all been very kind in providing feedback and corrections. Thank you for your purchases…






    Jan 29, 2013
     

    A Personal Note on the Passing of my Father


    I usually don’t put anything deeply personal on this blog, but today I make an exception.

    For three years after his massive stroke, my dad was severely handicapped and…

















    Jan 16, 2013
     

    Continual Improvement Book for Scrum Masters: first public release.


    I’ve pulled the trigger on my first release of the scrum master book.

    You can pop over to the leanpub page and grab a sample, or even buy the book for $USD12.00.  If you…




    Jan 13, 2013
     

    Home IT Suggestions?

    nas
    computer
    networking
    home


    I put up a note in facebook and g+ about how I want my home IT reworked.

    I’ve bought a new router that will help me with getting my wifi (used by family for non-work…







    Jan 10, 2013
     

    Continuous Improvement Book

    leanpub
    ebook
    continuous improvement
    scrum master
    techniques
    scrum
    agile coach
    self improvement
    I did not manage to use my Christmas break to get a lot of work done on the book.

    I tried, but there was much going on in our world (almost all good stuff) and I was unable…








    Dec 27, 2012

    CirclingTheDrain.png

    Circling the Drain/Facing the Truth

    continuous integration
    attentive work
    becoming
    change
    agile coach
    fair
    feedback
    learning organization
    agileinaflash
    agile in a flash
    agile
    intimidated
    The item we didn’t know to put on the card is “situational awareness.” It’s the military concept that people are aware of position, direction, intention of teammates and the…







    Dec 20, 2012
     

    Code Oddity: Conditionally starting

    Is it just me, or is this a pretty weird thing to see? I’ve seen it a half-dozen times in the past few months and I don’t think (outside of Duff’s device) I’ve seen a…
    Dec 19, 2012

    Screen shot 2012-12-17 at 6.25.09 PM.png

    Robert Probst and the Cubicle Wars (we lost)

    cyberman
    dr who
    dehumanizing
    herman miller
    cubicles
    probst


    This is not an unfamiliar story. I think it has some parallels with other great movements of the past few decades in that some mechanical aspect of the original work is…






    Dec 18, 2012
     

    TLC Labs Doesn’t Do Performance Reviews

    When you see your company asking how they can improve employee retention, try pointing them to this blog post and let them see what happens when people realize the futility…

    Dec 2, 2012

    title_page.jpg

    A LeanPub book for Scrum Masters?

    scrum masters
    ebook
    teams
    scrum master
    multitasking
    agile in a flash
    book
    retrospective
    scrum
    agile
    I’ve had a side-project that started because I’ve been working with dual-role (and one triple-role) Scrum Masters lately.

    I appreciate how hard it is for them to be good at…















    Nov 29, 2012

    SoupWithAKnife.jpg

    There is no good way to eat soup with a knife.

    organizational theory
    agile coach
    agile
    management
    agile manager
    In light of the agile manifesto, those questions all sound like “what is the best way to eat soup with a knife?”

    There is no good way to eat soup with a knife.

    You can eat…












    Nov 13, 2012

    Screen shot 2012-10-25 at 6.12.44 PM.png

    Not Fair

    ottinger
    abuse
    psychology
    bad guys
    cognitive bias
    arguments
    assholes
    fair
    good guys
    Decrying Abuse
    Oct 25, 2012
     

    Save(d) The Art Of Thought!

    organizational theory
    unavailable
    book
    philosophy of art
    activism
    classic
    ebook
    psychology
    learning organization
    art of thought
    rare book
    graham wallas
    I think that someone needs to digitize and distribute this work, since it is as important as it is rare.

    Would you like to help?
    Do you know where we can get a copy?
    Who…




    Sep 15, 2012
     

    Simple v. Complicated

    code virtues
    craftsmen
    concise
    simplicity
    software quality
    software craft
    simple design
    programming
    theory
    quality
    Simple, then, doesn’t mean easy or easy to read. It means uncomplicated. It has the minimal number of concerns, terms, and operations. It could be inobvious and hard as hell…














    Sep 13, 2012
     

    14 Weird Observations About Agile Team Velocity

    development
    yesterdays weather
    stories
    management
    scrum master
    scrum
    agile coach
    agile
    programming
    iterations
    agile manager
    (note: I added a 15th, but was worried that changing the title would invalidate links, so you get a bonus observation at no extra cost)
    Sep 7, 2012

    Screen shot 2012-09-06 at 9.21.49 AM.png

    Context Driven Testing


    Following his link, I find the page on Context Driven Testing.

    I have not fully checked out the content (I’m coaching in Chicago today) so I thought I’d leave this as a…



    Sep 6, 2012
     

    Guess what? You’re probably a pretty good performer.

    Still, there are guys out there who can do what you do a little better, faster, or easier.

    What are you going to do?

    Sep 5, 2012
     

    A Round Of Questions

    Please consider the same simple exercise with an existing team, and drop me a comment to let me know what question you asked, what the answer taught you, and how the…


    Sep 4, 2012
     

    Corporate IT is Often a Jerkwater Town

    Some companies have wonderful, helpful, capable IT organizations. They are current with modern operating systems, networking, file sharing, caching and proxying, security…


























    Jun 6, 2012
     

    Flash A Friend

    Over at Agile In A Flash blog, Jeff and I have announced a new contest called “Flash A Friend.”

    You can win one deck for yourself, and another for a needy party you nominate.
    …


    Jun 5, 2012
     

    A Process For Naming Tests

    agileinaflash
    naming
    testing

    When pressed, he told us that he felt that we should always understand the work we are going to do before we start it, so the names should be obvious. This was the primary…













    May 16, 2012
     

    TDD for C++ Programmers

    It’s official.

    Your Agile Otter has joined forces with Jeff Langr again, and we will be producing a new Pragmatic Programmers project.  This time it’s really a book, not a…


    May 12, 2012
     

    Unfair advantages

    In my agile training classes, I run an experiment wherein people try to estimate and deliver work in a very short time box. I typically run three iterations, so teams can…
    May 3, 2012
     

    Agile In A Flash - Bias toward testing


    I was surprised to find that Jeff and I have been talking so much about testing over at Agile In A Flash.

    Jeff and I are quite emphatic about the importance of TDD and…










    Apr 25, 2012
     

    Rewards and Performance Revisit

    evaluations
    Demotivators
    enterprise
    change
    Esther Derby
    dysfunction
    incentives
    management
    performance reviews
    ranking
    performance management
    team-based work
  • Daniel Pink suggests killing your performance ratings.
  • InfoQ balanced comments pro and con individual rewards.
  • Peter Scholtes says reviews are ineffective, even harmful…
  • Apr 18, 2012
     

    Retrospectives: What was that about hats, again?

    attentive work
    becoming
    learning organization
    guided experience
    affective style
    retrospective
    extreme feedback
    agile
    information radiators


    The Pythons struck a fairly deep chord in me with this humorous indictment of human (and particularly American) shallowness.

