Writing
These are articles and posts I've written on process improvement, technical excellence, engineering practices, and AI-assisted development.
I've been writing about this work for over 20 years, often to help figure out what I actually think. Some of it comes from projects that went well, and some from the ones that didn't. Those are usually the more interesting and useful stories anyway.
I write more for the people actually doing the work than the people just talking about it.
- Rethinking "Small"
Years ago I published a blog post called Rounding the Corners about how I applied Lean thinking (before I knew what it was) to mowing the lawn.
- Courage
When I first learned about Extreme Programming (XP) in 2000, the values of Communication, Feedback and Simplicity were easy to grasp and easy to explain to others.
- My LLM Workflow
Anyone who knows me won't be terribly surprised when I say, "I do things a bit differently".
- How Time Flies!
Scrum may have dominated the past two decades, but Extreme Programming quietly set the foundation for everything that works in modern software…
- Guessing the Unguessable: Estimates and Legacy Code
I've often said that we shouldn't try to estimate the time it will take to fix a defect before we know what the defect is. Some defects, like a typo…
- Fighting the Big Ball of Mud
As I wrote in Medicinal Positivity, I spent the first decade of my software development career feeling guilty that I wasn't being "professional" in my approach to delivering systems.
- Medicinal Positivity
I've been mulling over a draft post I've had for a few months in which I was going to systematically and convincingly eviscerate the Scaled Agile Framework, or SAFe.
- The Normalization of Deviance in Software
This post was originally published on January 28, 2011. A recent conversation brought up the concept of Normalization of Deviance, which prompted me to dig up the post since its concepts are still applicable today.
- The Red File Folder
This post is a story I've told many times, though I've never actually written it down.
- Abandon Hope!
This is a post from 2008, in which I describe one of my most memorable positions on the use of a term when building products.
- The Secret to Agility That They Don't... er, Actually They Do Want You to Know!
Ah, clickbait headlines! The difference this time, though, is that this post is worth it.
- Agile (is dead|sucks|is (🐂|)💩|is irresponsible|is a bad idea)
Another significant theme to emerge from my April 1st AgileAI experiment was an indication of the backlash against Agile itself and its use in the software industry.
- What's the Actual Goal?
At a family gathering recently we were discussing an artistic streak that exists in my immediate and extended family.
- Why I Have No "Agile" Certifications
While cleaning up my office recently, I stumbled on a card showing that I achieved the Certified PowerBuilder Developer status in September of 1997, nearly 27 years before this post was written.
- Ultimately, There's No Point!
The final theme identified by the questions about Story Points from my AgileAI experiment was a backlash against them and their use.
- Using Story Points in the Real World
Another theme identified by the questions about Story Points from my AgileAI experiment was how to estimate and track work using them.
- No Points for You!
A very specific topic regarding Story Points from my AgileAI experiment was whether we should estimate work on defects and technical debt using points.
- A Point a Day...
The second theme identified by the questions about Story Points from my AgileAI experiment was about equating points in some way to time.
- What's the (Story) Point?
My AgileAI experiment (which is a fancy name for "joke") yielded several different themes around the questions posed about Story Points.
- I'm Sad
Twenty-three years ago, in February 2001, I was in the midst of learning all I could find about Extreme Programming (XP). After coming off a contract…