From d6295632f5919298e61e172d6b1070c29ec4c656 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: IanWold Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2023 19:48:34 -0500 Subject: [PATCH 1/9] Make book club article --- Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md | 44 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 44 insertions(+) create mode 100644 Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md diff --git a/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md b/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..30ff462 --- /dev/null +++ b/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ +;;; +{ + "title": "Book Club 11/2023: Agile & Process", + "description": "I've been taking in a lot of ideas about agile, development process, and the SDLC, and I think I now have a mathematical proof that every day is opposite day.", + "date": "24 November 2023", + "contents": false, + "hero": "photo-1672309558498-cfcc89afff25", + "related": [ + { "title": "A Scrum Odyssey", "description": "A journey away from daily scrum meetings, as a cycle of eight Shakespearean sonnets.", "fileName": "a_scrum_odyssey" }, + { "title": "Book Club 9/2023: Papers I Love", "description": "Reflecting on the final Strange Loop conference, having attended several 'Papers We Love' talks, I'm motivated to share five papers I love.", "fileName": "book_club_9-2023" }, + { "title": "Book Club 10/2023: Functional Patterns in C#", "description": "This month I've focused on functional domain modeling and related patterns. We're just a few weeks away from the release of the next version of C#, and like each previous version it'll introduce even more functional features.", "fileName": "book_club_10-2023" } + ] +} +;;; + +_My Book Club is a monthly curated list of things I've been reading or watching, sent out via my newsletter. If you'd like to follow along with me, please [subscribe to my newsletter](https://buttondown.email/ianwold)._ + +I'm looking forward to turkey day next week gobble gobble! This year I'm thankful that I work in ecommerce so I get to have a peaceful extended weekend because nobody visits ecommerce sites on Thanksgiving weekend. + +At least that's what they told me in the interview before they hired me. + +Anyway, I've been taking in a lot of ideas about agile, development process, and the SDLC, and I think I now have a mathematical proof that every day is opposite day. Everything that seems determinable about software process seems to directly contradict common sense and reason. + +Take the #NoEstimates crowd - they say estimates are always wrong so they should _never_ be done. Never? Like ever? How do I know when I'm going to deliver a project? Turns out that after just three sprints, you can pretty accurately project when a project is going to finish by counting the number of cards that enter the backlog on average vs. the number of cards that get completed on average. Yes - _just counting cards_ is always more reliable than trying to do estimates. Who'da thunk? + +I think the starting point here is that most everyone I know tends to be completely fed up with Scrum. A lot of people I talk to will go so far as to say they hate "Agile". But wait a minute there, because these aren't the same concept. I think I agree with Allen Holub on this point: Real Agile good, fake Agile (_ahem_ Scrum) bad. + +Even if you actually don't prefer Agile - there's aspects of the Agile commandments that I question - I think these resources are a great dive into the possibilities. + +Videos + +* +* +* +* +* + +Articles + +* +* [Share Demos Every Friday - taylor.town](https://taylor.town/friday-demos) +* +* +* From a40e6f8052c584cc2974bd2092a1e2bf7ad9e74f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: IanWold Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2023 17:37:46 -0500 Subject: [PATCH 2/9] Add Holub and Cooper videos on scrum/tdd --- Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md | 6 +++--- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md b/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md index 30ff462..e85b420 100644 --- a/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md +++ b/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md @@ -29,9 +29,9 @@ Even if you actually don't prefer Agile - there's aspects of the Agile commandme Videos -* -* -* +* [War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, Scrum is Agile - Allen Holub](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFbvJ0dVlHk) +* [#NoEstimates - Allen Holub](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVBlnCTu9Ms) +* [TDD, Where did it all go Wrong - Ian Cooper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ05e7EMOLM) * * From 3dfd89e4c1a5f24b538231d7968082f030b59599 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: IanWold Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2023 17:40:16 -0500 Subject: [PATCH 3/9] Insert blurb about TDD --- Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md b/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md index e85b420..bba1bc9 100644 --- a/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md +++ b/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md @@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ Anyway, I've been taking in a lot of ideas about agile, development process, and Take the #NoEstimates crowd - they say estimates are always wrong so they should _never_ be done. Never? Like ever? How do I know when I'm going to deliver a project? Turns out that after just three sprints, you can pretty accurately project when a project is going to finish by counting the number of cards that enter the backlog on average vs. the number of cards that get completed on average. Yes - _just counting cards_ is always more reliable than trying to do estimates. Who'da thunk? -I think the starting point here is that most everyone I know tends to be completely fed up with Scrum. A lot of people I talk to will go so far as to say they hate "Agile". But wait a minute there, because these aren't the same concept. I think I agree with Allen Holub on this point: Real Agile good, fake Agile (_ahem_ Scrum) bad. +I think the starting point here is that most everyone I know tends to be completely fed up with Scrum. A lot of people I talk to will go so far as to say they hate "Agile". But wait a minute there, because these aren't the same concept. I think I agree with Allen Holub on this point: Real Agile good, fake Agile (_ahem_ Scrum) bad. I think TDD is tangential to this; it involves business a great deal - how can we ensure business rules are correctly captured in our software and how can business have confidence in our solutions? I think this is a problem that needs to be included in the development process discussion; I've included a video from Ian Cooper on this subject. Even if you actually don't prefer Agile - there's aspects of the Agile commandments that I question - I think these resources are a great dive into the possibilities. From 14896ed85fb9add7cb89d5f1a325693c3b1b0107 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: IanWold Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2023 08:32:57 -0500 Subject: [PATCH 4/9] Update description for november newsletter --- Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md | 21 +++++++++------------ 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-) diff --git a/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md b/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md index bba1bc9..b0cfa91 100644 --- a/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md +++ b/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md @@ -15,30 +15,27 @@ _My Book Club is a monthly curated list of things I've been reading or watching, sent out via my newsletter. If you'd like to follow along with me, please [subscribe to my newsletter](https://buttondown.email/ianwold)._ -I'm looking forward to turkey day next week gobble gobble! This year I'm thankful that I work in ecommerce so I get to have a peaceful extended weekend because nobody visits ecommerce sites on Thanksgiving weekend. +I'm looking forward to turkey day next week gobble gobble! This year I'm thankful that I work in ecommerce so I get to have a peaceful extended weekend because nobody visits ecommerce sites on Thanksgiving weekend. At least that's what they told me in the interview before they hired me. -At least that's what they told me in the interview before they hired me. +Anyway, I've been taking in a lot of ideas about agile, development process, and the SDLC, and I think I now have a mathematical proof that every day is opposite day: everything that seems determinable about software process seems to directly contradict common sense and reason. The best way to manage a team is for the team to manage themselves, the best way to deliver estimates is to never deliver estimates, Scrum is the opposite of Agile, and so on. -Anyway, I've been taking in a lot of ideas about agile, development process, and the SDLC, and I think I now have a mathematical proof that every day is opposite day. Everything that seems determinable about software process seems to directly contradict common sense and reason. +The question of how to structure the software engineering process is, I think it can be said noncontroversially, going to be answered very differently by different teams. This is why I have been and remain dedicated to Agile (as a set of _principles_, not _dogma_) as the basis for these processes. Deliver value early and often, change the actual process itself as the team and product evolve, and eliminate any blockers to being able to do those two. -Take the #NoEstimates crowd - they say estimates are always wrong so they should _never_ be done. Never? Like ever? How do I know when I'm going to deliver a project? Turns out that after just three sprints, you can pretty accurately