The Business Analyst Times has a lot of interesting articles. One was the PM/BA rolled into one thread from Robert K. Wysocki which drew a lot of fire and has six articles so far, with a lot of arguments going back and forth. personally, I believe that the Project Manager and the Business Analyst roles…
Category Archives: Software Development
Small processes – the shell of the tortoise
“…Abraxas says here: `Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed.’” “That can’t be true!” “I think it is. Abraxas says there’s a kind of shellfish that lives in the same way. It makes…
On Trust We Build
(photo from guendal, under CC license.) I have just finished Francis Fukuyama: Trust, plus, as the last two posts shows I have been thinking about teamwork and communication, and I had a few really great conversations with some of my co-workers, and all of these made me think. I have written about how I think…
Black hole project – Part II: “Rugby ball and overcoat”
I took this picture in Paris, at Gare Montparnasse in September. France gave home to the Rugby World Cup in 2007, everything was preparing for the event, and this statue was one of several art pieces all around the city, showing a rugby player and civilians working together as a team. How does it connect…
Black hole project lessons – Part I: “It’s a Babelfish”
The Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier…
The Golden Age of the software industry
Yes, it is. Now. And I don’t mean the technical wonders, the oohs and aahs. I mean the childlike irresponsibility, the protection that not many – or even any – other industry enjoys. Last week a Czech bank (Ceska Sporitelna) lost about 1 million crowns for a software bug. It’s not the first time when…
Some ground rules for books on Project Management
After reading a few books on project management, and before I start reading the new one, Herding Chickens, I decided to lay down some ground rules for them. These will be some basic assumption to keep in mind while I read the practical and real life project management advices. You can’t select your team. You…
Sitting in the lobby
Sitting in the lobby of the hotel, talking. It always amazes me how an actual project can go. I mean, after long months of testing we received the list of “bugs” from the customer. Pretty serious ones, like which label should be moved 2 pixels to the left, that instead of key ‘A’they want to…
Creativity, brainwork and time
Well, who would have guessed. Noise, stress and lack of time will not make people think faster or better, they just tend to find a quick and easy solution and move forward. If you don’t believe, just visit getFreshMinds, and he (she?) gives you some examples, including this study from the Ohio State University. To…
If these ideas are so good…
Reading the book of Tom DeMarco – Slack: Getting past burnout, busywork and the myth of total efficiency. I like these books. Really, I like Peopleware, I like Slack, I like Inmates are running the Asylum. I like all the books where they tell me how good software development could be. One question though: If…