    Agile methods are anchored in empirical Inspec…





    Apr 16, 2012

    clown-fish-tropical-fish.jpeg

    Fish Among Kangaroos: A Leadership Failure Tale

    rant
    mindset
    becoming
    meddling
    Motivation
    learning organization
    Demotivators
    change
    respect
    The fish, increasingly frustrated, tried all manner of convincing argument. He tried to explain that their way of life would never free them from the solid ground (a mere…

    Apr 9, 2012

    Screen shot 2012-03-27 at 8.52.50 AM.png

    Really TDD-ing: Less simple than you think

    microtests
    coding
    teams
    software
    refactoring
    technical practices
    tdd
    enterprise
    agile
    distributed version control
    TDD is a pretty simple system, as popularly described.  For an individual doing a kata or playing with some example code it is really just three steps. On card #44 of AgileI…
    Apr 2, 2012
     

    The Power of an Agile Mindset

    seeming
    Linda Rising
    mindset
    becoming
    affective style
    learning
    being
    self improvement
    respect
    dysfunction
    fears
    failure
    agile
    Linda takes us from a negative to a positive affective style, from a posture of seeming or being to one of becoming.  There is just so much to know and understand here.



    If…



    Mar 30, 2012
     

    Empathy and Experience: Coaching

    context
    weinberg
    agile coach
    present-tense
    pickle

    Mar 22, 2012

    Screen shot 2012-03-20 at 4.48.49 PM.png

    Seem, Be, Become - Choose a path.


    Mar 21, 2012

    Chicken.png

    Chickens with a Pig Complex?

    chicken
    teams
    software
    teamwork
    management
    roles
    scrum
    agile
    pig
    Mar 20, 2012
     

    Evil? You tell me?

    This just in from the put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is department:

    Bob M. hung out a blog post describing the evil that is agile coaching. I didn’t recognize myself in…







    Mar 15, 2012
     

    Affording Agile (Emotionally)

    pair programming
    daunted
    learning organization
    Demotivators
    skill development
    agile coach
    clean code
    agile
    cooperation.
    been
    Mar 13, 2012
     

    Why not C++ all the time?


    Jan 19, 2012
     

    Join Fresh Start Week 2012

    Soon we’ll be on the other side of Christmas and starting a new year.

    How about for the first week of January we try doing without copy-and-edit programming. What would…







    Dec 6, 2011
     

    Single-Return, AKA: Elephant-proofing your bathtub


    Dec 2, 2011
     

    Performance Appraisal Time?


    Dec 1, 2011

    PracticePreservationVenn.png

    Preserving Wasteful Practices


    Habit is powerful.

    • People who place symbolic value on the wasteful practice
    • People who have built a reputation on the wasteful practice
    • People who find…



    Nov 18, 2011

    IMG_20110909_110510.jpg

    If We Had Done The Right Thing To Begin With


    Architectural decisions are hard to make once-for-all in a system where functionality and platform and development practices change fluidly. A good choice of language…

    Oct 28, 2011
     

    What should the well-dressed virtualenv wear?

    What do you feel a well-dressed virtualenv should wear this season?
    Oct 26, 2011
     

    Mercurial team workflow


    This looks fine if you only spend a few minutes in the 2-3-2-3 loop. On the other hand, if you’re in a very busy team and there are refactorings going on (and when…




    Oct 5, 2011

    PuzzleWorkstyleKey.jpg

    The First Puzzle Challenge

    attentive work
    development
    teams
    multitasking
    retrospective
    agile coach
    feedback
    learning organization
    guided experience
    teamwork
    agile
    tasks

    The goal of the challenge was for each team to pick a work style that aided them in getting the greatest number of puzzles completed in a very short time (10 minutes per…
    Oct 4, 2011
     

    Python History Visualized



    code_swarm - Python from Michael Ogawa on Vimeo.


    Sep 30, 2011
     

    Lean Startup and Efficiency



    Ries, Eric (2011-09-13). The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses (p. 19). Crown Business. Kindle…

    Sep 27, 2011
     

    Linus Torvalds Management Lessons

    management
    tools
    linux
    Torvalds concludes, “Way too many projects seem to think that the code is more important than the user, and they break things left and right, and they don’t apologize for…
    Sep 27, 2011
     

    Agile Coaching Camp wrapup

    accus
    agile coach
    Coaching Camp
    agile in a flash
    I had two sessions, one each in the first and last timeslots of the day.
    Sep 26, 2011
     

    Agile Coach Camp U.S. - Saturday (#accus)

    crispin
    agile coach camp
    agile coach
    agile
    dinwiddie
    columbus
    I missed the Friday session. I worked a full day in Des Moines and then drove 11 hours (and into an earlier time zone) overnight. I only arrived this morning at about 4:30…






















    Sep 24, 2011
     

    The Build is Broken, Now What?

    continuous integration
    teamwork
    build
    version control
    testing
    agile
    cooperation.

    We have installed annunciators for teams. Sometimes they are flashing lights, sometimes a glowing orb, sometimes speakers playing a particular noise, sometimes it’s just a…







    Sep 21, 2011
     

    Pycon: Examples of Atrocity in Python Programming

    python
    clean code
    failure
    programming
    naming
    A nice discussion about things that should not be done in Python code, but frequently are.
    Sep 16, 2011

    Annunciator.jpg

    Ambient Annunciators

    continuous integration
    attentive work
    tim ottinger
    extreme feedback
    information radiators
    feedback
    jim hood
    build
    jenkins
    ambient annunciator
    programming
    informative workspace

    Our intention is that these sounds, playing through a decent set of speakers, will create an atmosphere of something being “not quite right.” With both systems playing test…

    Sep 15, 2011

    Screen shot 2011-09-13 at 9.20.23 PM.png

    How Do Scrum Masters Know?

    feedback
    scrum
    scrum masters
    agile
    Overall, not a bad list. Your thoughts?
    Sep 14, 2011
     

    Learning from bad examples

    python
    failure
    clean code
    error
    programming
    duplication
    I saw this in a python tutorial today:
    Sep 13, 2011

    Snap3.jpg

    Scrum Master Duties

    development
    agile
    scrum master
    tasks
    Sep 12, 2011
     

    You Cannot Possibly Do TDD after Coding

    rant
    teamwork
    tdd
    testing
    agile
    programming
    Just for the record: it is flat out impossible to “do the tdd” after the code is finished. This is just a matter of definition.

    You can write tests after the code is…











    Sep 6, 2011
     

    Poop: The Refactoring Method

    clean code
    refactoring poop method comment cleanup
    getting things done
    fear

    If I don’t know what to call a method or test initially, the word ‘poop’ reminds me that I need to revisit that code and determine why it is hard to name. 

    Usually…



    Aug 30, 2011
     

    Agile2011 Day 4

    This was a wonderful, long, crazy day.

    I woke up with a meditation on my mind. I was feeling calm, happy, centered. Morning routine was a breeze, and the walking route to…













    Aug 12, 2011
     

    Agile2011 Day 3

    I just can’t get it in my head this was Wednesday.  I’m very tired.  I’m an introvert, you know, and we draw energy from alone time or time with a small number of close…

















    Aug 11, 2011
     

    Free, Cheap, Scheduled: retrospective technique

    schedule
    learning organization
    scheduled
    change
    retrospective
    scrum
    agile
    free
    cheap

    The team put changes into the correct buckets, and we picked the ones they felt that they had the energy to work on. The scrum master took the task of moving the…




    Aug 11, 2011
     

    Pairing Styles

    pair programming
    teamwork
    scrum
    objections
    agile
    programming
    Peer pairing is about two people who know what they are doing, who have skills, who are not stuck or lost or confused, designing and implementing ideas as fast as they can.…








    Aug 10, 2011
     

    Agile2011 Day 2

    A lot of today was spent in the Coaches’ Corner, where several more convention-goers were served with expert advice.