project when a project is going to finish by counting the number of cards that enter the backlog on average vs. the number of cards that get completed on average. Yes - _just counting cards_ is always more reliable than trying to do estimates. Who'da thunk? +What I've taken away from my readings this month are two new tools I'm going to add to my belt: #NoEstimates and "hypothesis over requirements", two concepts explained in the Allen Holub videos I share. Individually, either might be fine, but I think the real value of these are when used together. I doubt that these practices could just be adopted willy nilly by a regular scrum team tomorrow - these describe a way for business to work, as much as they describe a way for engineering teams to work. If all the stakeholders can be aligned on this though, and if the constraints on the project allow it, there's a potential for a huge benefit here. -I think the starting point here is that most everyone I know tends to be completely fed up with Scrum. A lot of people I talk to will go so far as to say they hate "Agile". But wait a minute there, because these aren't the same concept. I think I agree with Allen Holub on this point: Real Agile good, fake Agile (_ahem_ Scrum) bad. I think TDD is tangential to this; it involves business a great deal - how can we ensure business rules are correctly captured in our software and how can business have confidence in our solutions? I think this is a problem that needs to be included in the development process discussion; I've included a video from Ian Cooper on this subject. - -Even if you actually don't prefer Agile - there's aspects of the Agile commandments that I question - I think these resources are a great dive into the possibilities. +But what is there for those of us stuck in regular Scrum teams that might not be able to adopt these right away, or ever? I've become very interested in this question, and I think I've found a few practices that could meaningfully help any engineering team. I'm certainly going to be bringing these practices up at my day job, and in future I may write on their success. Videos * [War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, Scrum is Agile - Allen Holub](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFbvJ0dVlHk) * [#NoEstimates - Allen Holub](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVBlnCTu9Ms) * [TDD, Where did it all go Wrong - Ian Cooper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ05e7EMOLM) -* -* +* [Agile Software Architecture - Ian Cooper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YCIw3gewFE) Articles -* * [Share Demos Every Friday - taylor.town](https://taylor.town/friday-demos) -* -* +* [The True Capacity of Your Engineering Team - Ant Weiss](https://medium.com/@antweiss/the-true-capacity-of-your-engineering-team-38da00bd83e8) +* [Science and Software Development - Dave Farley](https://www.davefarley.net/?p=278) +* [The Complete Guide to Organizing a Successful Hackathon - Hackerearth](https://www.hackerearth.com/community-hackathons/resources/e-books/guide-to-organize-hackathon/) * From e6dd6096c4926976452d665452f48d834f6e9d6c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: IanWold Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2023 07:49:25 -0600 Subject: [PATCH 5/9] Add thoughts to workflow, process, agile --- ...k_club_11-2023.md => book_club_12-2023.md} | 35 ++++++++++++++----- 1 file changed, 26 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-) rename Site/Posts/{book_club_11-2023.md => book_club_12-2023.md} (50%) diff --git a/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md b/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md similarity index 50% rename from Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md rename to Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md index b0cfa91..0b36d8e 100644 --- a/Site/Posts/book_club_11-2023.md +++ b/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md @@ -1,8 +1,8 @@ ;;; { - "title": "Book Club 11/2023: Agile & Process", + "title": "Book Club 12/2023: Workflow, Process, and Agile", "description": "I've been taking in a lot of ideas about agile, development process, and the SDLC, and I think I now have a mathematical proof that every day is opposite day.", - "date": "24 November 2023", + "date": "16 December 2023", "contents": false, "hero": "photo-1672309558498-cfcc89afff25", "related": [ @@ -15,11 +15,13 @@ _My Book Club is a monthly curated list of things I've been reading or watching, sent out via my newsletter. If you'd like to follow along with me, please [subscribe to my newsletter](https://buttondown.email/ianwold)._ -I'm looking forward to turkey day next week gobble gobble! This year I'm thankful that I work in ecommerce so I get to have a peaceful extended weekend because nobody visits ecommerce sites on Thanksgiving weekend. At least that's what they told me in the interview before they hired me. +Ho ho ho