Thursday, October 30, 2008
Poll: Does your company call people "resources"?
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Resources vs. People
That to which one resorts or on which one depends for supply or support; means of overcoming a difficulty; resort; expedientI suppose employees fit within that definition, but so do the desks and copy machines. Maybe it's my ego, but I like to be distinguished from inanimate objects in the workplace. The word resource to me is just too cold and inhuman.
Lots of organizations preach that people are their most important asset. It's easy to say, but how do you demonstrate that value?
- By putting significant effort into designing a thorough and effective interview process, to make sure you hire the best people to begin with. How well organized is your company's interview process? And how often have you had to let someone go because they didn't turn out to be a good fit?
- By respecting people within the organization. Give them clear objectives and establish a culture that encourages them to innovate and excel working as a team. Establish a culture of continuous improvement where every employee is truly empowered and expected to improve quality, process, and customer satisfaction. In Toyota, every production line worker is expected to stop the line if they find any problem, get to the root cause, and then correct it.
- By growing people within the organization. Give people a clear path for career growth. Give them opportunities to try different roles within the organization. When you have a position to fill, look inside the organization first before looking for someone new.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Is Agile a Fad?
I attended today's Agile Denver meeting - this time in Boulder - to hear Mary Poppendieck's presentation, Is Agile a Fad?
I'll summarize some of her material here, mostly in reverse order, starting with the key points and conclusions of the talk, followed by some of the contextual info she presented leading up to those conclusions.
The key to successful development organizations
The key to a successful development is for engineers (developers) to have a deep understanding of their customers - both internal and external. When new engineers start at Toyota, they spend their first 6 months on the production line assembling cars, so they fully understand their internal customers. Then, they spend 6 months working for a dealership - selling cars - so they know what customers really want.
Another key is building a culture that retains quality people for the 6-10 years it takes to build true expertise, and growing leaders from within the organization.
Fads vs. enduring principles
Why do we have these fads that fail?
- silver bullet thinking. there is no silver bullet
- trying to apply 1 solution in different contexts. different contexts require different solutions.
- essential tensions in software. Don't swing too far toward one side or the other; rather find a solution that solves the valid concerns on both sides of the issue.
The principles behind systems engineering are robust over time. The concepts in project management are fragile over time.
Systems Engineering | Project management |
low dependency architecture | complete requirements |
quality by design | quality by testing (at the end) |
technical disciplines | maturity levels |
respect for complexity | scope control |
skilled tech leaders | resource mgmt |
learning & feedback cycles | timeboxes |
success = accomplishing system's objective | success = accomplishing planning scope, cost, schedule |
5 essential tensions in development
- People. self-managed vs. managers. Answer: the servant leader facilitating self-organization.
- Process: empirical vs. defined.Solution: relentless improvement, rigorous process for effective improvement. Identify the true root cause of problems, hypothesize solution, determine how to measure if it succeeds.
- Product: development team vs. customers & biz operations. Solution: whole team philosophy. team talks to customers so they understand the problem deeply.
- Planning: evolving plans vs. predictability. Solution: pull scheduling, set-based design (build multiple options), clear technical vision
- Performance: concern only for the next iteration vs. long-term scope, schedule & cost. Solution: a team with pride & passion that delights customers - and has a deep knowledge of it's customers' needs, sustainable profit, breakthrough innovation
A brief history of software methodologies and the seeds of agile
What happened to all those methodology buzzwords? RAD, lean, structured programming, etc.? Sprinkled throughout the history of software, various people discovered and promoted practices that we call agile & lean today. They also promoted various practices that were unsuccessful fads.
1968
NATO conference on the software engineering crisis. Edsger Dijkstra said that programming became a problem in relation to the size and complexity of computer hardware. Douglas Ross of MIT said the most deadly thing is the assumption that you can specify what you're going to do, and then do it. The solution (compared to assembly languages): high level languages! (Cobol, Fortran, etc.). This removed drudgery, but increased the level of complexity possible, which led to the same problem all over again(Dijkstra).
1972
New York Times software project
- structured programming made software more readable. Dijkstra proposed quality by design, as opposed to reliance on testing.
- Dave Parnas devised information hiding, the concept of objects.
- Top down programming was introduced by Terry Baker - basically this was the concept of continuous integration.
- The "chief programmer team" concept introduced the tech lead, design review, pair programming, common code ownership. Result was 100 times more productivity (measured in LOC) and higher quality than typical at the time.
1976
Barry Boehm proposed that software maintenance was becoming the most expensive part of systems, and that the cost of changes got exponentially greater in later phases of the lifecycle. This famous (infamous?) curve was the key reason that everyone tried to nail down all the requirements at the beginning.
1982
- Daniel McCracken & Michael Jackson wrote that the lifecycle concept (waterfall) was harmful and perpetuates failure by constraining thinking, and ignoring the reality that needs inevitably change over time.
- James Martin wrote the 4th gen languages would allow application development without programmers. (A gross oversimplification of the inherent complexity.)
1984
- Scott Schultz at DuPont introduced timebox development. 30 days for analysis & design, 90 days to develop. He called it rapid iterative production prototyping.
1988
- Boehm introduces the spiral lifecycle model. More evolutionary model, but it's still a project management model, not a systems engineering model.
- Watts Humphrey introduced software process maturity model (CMM). Attempt to bring in statistical process control and mandate maturity assessments. Focus on project management practices over system engineering practices.
1991
- James Martin wrote book on RAD, facilitated by CASE tools. (Where are those CASE tools today? Anyone?) Problem: RAD often produced un-maintainable code. Didn't live up to the hype.
1995
- Internet booms. J.C.R. Licklider serves as the technical visionary for several key internet organizations. Standards were developed.
Measurement and management
I would argue that the best measurements for success are (1) customer satisfaction and (2) profitability. While it's true that true customer satisfaction can't be measured until the end of a development project, the product owner can provide interim measurements of satisfaction - as each iteration is delivered.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Scrum and XP top list of agile methodologies
Friday, October 17, 2008
Simplicity defined
- short iterations
- refactoring
- collective ownership
- pair programming
- avoid premature optimization
The biggest problem with the simplicity principle is that people often disagree on what constitutes "simple", and I've always struggled to come up with a definition of simplicity that was, well, simple. I came across a quote today that I think sums it up pretty well, from Antoine Du Saint-Exupery.
Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away.