    I spent a chunk of my “alone time” today working on my…










    Aug 10, 2011
     

    Agile2011 Day 1

    This has been a very good day.  I was able to staff the Coaches’ Corner and visit with other coaches when we weren’t engaged with convention-goers.  I enjoy the interaction…










    Aug 9, 2011
     

    Leadership

    I’m doing some reading and some experiencing, keeping my eyes open for the concept of leadership.

    One can see leadership as a combination of visibility and confidence.…









    Aug 1, 2011
     

    Fun with Squish and Python

    At my current gig, we are using Squish to test a new QT-based GUI app. It’s been a hoot. Squish is frameworks, eclipse, and python. Oh, yes, squishy yummy python.

    To start…











    Jul 19, 2011
     

    Microtesting Python Album

    microtests
    python
    guided experience
    tdd
    eLearning
    programming
    I’m working with Industrial Logic’s newest Python album on microtesting (not yet released) and was lucky enough to get to test out the automated critique.

    So the way this…









    Jun 28, 2011
     

    Short Reach Revived

    yesterdays weather
    techniques
    short reach
    agile
    practices
    iterations
    This first appeared on the Object Mentor blog in 2007, but I had to get a cached copy from google to reread it. I’m reviving it here so we don’t lose it forever. I think it…
    Jun 21, 2011
     

    Get Back On Track

  • Things can get you down, so you need to borrow energy from others.  Try user groups, pairing, friends, fun programming exercises. 
  • Quit thinking you should be able to do…
  • May 19, 2011
     

    GOing to Software Craftsmanship McHenry County

    I was a little overwhelmed with how slowly I’m absorbing information, especially while dealing with household issues (like gas fumes from garage and flooding in basement) on…









    May 18, 2011
     

    Chicago Code Camp 2011

      with Damien Tanner (
    May 16, 2011
     

    Agile Coaching Stories


    May 10, 2011
     

    Adhesion Example

    A while back, Glenn Vanderburg wrote an article about software cohesion v. software adhesion. Today I got a great example of adhesion.

    We are starting our second year in…













    May 8, 2011
     

    Organizing Stepwise Considered Harmful


    May 6, 2011
     

    Why Not?

    I have officially declared 2011 the year of “Why not?”

    I don’t mean “why not” in the sense of doing anything possible without thinking about it. I’m actually thinking it is…





    May 3, 2011
     

    Java’s Greatest Hits And Misses

    If you were mentoring someone who is pretty new in java, you would surely tell them about JUnit and your favorite mocking framework and the language grammar. However, you…

    Apr 21, 2011
     

    “Managing” Velocity

    faster development
    teams
    sprints
    velocity
    agile
    speed
    The term velocity is very well-chosen. It means speed in a certain direction, with the intention that it refers to the teams rate of travel toward a product release.  I…




































    Apr 9, 2011
     

    My OSS Software (inventory)

    What I need to replace when I get the new machine:

    Chrome, Firefox, Midori: Browsers - usually two or more open at one time.
    gvim, git, svn, poor ole’ cvs: Essentials for…










    Apr 4, 2011
     

    Overtime on Agile Teams?

  • “Predicating project plans on constant overtime is a bad idea.” 
  • “Agile requires whole people.”
  • “Overtime is for bumps.”
  • “You have to ask if your overtime is hiding…
    • Apr 4, 2011
     

    Sell Me A Computer?


    I know that’s not the normal set of questions, but that’s why I’m so much fun to shop with.

    I’ve had great luck with Thinkpads and my Asus EEE PC is just wonderful with…









    Apr 2, 2011
     

    Fun times in Honeymoon Mode

    I started the new job at Industrial Logic. In addition to receiving online training from my peers here, I’m getting into the source code of our products (some cool stuff in…



    Mar 31, 2011
     

    Industrial Logic

    Your agile otter has joined Industrial Logic. We have so much in common that it didn’t make sense not to join forces. I will be neck deep in products, courseware, metrics…
    Mar 25, 2011
     

    Uncle Bob’s Clean Code Video

    The latest Clean Coders video by Uncle Bob Martin covers Chapter 2 of the book Clean Code. This is a chapter that is near to my heart, since it bears my name and Uncle Bob…

    Mar 19, 2011

    IMG_0025.JPG

    Agile And Beyond Party

    Here is the table from Agile And Beyond last weekend. There are a few interesting features here. You can see the cool phones, the notebooks, the Agile In A Flash cards being…





    Mar 16, 2011
     

    Make the Retrospective Effective


    This triage system worked, and for the next several months we had items in all three categories.

    No retrospective technique I’ve found will be able to single-handedly…

    Mar 16, 2011
     

    Stop hating on the command line

    Let’s begin with this simple assertion: command.com sucks. It has always sucked, and always will. Powershell might be nicer, but most people haven’t learned how to use it…



















    Mar 9, 2011
     

    Python for Everyone At My House

    I started teaching my youngest son python years ago. I started him with the turtle package and he drew circles, lines, and squares. He had a great time doing things like…





    Mar 8, 2011
     

    A Fun Teamwork Experiment


    We would count finished puzzles once per minute per team. We would let the experiment continue until one of the teams finishes its set of puzzles.

    Publish the findings…

    Mar 5, 2011
     

    Stepping up Django Efforts

    Today we stepped it up a bit. Jeff Langr and I worked on our little project (shhh! it’s a secret) and spent much of the day in django learning to test things. It cured a…









    Mar 4, 2011
     

    Regaining Humility and Thereby Sanity

    I got too big for my britches last week and was feeling kinda saucy. I figured that having read a tutorial some time ago should be enough for a smart guy like me, so I…













    Mar 2, 2011

    2011-03-01-092354.jpg

    COTW: Build Superior Systems With Simple Design

    Our Card Of The Week from AgileInAFlash is #41

    The original article is at the Agile In A Flash blog, and has slightly different wording. We adopted the phrasing from c2.com’…









    Mar 1, 2011

    THINK.png

    Easy flowchart for communicators


    I know it’s simple, but why should it not be? Even simple things are hard.

    Reminder to self: don’t skip three out of four boxes.
    Feb 23, 2011
     

    Grandpa Tim Tells A Scary Story

    “Grandpa Tim, tell us about the old days.”

    Grandpa Tim set aside his reading glasses and programming text. “Are you sure, children? It’s nearly bed time. Maybe a story…






























































    Feb 21, 2011
     

    Agile Otter Receives Love

     I thank you for the kind words. The Linked-in recommendations are always appreciated and always useful.  Hopefully we can add in a few recommendations for the books as well.
    Feb 18, 2011
     

    Self-Promotion and Resume-writing

    If my former CIO says this about me (as one indeed did, word-for-word), it sounds positively inspiring. But imagine I was sitting down with you, and said the same things…



    Feb 16, 2011
     

    The Wicks

    The question asked was what is the best we can do, then? I suggest that every programming team that isn’t burning brightly needs a few burning wicks added. This infusion of…







    Feb 14, 2011
     

    4 Questions Film Project

    What would you say given only 60 seconds to answer: 
    Feb 10, 2011
     

    World’s Shortest Agile Summary

    summary
    elegance
    ottinger
    concise
    levinson
    agile
    dinwiddie
  • Do small things supremely well, and let them add up to large things.
  • Use feedback to steer to the results you want.
  • Defeat problems with teamwork.
  • Maintain an even…
    • Feb 3, 2011

    IMG_0006.JPG

    The Great Giveaway Begins

    meetings
    free
    chicago
    agile in a flash
    user groups
    They’re here!