merry book club day - I'm sending this one out a bit early; tomorrow I'm headed on vacation and won't be back until the new year. Preemptively thinking about the new year and resolutions, I'm thinking about changes in workflow and process. How can we develop software on our own, on our teams, and in our organizations? -Anyway, I've been taking in a lot of ideas about agile, development process, and the SDLC, and I think I now have a mathematical proof that every day is opposite day: everything that seems determinable about software process seems to directly contradict common sense and reason. The best way to manage a team is for the team to manage themselves, the best way to deliver estimates is to never deliver estimates, Scrum is the opposite of Agile, and so on. +Several years ago several smart engineers [drafted the Agile Manifesto]() to take a stab at figuring out the best way to develop software. I've yet to see a better summation of best practices than the [12 Agile Principles](), however they end up being kind of vague and non-clear, almost like a fortune cookie or today's horoscope. -The question of how to structure the software engineering process is, I think it can be said noncontroversially, going to be answered very differently by different teams. This is why I have been and remain dedicated to Agile (as a set of _principles_, not _dogma_) as the basis for these processes. Deliver value early and often, change the actual process itself as the team and product evolve, and eliminate any blockers to being able to do those two. +A lot of folks since have tried to come up with more concrete principles built on top of Agile. The most famous (or perhaps infamous) one is Scrum. It's so common that today "Agile" is used interchangeably with "Scrum". But I challenge you to read the Agile manifesto and principles and the [Scrum guide]() and tell me that these look like they're actually trying to do the same thing. They're not. Scrum, at it's best, is a horrible corruption of Agile to try to shoehorn a better quality of life for software engineers into big corporate environments. At it's worst Scrum is a malicious attempt to keep a whole cadre of "scrum masters", "agile coaches", and other similar folks employed in cushy corporate jobs. + +Agile, in spite of its generality, is the best starting point I know of to try to solve how to develop software, and Scrum ain't it. At the core, what I've always tried to stick to from the Agile thinking is to deliver value early and often, change the actual process itself as the team and product evolve, and eliminate any blockers to being able to do those two. While I think highest of Agile, I have several other bits and pieces in my toolbelt here. I like a lot of things about the [Kanban process](), and I [start my day with a Grug quote](https://ian.wold.guru/Posts/daily_grug.html), among other smaller bullet points I've picked up in my days. What I've taken away from my readings this month are two new tools I'm going to add to my belt: #NoEstimates and "hypothesis over requirements", two concepts explained in the Allen Holub videos I share. Individually, either might be fine, but I think the real value of these are when used together. I doubt that these practices could just be adopted willy nilly by a regular scrum team tomorrow - these describe a way for business to work, as much as they describe a way for engineering teams to work. If all the stakeholders can be aligned on this though, and if the constraints on the project allow it, there's a potential for a huge benefit here. @@ -29,13 +31,28 @@ Videos * [War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, Scrum is Agile - Allen Holub](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFbvJ0dVlHk) * [#NoEstimates - Allen Holub](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVBlnCTu9Ms) -* [TDD, Where did it all go Wrong - Ian Cooper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ05e7EMOLM) +* []() Link the one from YCombinator (everyone does support, etc) * [Agile Software Architecture - Ian Cooper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YCIw3gewFE) +* [TDD, Where did it all go Wrong - Ian Cooper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ05e7EMOLM) -Articles +Articles to Ponder -* [Share Demos Every Friday - taylor.town](https://taylor.town/friday-demos) * [The True Capacity of Your Engineering Team - Ant Weiss](https://medium.com/@antweiss/the-true-capacity-of-your-engineering-team-38da00bd83e8) +* [How to replace estimations and guesses with a Monte Carlo simulation - Lucas F Costa](https://lucasfcosta.com/2021/09/20/monte-carlo-forecasts.html) +* Actually, read just about anything from Lucas F Costa: [lucasfcosta.com](https://lucasfcosta.com/) * [Science and Software Development - Dave Farley](https://www.davefarley.net/?p=278) + +Things you can do Today + * [The Complete Guide to Organizing a Successful Hackathon - Hackerearth](https://www.hackerearth.com/community-hackathons/resources/e-books/guide-to-organize-hackathon/) -* +* [Start With No - Dylan Paulus](https://www.dylanpaulus.com/posts/start-with-no) +* [Share Demos Every Friday - taylor.town](https://taylor.town/friday-demos) +* [Being On-Call Sucks - Bobbie Chen](https://bobbiechen.com/blog/2022/7/20/being-on-call-sucks) + +And to close out, I wrote a few articles recently that are on-topic: + +* [Reclaim Agile: The Clever Trick Agile Coaches Don't Want You to Know]() +* [Clean Meetings: A Software Engineer's Guide](https://ian.wold.guru/Posts/clean_meetings_a_software_engineers_guide.html) +* [A Scrum Odyssey](https://ian.wold.guru/Posts/a_scrum_odyssey.html) (Okay that one's a lot of GPT but it was translating my writing) + +Happy holidays and happy new year to you all, I'll be back in 2024! From 15087ead293186a760b2214ce5e75838cf11203b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: IanWold Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2023 07:52:15 -0600 Subject: [PATCH 6/9] Amendment to 12/23 book club --- Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md b/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md index 0b36d8e..b040523 100644 --- a/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md +++ b/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md @@ -55,4 +55,4 @@ And to close out, I wrote a few articles recently that are on-topic: * [Clean Meetings: A Software Engineer's Guide](https://ian.wold.guru/Posts/clean_meetings_a_software_engineers_guide.html) * [A Scrum Odyssey](https://ian.wold.guru/Posts/a_scrum_odyssey.html) (Okay that one's a lot of GPT but it was translating my writing) -Happy holidays and happy new year to you all, I'll be back in 2024! +Happy holidays and happy new year, I'll be back in 2024! From 0506c33dd3aaf78f19658b2b3b275c2608a5b460 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: IanWold Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2023 07:59:21 -0600 Subject: [PATCH 7/9] Add clarifications to 12/23 book club --- Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md b/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md index b040523..4dccf55 100644 --- a/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md +++ b/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md @@ -17,9 +17,9 @@ _My Book Club is a monthly curated list of things I've been reading or watching, Ho ho ho merry book club day - I'm sending this one out a bit early; tomorrow I'm headed on vacation and won't be back until the new year. Preemptively thinking about the new year and resolutions, I'm thinking about changes in workflow and process. How can we develop software on our own, on our teams, and in our organizations? -Several years ago several smart engineers [drafted the Agile Manifesto]() to take a stab at figuring out the best way to develop software. I've yet to see a better summation of best practices than the [12 Agile Principles](), however they end up being kind of vague and non-clear, almost like a fortune cookie or today's horoscope. +Several years ago a group of smart engineers drafted the [Agile Manifesto]() to take a stab at figuring out the best way to develop software. I've yet to see a better summation of best practices than the [12 Agile Principles](), however they end up being kind of vague and non-clear, almost like a fortune cookie or today's horoscope. -A lot of folks since have tried to come up with more concrete principles built on top of Agile. The most famous (or perhaps infamous) one is Scrum. It's so common that today "Agile" is used interchangeably with "Scrum". But I challenge you to read the Agile manifesto and principles and the [Scrum guide]() and tell me that these look like they're actually trying to do the same thing. They're not. Scrum, at it's best, is a horrible corruption of Agile to try to shoehorn a better quality of life for software engineers into big corporate environments. At it's worst Scrum is a malicious attempt to keep a whole cadre of "scrum masters", "agile coaches", and other similar folks employed in cushy corporate jobs. +A lot of folks since have tried to come up with more concrete principles built on top of Agile. The most famous (or perhaps infamous) one is Scrum. That one is so common that today "Agile" is used interchangeably with "Scrum". However, I challenge you to read the Agile manifesto and principles and the [Scrum guide]() and tell me that these look like they're actually trying to do the same thing. They're not. Scrum, at it's best, is a horrible corruption of Agile to try to shoehorn a better quality of life for software engineers into big corporate environments. At it's worst Scrum is a malicious attempt to keep a whole cadre of "scrum masters", "agile coaches", and other similar folks employed in cushy corporate jobs. Agile, in spite of its generality, is the best starting point I know of to try to solve how to develop software, and Scrum ain't