The Archives
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11.06.08The eight hour burnChad Fowler's book "My job went to India" is a must read. One of the chapters that I enjoy is the eight-hour burn. It all started when Extreme Programming introduced the concept that team members should work no more than 40 hour per week. Probably tagged as one of the most controversial practices of XP. Of course! The idea does not go well with Management. How can management accept that programmers are going to leave at 5pm? We have deadlines here! And on the programmer side, going above and beyond and being proud of burning the midnight oil is something that we ...
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10.21.08This team is mine! My precious…They're my programmers, my analysts, they're mine! Mine!! My precious! I hear it sometimes during meetings or casual conversations in the hallway. Scrum masters talking about their team like they are showing off geek blink. The tone of their voice is imperialist. You could tell that they can fix "the hot issue of the day" by commanding their troops to the urgent task; just by waving their hand. Maybe throw a programmer to a different type of work, or change the whole team direction for the rest of the iteration. They act as a proxy to management and play the role of a ...
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10.17.08Adopting Test Driven Development through Performance ReviewsActually, if I back off the TDD subject for a second, how do you motivate people to do their job in a different way? Let's put aside the fact that the "new" way of doing work might be better than the "old" way. Maybe it's just a "different" way with the same results... so, let's find a stupid example. <drama> I work in a burger joint flipping burgers. I have been doing that work for over 10 years, I must like it I guess. I have my techniques down. I could cook you a burger to perfection in no time with my ...
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10.09.08Talking about Agile SmellsEvery couple of months, we host a Book Club meeting. Today was our second meeting. We decided to review the book from Amr Elssamadisy: Patterns of Agile Practice Adoption. We picked it because we are practicing Agile methodologies for a few years now. We were also looking to grow our Book Club participation by not choosing a technical book. Our analysts were not thrilled about choosing Martin Fowler's Refactoring book for our first meeting. Not sure why. So, Patterns of Agile Practice Adoption was an opportunity to evaluate ourselves and take a fresh look at what's next for us. The outcome of ...