    Now that I have extra decks of Agile In A Flash,  I want to give them away in person as a door prize or in a contest of some sort.  The problem is that I’m…



    Feb 3, 2011
     

    Discoveries of the Week

    This week I made some social networking advancements and started to build a few other new skills.

    The first is Tweet Feed which is likely responsible for you seeing this…













    Jan 28, 2011
     

    Pairing, Competence, and Recognition

    evaluations
    skill development
    unequal
    objections
    learning
    self improvement
    respect
    fears
    feedback
    pair programming
    teamwork
    rockstars
    agile
    It’s a common thread in agile transitions that people are not sure what pairing, teamwork, and self-organization will do to their status on the team. Will the team be so…







































    Jan 28, 2011
     

    One Video Wrapped Up

    I have our first video finished.  Notice how my face never appeared.  I’m going to have to get used to hearing my voice on these, maybe I’ll do the full-frontal face thing…
    Jan 25, 2011
     

    Remote Pairing Matters

    The one thing I haven’t said about my time as a remote pair programmer is that remote pair programming is a brilliant idea and it matters. The reason I didn’t mention it…















    Jan 20, 2011
     

    Django Unit Test Hobby

    I have played with Django, but never really did any work in it. Even my toy app died before I got to a “good working model” state with it, because I did not maintain focus…









    Jan 20, 2011
     

    Agile In A Flash

  • Prag Prog
  • Amazon
  • O’Reilly
  • Borders
  • Buy.Com
  • Deep Discount
  • E Campus
    • Jan 20, 2011
     

    Observation on Growing Disconnected

    People, software, and organizations often grow in this way: they accumulate without assimilating, and aggregate without integrating. As a result, they tend to be…





    Jan 15, 2011
     

    Reflecting on Being Employed as a Remote Pair Programmer

    Being a telecommuter or remote team member is considered a pretty sweet deal and is recognized as a more “green” way of working. Remotes don’t share illnesses with their…



















    Jan 15, 2011
     

    Software Talent Agency?

    I had some thoughts cross my mind today, and wanted to write them down before they fade.

    I’m of some reputation in the agile community, a sometimes-recognized author, a…

















    Jan 13, 2011

    TheIdea.png

    About “Under Test”

    Jan 7, 2011
     

    Want Your Own Agile Otter?

    Jan 5, 2011
     

    Explaining What I Do For A Living


    I think it is a great answer. We don’t type for a living, we understand, reason, mentally try different solutions, hypothesize, disprove, reason, and invent. If we already…











    Dec 28, 2010
     

    Where’s Tim

    I’ve been quite busy of late, partly with holiday season, partly with medical matters (wife’s ankle surgery), partly with church, partly with Agile In A Flash, and partly…







    Dec 13, 2010
     

    Under Test

    Today I was thinking about the phrase “under test” as in “we’ve got to get this code under test so we can fix it.”


    I started of thinking about the way the app we were…


























    Nov 4, 2010
     

    C# Curiously Nested Production Class


    So here we have the derived class nested in its base class. I am quite comfortable with nested anythings in python or a few other languages, so that’s not a problem. I nest…









    Oct 12, 2010
     

    Heatmap: The new hotness

    Oct 9, 2010
     

    Explaining Refactoring


    Of course the product manager is right about the risk of large-scale refactorings and also about the lack of end-user value from effective efforts. What is missing is an…

















    Oct 9, 2010
     

    Tests Are Code

    I write an automated acceptance test (AT) and I find that I would like to perform certain actions against the business objects.  I create a method on the business objects…





    Oct 1, 2010
     

    Pair Switching Degrades over Time

    I’d like to open this up to a larger conversation with agile and becoming-agile and surviving-as-non-agilist-on-agile-team people.  Why is it that you don’t want to switch…
    Sep 10, 2010
     

    Where is the Agile Otter?

    I’ve been developing new skills, and working with Jeff on the AgileInAFlash project.

    What’s new? Our latest article for Pragmatic Programmers.
    Sep 1, 2010
     

    Copy And Edit Revisited

    Everything I said about the evils of copying code still stand.  If you copy a block of code, you are probably going to screw over your whole development organization a…
    Jul 16, 2010
     

    Stop Playing Catch And Release In Quadrant 4.



    Quadrant 1 (tested, perfect) code is as good as it gets. Q1 code is blameless. Though the system around it may misbehave and cause ill effects, Q1 code does the best…













    Jul 9, 2010
     

    Two Year In, Looking for the Goodies

    This week I wrote a useful utility and taught some Python to a peer, attended a really great work session and a rough estimating session. I did some WIP management…

























    Jun 25, 2010
     

    Do You Want Us To Think Or Not?

    To make software, you need people who are skilled, creative, quick-learning, thoughtful, and engaged. You might be able to skimp on ‘skilled’ if the rest of your team…












    Jun 23, 2010
     

    Only Quality Matters

    If your code doesn’t really work, then it doesn’t matter how quickly you wrote it.

    Abandoning quality in pursuit of speed is a fool’s errand. It has been discussed plenty…











    Jun 18, 2010
     

    Meddling, Oversight, and Agile, Oh My!

    agile coach
    oversight
    meddling
    failure
    agile manager
    My experience is that the less well a team has done in the past,
    the more oversight is piled on, and that oversight reaches higher
    and higher levels. There really is no…

























    Jun 18, 2010
     

    Software Like Building A House

    1. If it takes six months to build a house, then 85 percent of the time is spent on two activities: waiting on the next trade to show up and fixing mistakes.

    2. Clemson’s…






    Jun 15, 2010
     

    Your Reward System Doesn’t Work

    Presented in the most pleasant way possible, by Daniel Pink & friends:




    The whole “purpose maximizers” thing gives me hope in ways that “enlightened self interest” never…
    Jun 10, 2010
     

    Mocking Done Badly

    I do have to wonder if they have any real value other than cementing the code’s current implementation into the test suite.  If we extract a method or inline a method, I…




    May 11, 2010
     

    Making Stuff is Making Stuff

    On the television as I type this is a show called “Amazing Wedding Cakes”, which is unsurprisingly about cake making. In the current episode a bride has ordered 190…











    May 2, 2010
     

    Linear and Radial Progress: Take The Next Step

    code virtues
    the next step
    linear
    craftsmen
    code
    great teams
    habitability
    refactor
    radial
    refactoring
    clean code
    agile
    Today we didn’t make a lot of linear progress

    I think of quality in two ways.  One is the product quality that users perceive, and the other is the habitability of the…
    Apr 29, 2010
     

    Accept changes, not interruptions.

    Change In A Change-Resistant Culture
    Apr 28, 2010
     

    Be Careful What You Fix



    I know that’s silly, but I am recreating from an old memory, and I remember the code having some silly uses of null & the like.

    I remember noticing right away that if a…















    Apr 16, 2010
     

    Full Test Access With Data Hiding for Production

    I’m talking to users of statically-typed languages today. Functional and dynamic language people, cut them some slack and realize I’m not talking to you.