it. At the core, what I've always tried to stick to from the Agile thinking is to deliver value early and often, change the actual process itself as the team and product evolve, and eliminate any blockers to being able to do those two. While I think highest of Agile, I have several other bits and pieces in my toolbelt here. I like a lot of things about the [Kanban process](), and I [start my day with a Grug quote](https://ian.wold.guru/Posts/daily_grug.html), among other smaller bullet points I've picked up in my days. From 3fd43bfd7953eb5f144ec920bbef704b055cd078 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: IanWold Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2023 15:41:21 -0600 Subject: [PATCH 8/9] Update links for 12/23 book club --- Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md | 8 ++++---- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md b/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md index 4dccf55..391adc0 100644 --- a/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md +++ b/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md @@ -17,11 +17,11 @@ _My Book Club is a monthly curated list of things I've been reading or watching, Ho ho ho merry book club day - I'm sending this one out a bit early; tomorrow I'm headed on vacation and won't be back until the new year. Preemptively thinking about the new year and resolutions, I'm thinking about changes in workflow and process. How can we develop software on our own, on our teams, and in our organizations? -Several years ago a group of smart engineers drafted the [Agile Manifesto]() to take a stab at figuring out the best way to develop software. I've yet to see a better summation of best practices than the [12 Agile Principles](), however they end up being kind of vague and non-clear, almost like a fortune cookie or today's horoscope. +Several years ago a group of smart engineers drafted the [Agile Manifesto](https://agilemanifesto.org/) to take a stab at figuring out the best way to develop software. I've yet to see a better summation of best practices than the [12 Agile Principles](https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html), however they end up being kind of vague and non-clear, almost like a fortune cookie or today's horoscope. -A lot of folks since have tried to come up with more concrete principles built on top of Agile. The most famous (or perhaps infamous) one is Scrum. That one is so common that today "Agile" is used interchangeably with "Scrum". However, I challenge you to read the Agile manifesto and principles and the [Scrum guide]() and tell me that these look like they're actually trying to do the same thing. They're not. Scrum, at it's best, is a horrible corruption of Agile to try to shoehorn a better quality of life for software engineers into big corporate environments. At it's worst Scrum is a malicious attempt to keep a whole cadre of "scrum masters", "agile coaches", and other similar folks employed in cushy corporate jobs. +A lot of folks since have tried to come up with more concrete principles built on top of Agile. The most famous (or perhaps infamous) one is Scrum. That one is so common that today "Agile" is used interchangeably with "Scrum". However, I challenge you to read the Agile manifesto and principles and the [Scrum guide](https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html) and tell me that these look like they're actually trying to do the same thing. They're not. Scrum, at it's best, is a horrible corruption of Agile to try to shoehorn a better quality of life for software engineers into big corporate environments. At it's worst Scrum is a malicious attempt to keep a whole cadre of "scrum masters", "agile coaches", and other similar folks employed in cushy corporate jobs. -Agile, in spite of its generality, is the best starting point I know of to try to solve how to develop software, and Scrum ain't it. At the core, what I've always tried to stick to from the Agile thinking is to deliver value early and often, change the actual process itself as the team and product evolve, and eliminate any blockers to being able to do those two. While I think highest of Agile, I have several other bits and pieces in my toolbelt here. I like a lot of things about the [Kanban process](), and I [start my day with a Grug quote](https://ian.wold.guru/Posts/daily_grug.html), among other smaller bullet points I've picked up in my days. +Agile, in spite of its generality, is the best starting point I know of to try to solve how to develop software, and Scrum ain't it. At the core, what I've always tried to stick to from the Agile thinking is to deliver value early and often, change the actual process itself as the team and product evolve, and eliminate any blockers to being able to do those two. While I think highest of Agile, I have several other bits and pieces in my toolbelt here. I like a lot of things about the [Kanban