    Breaking with…































    Mar 19, 2010
     

    Even simplified, it can be daunting

    SOLID design
    FIRST-rate tests
    Virtuous code

    I understand the “just get it done mindset” because there is a lot of learning, thinking, and doing behind those three simple links.…









    Mar 12, 2010
     

    When The Test Goes Green


    DateTime date = DateTime.Parse(datestring);
    Mar 10, 2010
     

    Motivational Speech

    Motivation
    speech
    skill
    leadership
    My problem is with the absurdist version of the story: the mythical team that is filled with execution issues, poor teamwork, low degree of individual skill, and an enemy…

    Mar 8, 2010
     

    Code is not a Car

    If a man was to borrow his his boss’ car, drive it hard, fast and carelessly, and then return it with the interior filthy and ripped up, he would probably get fired (or be…

    Mar 4, 2010
     

    Career Pathing?

    Realize hat the author claims to have no special HR savvy other than having been a human resource for going on 31 years as of this writing. From his viewpoint, the career…
    Feb 27, 2010
     

    The snowball

    So Scott and I are pair-programming, when we realize that there is code in our test setup that ought to be in the model. We look and find that it’s not, but it is duplicated…

























    Feb 25, 2010
     

    Survey Frustrations

    Via AgileVoices, I found a a survey that asks all the wrong questions.

    On the first page, it asked me for my role in the agile team. I selected “other” and typed “member”…







    Feb 24, 2010
     

    Simple V. Clear V. Easy V. Primitive

    If we work in agile teams our goal is to always build a future in which programming is easier, faster, and cleaner. To respond quickly to changes, we must be able to read…
    Feb 22, 2010
     

    The Problem Of Copying


    Feb 9, 2010
     

    Name it Badly

    If you cannot name something well, then please name it appallingly badly. No, this is not a joke about the iPad.

    When I am stuck for a name, the problem usually not my…

















    Jan 28, 2010
     

    Code #region considered harmful

    I simply hate #regions. Apparently I’m not alone.

    In C#, a bit of code surrounded in #region…#endregion markers is folded shut by any decent IDE. The code becomes invisible…





    Jan 28, 2010
     

    Easy to Use

    I’m working in multiple tools and languages lately. It set me to thinking about what makes one better or worse than another. About the same time, I see a lot of mentions of…



















    Dec 31, 2009
     

    Pauses

    Update
    Dec 14, 2009
     

    A Waste Of Vertical Space



    I think we gain readability by deleting 15 lines of fluff and reducing the namespace pollution by half. The operations group more naturally, so I don’t have to remember to…



    Dec 4, 2009
     

    Tech Upgrades for The New Year

    I am replacing my old, dying laptop with a NoteBook (ASUS Eee PC 1005MA) but that’s not what I’m talking about here.

    I need to upgrade my tech skills. It is time for me to go…





    Dec 4, 2009
     

    Gratuitous Context

    I have been working on code that oscillates between cryptic abbreviations and absurdly long names in functions. Sadly, I cannot reproduce it here for you, or I would. The…













    Nov 17, 2009
     

    Factors Driving Naming

    code that is hard/slow to understand is hard/slow to change reliably
    Oct 23, 2009
     

    Code That Makes You Feel Good

    There are clever code constructs in the world. Some of them are quite useful in the right circumstances. Some, like Duff’s device or the Curiously Recurring Template Pattern …















    Oct 20, 2009
     

    Sorry Way to do Business

    I have been thinking a lot about Esther Derby’s work on performance assessments and wanted to jot this down.

    Competition is a good thing when it pushes people forward, but…







    Oct 14, 2009
     

    The Fast Food Chicken Dilemma



    Let’s say you are working in a fast-food restaurant that is attempting to keep up with Chick-Fil-A and KFC and Brown’s Fried Chicken. Speed and quality are important, but…











    Oct 6, 2009
     

    Define Leadership for Me

    @marick
    Oct 3, 2009
     

    Tragedy of the Doubtful Solution


    Straighten out the begin/end so you don’t need a Cartesian explosion of if statements, and then look at the ranges. When either range ends before the other starts, there is…





























    Sep 29, 2009

    The main thing you need to know:


    (kudos to Cory Haines who, I think, owns the image).
    Sep 25, 2009
     

    The Elusive Code Quality Argument


    If some programmers can’t tell clean code from messy code, most managers cannot tell, and most sales and product people can’t tell, and if the benefits of refactoring trail…



    Sep 22, 2009
     

    Software is not to blame


    See the rest of the content at Six Dirty Tricks at ZDNet. The context is in dirty tricks pulled by vendors that cause software engagements to fail (perhaps in a profitable…

    Sep 10, 2009
     

    Becoming More Useful

    This is an article about writing articles.

    I get to relearn lessons from time to time. An example is the discussion that went on behind the scenes while producing the Stop…













    Sep 10, 2009
     

    Reports from the Field

    A friend of mine told me that his company is doing an agile project for integrating some systems. They’ve already had a few deployments, and their bug count is below 1/10th…
    Sep 8, 2009
     

    Trainwreck Removal


    Astute readers will realize that this is the Law of Demeter at work.

    Advanced students may note that the public method is in the wrong class now. It doesn’t use any local…

    Sep 8, 2009
     

    Definition of Expert

    An expert knows three things of great value:

    1) What all the mistakes look like.
    2) That they are mistakes.
    3) That you don’t have to make them.
    Sep 4, 2009
     



    Now the interesting questions are what you would do, and what your development manager would like you to do, and what the Customer would like you to do. Discuss among…
    Aug 31, 2009
     

    Agile is a Management Trick



    Historically, none is strictly true. But I think they’re all true. I will welcome your feedback, as always.
    Aug 31, 2009
     

    Long and Short of Naming


    Aug 29, 2009
     

    Backsliding From Agile to Waterfall

    This is the place for you to regale me with stories of backslides . I am interested in how it happened as well as your guesses as to why. Is agile too counterintuitive? Does…

    Aug 29, 2009
     

    40 Hours is Unprofessional


    Does that cover it?
    Aug 27, 2009
     

    The Bottom Of The V?

    It is backlog management. Everyone is talking about “value” and “maximizing the work not done” and “minimal marketable features” and “prioritizing.”

    I’ve been thinking for…





















    Aug 25, 2009
     

    Platitudes Of Doom

    delivery
    working harder
    faster
    Motivation
    productivity
    pressure
    Here’s where I suspect things go wrong. I see a combination of two ideas at the core of a lot of corporate dysfunction.

    1. I can want things faster than you can build them.

      2. …




































    Aug 25, 2009
     

    Avoiding Negative Tim

    It’s not just a good idea for you, it’s a better idea for me.

    I admit to being a little run down from my last nine days of activity (college for son, travel, etc) and also…







    Aug 25, 2009
     

    Going Faster

    It seems obvious that you can go faster if you take longer strides and cut corners.
    In software, this is very much false.
    Be advised.
    Aug 21, 2009
     

    How Big is a Story Point?

    Noob asks: “How much is a story point?”

    Master looks on card wall, says: “We do 16 each week.”

    Noob asks: “But how much work is it?”

    Master says: “One sixteenth of a week right…

    Aug 18, 2009
     

    Don’t Geocache Your Variables


    Coupling is not so good because it frustrates testing and refactoring. The places where a change is made and where the change causes a failure are not very close together.…









    Aug 18, 2009
     

    Odd Function Signature



    Notice anything funny? A setter method that takes no parameters, so there’s nothing to set, and returns a list of some sort. Hmmm… Did the author mean “GetSomeAttribute”…





    Aug 15, 2009
     

    Beany Objects and Busy Code-Behinds



    If we violate the first two rules, we necessarily violate the final rule, or cause it to be violated by our peers. If they cannot find or cannot separate the code they want…









    Aug 15, 2009
     

    Beany Classes and Busy Methods

    You know you’re in trouble in hardly more than a glance. All the methods are long and busy, and do their work data members of other classes… other classes without any…



    Aug 10, 2009
     

    Any Road To Rome is Also A Road From Rome

    I’m back (with my partner) working on the same stinky stuff I blogged about earlier. That code all made it back to the main codeline where we can refactor it but we had to…

















    Aug 6, 2009
     

    A Good Windows Experience?

    I have had at least two people tell me that windows works very smoothly for them, and that it handles whatever they need to do with it. I’ve been programming since long…





    Jul 31, 2009
     

    Naming or Comment Fail?


    // Adds Sessions which fit in specified date-time range
    private void ReadSessions() {
    </pre
    Jul 22, 2009
     

    The U Controversy

    clean code
    agile
    teamwork
    naming
    It is a tempest in a teakettle, to be sure, but among the points of friction and discovery today was one about the use of the letter ‘u’ as a variable name. The case in…





















    

    

    

    


    
Jul 9, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Code Perturbation and Extensive Branch Mods

    

    


    clean code
    


    refactoring
    


    branching
    


    version control
    


    perturbation
    


    

    

Balance these facts:


    

    

    


    
Jun 29, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Anti-IF Campaign

    

    


    

    

    

    

    

    


    
Jun 25, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Not Fitting In An Iteration

    

    


    

    

… one man’s fuzzy boundaries are another man’s flexible solution …


    

    

    


    
Jun 19, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
SVN fail most sighted

    

    


    

    


    Now, how is it a conflict that I added a line of code and trunk didn’t? I will freely admit that the diffing stuff is very smart and not very easy. I want to cut a lot of…

    

    

    


    
Jun 19, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
svn and patches don’t mix

    

    


    

    

    I only mention this because I’ve had a recent hiney bite in the combination of patch and svn.

    

    

    


    
Jun 19, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Preferences On Code Style

    

    


    

    
Those things help me. How can I make my code more pleasant for you?

    

    

    


    
Jun 19, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


    


    

    

    
Culture of Blame

    

    


    

    
Sometimes you read an article and realize, “Hey! I’ve been there!”. I was following some tweets the other day and was directed to an article on The Blame Game, which…




    

    

    

    


    
Jun 16, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
My Story Board is The Same As Yours!

    

    


    

    
I saw a recent article describing one team’s use of a Story board. I mention it here, because it’s the same way I’ve set up the last two. Love it or hate it, it’s also what…

    

    

    


    
Jun 3, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Symmetry and Simplicity on a Monday

    

    


    

    
I just watched an Ira Glass video about taste and sticking with your work, and practicing. Of course, any attempt to compare myself to Glass will end in disappointment for me.

    …















    

    

    

    


    
Jun 2, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Customer/Vendor Relationship outside of IT

    

    


    

    




    

    

    


    
Jun 2, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Because the biggest single determinant in today’s production is the quality of yesterday’s production.

    

    


    

    
Mike Hill discusses How TDD and Pairing Increase Production, and he is right. 

    Today, two of us have been working, and have made progress, but the reality of the situation is…

    

    

    

    


    
May 26, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Top-down/Bottom-up

    

    


    

    
I always find I do a better job if I top-down my tdd work. I have a good context, goals are clearer, and the strategy doesn’t get lost in the tactical work. It’s such a good…







    

    

    

    


    
May 7, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Esther Derby Promotes Plain, Honest Speaking

    

    


    

    
She (rightfully) hates the sandwich technique, where you build your criticism into a protective fog, to keep your colleague from feeling like you have criticized him. Which…





    

    

    

    


    
May 7, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
XP Born in Frustration

    

    


    

    

    I guess sometimes it’s good to be ‘fired’ from a gig. I bet he’s happier now than he would ever have been there. This is the kind of moral tale that makes history so engaging.

    

    

    


    
May 1, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Whiteboard

    

    


    

    
A friend just pointed me to twiddla as an online whiteboard for remote collaboration between friends and colleagues. I diverted a little time from work and went there this…

    

    

    


    
May 1, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Another C word (Convenience)

    

    


    

    


    I have fallen victim to this. Rather than trudge through the code to make something explicit, we looked for the most convenient point of code insertion. Even while my…







    

    

    

    


    
Apr 30, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Velocity

    

    


    

    


    Another purpose of measuring capacity is to improve throughput. If you plan for less than your capacity, you get less done than you could have. If you plan for more than…



    

    

    

    


    
Apr 30, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Rethinking The C Word (clever)

    

    


    

    
When I say “clever” I am referring to misspent ingenuity. It is intelligence gone wrong.

    I don’t know a good word that says “unwanted, wasteful, vulgar ingenuity”. My friend…


















    

    

    

    


    
Apr 27, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Cool TDD Antipatterns Appearance on Stack Overflow

    

    


    

    
There is a cool outgrowth from James Carr’s collaborative paper on TDD Antipatterns. There is a Stack Overflow article where you can vote to determine the most prevalent of…

    

    

    

    


    
Apr 25, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Code Patching in Legacy Messes

    

    


    

    
if

    

    

    


    
Apr 24, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Calculate the cost of a priority mistake

    

    


    

    
If you want an estimate of the cost of making a bad prioritization decision, try this cute little calculator.

    

    

    


    
Apr 24, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
“Clever”

    

    


    

    


    Think about how you would have written this two-bool operation. Laugh with me.

    

    

    


    
Apr 24, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Remote Pairing with YuuGuu

    

    


    pair programming
    


    remote
    


    software
    


    

    
Our office firewall gets in the way of Yuuguu, probably by blocking UDP traffic I’m not sure what the real . Finally a coworker was WFH and we were able to try it. Hey, it…







    

    

    

    


    
Apr 23, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
You Win Some, You Lose Some

    

    


    

    
My talk on remote pairing with Tim Gifford was accepted for Agile 2009. My talk on the In A Flash cards was not. 

    Ah, well, ya don’t win them all. See you for some of the…

    

    

    


    
Apr 23, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Shhhh.. busy!

    

    


    

    
I’m not typing a lot of blog this week. I’m typing more web searches and notes and stuff. I’m learning more about memcachd and tuplespaces and couchdb and DVCS, hanging with…

    

    

    


    
Apr 15, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Remote Pairing Month 3

    

    


    

    
Overall, this is not a bad process. When we’re truly engaged and the bandwidth is good, and we don’t have the same partner too long, it’s a very workable arrangement.…











    

    

    

    


    
Apr 7, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Mercurial Branching

    

    


    

    
It’s easy to do local branching in mercurial. My partner was exploring it for the first time and asked if this was supported in mercurial since it was supported in git. I…














    

    

    

    


    
Mar 31, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Find Users of method through inheritor

    

    


    

    
So you have a method defined on an abstract base class, and you are going be messing with it. Someone decided to hang a deep inheritance hierarchy (deep to me means three…





    

    

    

    


    
Mar 24, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
New Upgrade

    

    


    

    
Today we had a little upgrade to our internet access. We went ahead and moved from Vonage to Comcast for phone service, and included in the upgrade were a few cable channels…









    

    

    

    


    
Mar 24, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Caring About Stupid Stuff

    

    


    

    
A clear sign of a sick workspace is when people care far too much about stupid stuff, as reported at Tech Dark Side by David Christiansen.

    Nicely done.