process](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_(development)), and I [start my day with a Grug quote](https://ian.wold.guru/Posts/daily_grug.html), among other smaller bullet points I've picked up in my days. What I've taken away from my readings this month are two new tools I'm going to add to my belt: #NoEstimates and "hypothesis over requirements", two concepts explained in the Allen Holub videos I share. Individually, either might be fine, but I think the real value of these are when used together. I doubt that these practices could just be adopted willy nilly by a regular scrum team tomorrow - these describe a way for business to work, as much as they describe a way for engineering teams to work. If all the stakeholders can be aligned on this though, and if the constraints on the project allow it, there's a potential for a huge benefit here. @@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ Videos * [War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, Scrum is Agile - Allen Holub](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFbvJ0dVlHk) * [#NoEstimates - Allen Holub](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVBlnCTu9Ms) -* []() Link the one from YCombinator (everyone does support, etc) +* [How to Build Products Users Love - Kevin Hale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz_LgBAGYyo) * [Agile Software Architecture - Ian Cooper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YCIw3gewFE) * [TDD, Where did it all go Wrong - Ian Cooper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ05e7EMOLM) From efb8ff4a52ffe41ba0c1cfac38061d060789e2a7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: IanWold Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2023 08:30:31 -0600 Subject: [PATCH 9/9] Publish 12-23 book club --- Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md | 15 +++++++-------- 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-) diff --git a/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md b/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md index 391adc0..c61b81d 100644 --- a/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md +++ b/Site/Posts/book_club_12-2023.md @@ -1,15 +1,15 @@ ;;; { "title": "Book Club 12/2023: Workflow, Process, and Agile", - "description": "I've been taking in a lot of ideas about agile, development process, and the SDLC, and I think I now have a mathematical proof that every day is opposite day.", + "description": "Some thoughts on how to organize software development and teams, and how non-technical factors help (or hinder) us developing better software.", "date": "16 December 2023", "contents": false, "hero": "photo-1672309558498-cfcc89afff25", "related": [ - { "title": "A Scrum Odyssey", "description": "A journey away from daily scrum meetings, as a cycle of eight Shakespearean sonnets.", "fileName": "a_scrum_odyssey" }, - { "title": "Book Club 9/2023: Papers I Love", "description": "Reflecting on the final Strange Loop conference, having attended several 'Papers We Love' talks, I'm motivated to share five papers I love.", "fileName": "book_club_9-2023" }, - { "title": "Book Club 10/2023: Functional Patterns in C#", "description": "This month I've focused on functional domain modeling and related patterns. We're just a few weeks away from the release of the next version of C#, and like each previous version it'll introduce even more functional features.", "fileName": "book_club_10-2023" } - ] + { "title": "Book Club 11/2023: New .NET, New C#", "description": "The release of .NET 8 brings a lot of features I'm excited for!", "fileName": "book_club_11-2023" }, + { "title": "Book Club 10/2023: Functional Patterns in C#", "description": "This month I've focused on functional domain modeling and related patterns. We're just a few weeks away from the release of the next version of C#, and like each previous version it'll introduce even more functional features.", "fileName": "book_club_10-2023" }, + { "title": "Book Club 9/2023: Papers I Love", "description": "Reflecting on the final Strange Loop conference, having attended several 'Papers We Love' talks, I'm motivated to share five papers I love.", "fileName": "book_club_9-2023" } + ] } ;;; @@ -51,8 +51,7 @@ Things you can do Today And to close out, I wrote a few articles recently that are on-topic: -* [Reclaim Agile: The Clever Trick Agile Coaches Don't Want You to Know]() +* [Reclaim Your Agile: The One Clever Trick Agile Coaches Don't Want You to Know](https://ian.wold.guru/Posts/reclaim_your_agile.html) * [Clean Meetings: A Software Engineer's Guide](https://ian.wold.guru/Posts/clean_meetings_a_software_engineers_guide.html) +* [My (Continuing) Descent Into Madness](https://ian.wold.guru/Posts/my_continuing_descent_into_madness.html) * [A Scrum Odyssey](https://ian.wold.guru/Posts/a_scrum_odyssey.html) (Okay that one's a lot of GPT but it was translating my writing) - -Happy holidays and happy new year, I'll be back in 2024!