    

    

    


    
Mar 23, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Contractor or Consultant?

    

    


    

    


    Reference: CIO Matthew Edwards’ blog entry.

    

    

    


    
Mar 23, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
First glance: SPE and TDD

    

    


    

    
SPE is a pretty nice python editor. I’m using Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex’s default version (0.8.4) and have had pretty good results most of the time. It has nice features like…







    

    

    

    


    
Mar 20, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Power Of Naming

    

    


    

    

This is from a moderately recent copy of my Meaningful Names paper, and was translated into Java in the book Clean Code. Here it is in original context with python code…






















    

    

    

    


    
Mar 20, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Article about readability of exception test

    

    


    

    
Readability and exceptions article by Bill Venners is worth a gander. I think his solution is elegant because it’s obvious and terse. I love obvious and terse.

    

    

    


    
Mar 19, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Do the Right Thing and Get It Done

    

    


    

    

    Practice - Corey Haines from 8th Light on Vimeo.

    Looking good, Paul P. 

    Rock on, Corey.

    

    

    


    
Mar 19, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Probably something stupid…

    

    


    

    


    This came about today, because we forgot to put a “virtual” on a method we were mocking. We’ve done this many many dozens of times in the past few weeks, but it’s a manual…









    

    

    

    


    
Mar 19, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Windows wants to reboot

    

    


    

    
Sheesh. I’m trying to participate in a webex conference call, and windows wants to update. Then it wants to reboot. No, no, no. I have to get my cursor back from webex and…

    

    

    

    


    
Mar 19, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Web Cams

    

    


    

    
People told me that eventually Linux would bite me in the butt. I went a long time without that being true, or never being true in any serious way. I figured when it…









    

    

    

    


    
Mar 18, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Prioritization

    

    


    

    
The Ryan Martens article on prioritizing is worth your time. Go read it right now.

    

    

    


    
Mar 13, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Clean Code Clarification

    

    


    

    


    Read on its own, this makes it sound like I (or the editors) think “Manager”, “Processor”, “Data”, and “Info” are verbs. Not so. Just an unwanted effect of editing. This is…












    

    

    

    


    
Mar 12, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Bounce Rates

    

    


    

    
It’s a funny thing, but “bounce rates” at Agile In A Flash make me happy. According to google analytics, the “bounce rate” is the percentage of single-page visits. In the…

    

    

    

    


    
Mar 11, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Remote Pairing Requires Headsets

    

    


    

    
When not in group meetings, remote pairing requires headsets on the in-house side. Otherwise, the voices of the partner tends to be no louder than the voices in the bullpen.…



    

    

    

    


    
Mar 11, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Three Rules for Code Comments

    

    


    

    

     If we believe a comment is necessary, we examine it in the context of the code. Can we apply the Single Truth Rule to make the comment redundant (often via “extract method”…



    

    

    

    


    
Mar 11, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
“called from” boolean variables considered ugly

    

    


    

    

    class EvilPoliticalRobotDouble: Minion {
     ...
     public void runForElection(Person replicatedPerson, bool CalledFromRNC=false) { ... }
    }
    

    

    

    


    
Mar 11, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


    


    

    

    
Networking problem solved

    

    


    

    


    This greeted me this morning with the cheery news that my network is not sick anymore.

    

    

    


    
Mar 9, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Skype today

    

    


    

    
New tip: 

    Skype is more or less half-duplex so noise being picked up by the microphone affects your ability to listen to your remote partner. Adjust your audio settings.…










    

    

    

    


    
Mar 9, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Conference Calls and Remote Team Members

    

    


    

    
Today was a mixed bag. My code was surprisingly more performant than I expected once we moved a save point. The database handled my subselects better than I expected. I…











    

    

    

    


    
Mar 6, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Gizmo5

    

    


    

    
Today we realized that google voice & video was eating my laptop cpu. It’s great, but a bit piggy. By the time you load up resharper, visual stupido and a good sized app…











    

    

    

    


    
Mar 6, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
XCopy still works

    

    


    

    
Just so we all can remember (or find) this later: xcopy in windows has a /Z option to resume in case a file transfer fails. For you WFH types who are stuck in windows, you…

    

    

    


    
Mar 5, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


    


    

    

    
Home Networking

    

    


    

    



    I wish I’d paid more attention to my home network before getting into this. I will continue the home pairing, but I really do need to have this stuff rock-solid.If you want…
    

    

    

    


    
Mar 4, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Continuing remote pairing & SQL testing

    

    


    

    
This week has had a lot of network issues. We’ve temporarily gone voice-only to reduce our bandwidth. We’re screen-sharing and voice chatting and hoping for the best.…









    

    

    

    


    
Mar 3, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Stack Overflow #41

    

    


    

    
Oh, hey! I got a small mention in Stack Overflow Podcast #41. It was a quick mixed reference to my Object Mentor blog entries Curly’s Guide To Software and Outliving the…

    

    

    

    


    
Feb 27, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


    


    

    

    
More Remote Pairing

    

    


    

    
Some days it is a struggle.

    My network disconnected and reconnected a few times. That made me lose my session and have to restart.

    We determined the dark background that looks…
















    

    

    

    


    
Feb 26, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Global Variables

    

    


    

    
Know what I hate about global variables? Besides “everything”, I mean? 

    Seed And Harvest is evil. Globals propagate the seed-and-harvest idea which makes the existence of…

    

    

    


    
Feb 26, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Remote Pairing Day 3

    

    


    

    
Pairing from my house, using my broadband today. Took extra time to get set up, because I didn’t have an office all squared away. Not yet. We’re working on it. Today it’s…









































    

    

    

    


    
Feb 25, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Remote Pairing Day 2

    

    


    

    
I would most love to add “works for Linux or Windows” to that, but that’s not strictly required. I’m doing windows-only this week, and we can run putty or msys for text-mode…























    

    

    

    


    
Feb 24, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Pork Barrel Agile Failure

    

    


    ottinger
    


    pork barrel
    


    stories
    


    gold-plating
    


    overdesign
    


    agile
    


    customer
    


    

    
So here is a failure mode I finally had time to think about. I saw a version of this play out, but here’s the basic idea:

    The Customer doesn’t get as many stories as he’d…









    

    

    

    


    
Feb 18, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Agile via Sound Bites

    

    


    

    
There was a long, multiparty discussion on the XP mailing list recently. A fellow was struggling with some issues about self-managed teams and taking direction from the…







    

    

    

    


    
Feb 18, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Clean code: Writing Functions

    

    


    

    
Uncle Bob writes an awful lot of code. Not all of it is in his Git repository, because he is also a consultant/coach and writes code for his customers. Here he describes the…

    

    

    

    


    
Feb 12, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
The SOLID principles as motivational posters.

    

    


    

    
I want a full set of SOLID motivational posters for every client, employer, and beloved code influence in my life.

    

    

    


    
Feb 12, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
On python not scaling well

    

    


    

    
Yeah, right

    

    

    


    
Feb 9, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Coding your way out of Fear Of Change

    

    


    

    
That’s nice for green-field development, but what about the rest of us?

    If you are already in trouble, you have a long road ahead of you. You should get a copy of Michael…















    

    

    

    


    
Feb 6, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Code Doesn’t Lie

    

    


    python
    


    clean code
    


    pylons
    


    tutorials
    


    programming
    


    

    
I’m learning my way through Pylons, which really is very simple (so far) but the tutorials are all wrong in different ways. Even different versions of the same one. One will…









    

    

    

    


    
Feb 3, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Looking for interesting work

    

    


    

    
I’m currently looking for some interesting work in northeast Illinois or southeastern Wisconsin, or possibly some minimal travel + work-from-home. If you know of some good…

    

    

    

    


    
Feb 2, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Bash coolness

    

    


    clever code
    


    cool
    


    linux
    


    bash
    


    variable replacement
    


    shell programming
    


    expansion
    


    

    


    And of course the coolest version is the \(() operator (AKA: command substitution), which used to be done with ugly backticks. This runs a command and returns the output of…







    

    

    

    


    
Jan 27, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
James Grenning boils it down

    

    


    features
    


    fluid development
    


    elegance
    


    clean code
    


    business value
    


    value
    


    

    
From the XP mailing list, James Grenning has this to offer:

    > There are two values to software
    > 1) Business value delivered
    > 2) Ease at which the next important feature can…

    

    

    


    
Jan 24, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Fear of Changing Code

    

    


    rewrites
    


    refactoring
    


    management
    


    clean code
    


    diffs
    


    technical debt
    


    fear
    


    

    

    This is why managers and indeed whole organizations want to tighten down on development, and demand minimal work though it brings minimal satisfaction. This dissatisfaction…

    

    

    

    


    
Jan 24, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Shameful Confessions from a small Solo Project

    

    


    

    
I had a small task to build a subversion post-commit trigger. I didn’t know my way around the subversion library, and so I started spiking… the old way. I fired up an…





    

    

    

    


    
Jan 20, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    


    

    


    Demotivators
    


    Motivation
    


    teams
    


    Esther Derby
    


    

    
I’m becoming an Esther Derby fan, partly because of her statements about employee motivation and demotivators.. 

    I became acquainted with her work through anagile toolkit…

    

    

    

    


    
Jan 19, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Opposite of Despair…

    

    


    agile
    


    

    
… is “pair”.

    Just had a good pairing session. Our result is small and simple, probably not enough to justify our time if you counted lines of code, but involved lots of…



    

    

    

    


    
Jan 8, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Quick Status

    

    


    

    


  • 
These really seem to be the right high-value things for us to work on.
    

    • 

  • 
Customer involvement is up. Each team has direct contact with the people who will benefit from the…
  • 

    

    

    


    
Jan 8, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
XPairTise problem or am I just being dense?

    

    


    

    
The XPairTise Eclipse plugin is supposed to enable remote pairing, but the server is hard-coded to use “tcp://localhost:61616”. 

    Localhost? How am I supposed to do remote pair…

    

    

    

    


    
Jan 5, 2009

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Quality Rant

    

    


    

    


    

    

    


    
Dec 31, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Put simply

    

    


    

    
What I believe about software development in simple terms:

    If your team will not pair AND test, if your Customer will not prioritize, if your customer and developers will not…




    

    

    

    


    
Dec 29, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Opportunity Cost & Priority

    

    


    

    
If you have a fixed number of resources, then the only way the team can take on a large new story is by not doing an equivalent amount of previously-assigned work. If the…











    

    

    

    


    
Dec 13, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
All Together Now!

    

    


    

    
Today I was in a meeting that made me smile. When I came to this team four months ago (Aug 4th) and took up the agile coach role, I talked about changing how they did ATs.…













    

    

    

    


    
Dec 12, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Raspberry Jam

    

    


    tim ottinger
    


    agile
    


    interruptions
    


    multitasking
    


    raspberry jam
    


    

    

    I find that when I allow myself or my team to be overwhelmed with tasks, we lose all effectiveness to get any of them done. I have vowed to never interrupt a task in…

    

    

    

    


    
Dec 11, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Save Your Project

    

    


    

    
When I see teams in trouble, the hardest things to teach are these. Prioritizing means that you have to declare something more important (or at least more urgent) than…













    

    

    

    


    
Dec 6, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Trickle Effect and Project Publicity

    

    


    

    
I have to be a little worried about the trickle effect, as it was described to me by my Andrew Cohen (boss and mentor) today. Since moving to Agile, the group produces small…













    

    

    

    


    
Dec 5, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Unit Test Ice Breakers

    

    


    

    
Again, this is part of the work being done by myself and Jeff Langr.

    

    

    


    
Dec 2, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
The “D” Word

    

    


    

    
These very simple things can be very difficult, but they are very important and simple nonetheless. When I find myself going wrong, it is because I’ve broken from these…

    

    

    


    
Dec 2, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Where we are.

    

    


    

    
The new team is great. We’ve put some extreme measures in place, but we’re getting some focus on getting real completion. 

    To deal with the huge QA backlog, we have devoted…









    

    

    

    


    
Dec 2, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Doing Python Wrong

    

    


    clever code
    


    python
    


    ugly code
    


    code
    


    clean
    


    

    
Mike Pirnat found a snippet of python code. I can only suppose it was written as a joke. Python is such a readable language left in something approaching a “natural” state.…



    

    

    

    


    
Dec 2, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Python Pimpl Pattern

    

    


    python
    


    pimpl
    


    time
    


    fizzbuzz
    


    strategy
    


    

    
—— NowFunction.py

    

    

    


    
Nov 5, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Extreme Measures

    

    


    

    
Sometimes one has to take some extreme measures to help a team over the hump in their agile transition. It is hard to adjust work habits without having a work environment…


























    

    

    

    


    
Nov 5, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Acceptance Test Qualities

    

    


    

    


    This list is intended as a small set of reminders, so that when one is in the midst of a project, one might find some guidance. Is the test really fit for use as…

























    

    

    

    


    
Nov 4, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Agile Progress and Branching

    

    


    agile
    


    transition
    


    version control
    


    testing
    


    

    
This week, and last, we are doing our work in the release candidate (RC) branch, which will eventually be merged to trunk. We maintain a “stable trunk” system, with the RC…













    

    

    

    


    
Nov 3, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Branching

    

    


    

    
The team I have been working with has been reporting a surprising amount of time on merging forward branches, merging them to a RC, and dealing with merges that were not…















    

    

    

    


    
Oct 20, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
START

    

    


    start
    


    daunted
    


    intimidated
    


    procrastination
    


    getting things done
    


    

    
RandsInRepose writes the best article I’ve seen in a long time. I am also daunted by large tasks, and especially large learning tasks. Even large drudgery tasks can give me…







    

    

    

    


    
Oct 8, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Transformation by Obviating Coping Mechanisms

    

    


    

    
When faced with ugly code I learned a simple pattern. First I would break the code into paragraphs and comment it liberally. Since I hate code that requires comments, my…





    

    

    

    


    
Oct 7, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Branching as a Coping Mechanism

    

    


    agile
    


    priority
    


    branching
    


    version control
    


    dysfunction
    


    

    
Branching is a coping mechanism.

    There is a lot of branching and release-time cherry-picking of features in the commercial software world. It seems to alleviate some pain and…



















    

    

    

    


    
Oct 7, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

    


     
    


    

    

    
Move from ObjectMentor

    

    


    object mentor
    


    xp
    


    tim ottinger
    


    agile coach
    


    agile
    


    textura agile practices
    


    agile manager
    


    

    
On Aug 4, 2008 I moved from Object Mentor where I was an Agile coach and mentor to various companies to Textura where I have been an internal coach and now am managing a…





    

    

    

    


    
Oct 6, 2008

    
    

    

    

    

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