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Jared Richardson’s talk titled “Build Teams, not Products,” in particular, was one of the best presentations I’ve ever witnessed. It was just one of those talks where all the points seem tautologic...
-Yev Bronshteyn

I was amazed that these five chapters only take about 160 pages and yet tell you all you need to know about successful projects. I’ve experienced a lot of these problems myself, and so did/do you, ...
-Javaddicts.net

Do it right from day one or you never will
-Andy Hunt

(Dec 8)
I just bought an MSI Wind laptop/netbook and so far I love it. It's tiny, weighing in 2.2 pounds. This includes the bigger, 6 cell battery that provides 6 hours of use. I haven't had a chance to push that envelope yet, but it's on my list of things to do. :)

Here's a picture of it sitting on my 15" MacBook Pro (link). It literally makes the sleek MBP look clunky. It feels that way too. 2.2 versus 5.5 pounds.

The most surprising thing about the Wind is that it's got a hyperthreaded CPU. (Traditionally ultra small notebooks had a single CPU and were slow). It's got the Intel Atom CPU, but with hyperthreading, so it's amazingly responsive. My model came with 1 gig of memory (I've already upgraded it to 2) and a 160 gig hard drive. The external monitor drives my 19" widescreen nicely. So far I can't tell that it's any slower than my MacBook Pro for almost everything.

The keyboard's alphanumberics are fine to use, but the "edge keys", like CTRL and ? are odd to use. I've added an external mouse and keyboard for desktop usage.

I'm also planning on loading Linux on it (big surprise!). The 8.0.41 Ubuntu live CD boots it just fine and the Open Office presentation tools does a very nice job with most of my existing Power Point decks.

My plan was to use it as my presentation laptop. We'll see if that becomes a reality. I really don't think I could write code on the built in screen, but I'll try to do some JUnit tinkering in advance of this week's test automation class. With the external keyboard, mouse, and monitor though, it's fine for everything I've thrown at it.

I've found the push back from my Mac friends to be very entertaining. The MSI runs Windows XP (even though there are hacked versions of OS X for the Wind). So far the reaction from my Mac friends has ranged from surprise to hostility. Remember guys... "think different" doesn't mean to think just like you. ;)

Category: Personal

(Nov 4)
Jurgen Appelo has an ongoing interview series on his blog. He's published a lot of very smart people and I'm honored to squeak in too! ;)

Five Easy Questions for Jared Richardson

From the page...

On this blog I have published interviews with Steve McConnell, Johanna Rothman, Alistair Cockburn, Robert L. Glass, Scott Berkun, Mary Poppendieck and Grady Booch. Everytime I ask the same five questions, and everytime I am pleasantly surprised by the answers I get...

Enjoy!

Category: Personal

(Oct 23)
I'm preparing for next week's product owner training, I'm thinking more about the lifeguard model of responsibility. I have a similar model for developers, testers, managers.... for most people I think. :)

When someone is drowning, whose job is it to reach out? Should the drowning victim be expected to meet you halfway? That's a crazy thought, isn't it? But when the project is in trouble, how often do we say "That's not my job" or "I'll do this much, but that's their job, not mine!"

At the end of the day, we're all lifeguards. When you see someone drowning, jump in! Imagine a lifeguard sitting on the tower, watching someone thrashing in the water, and saying "That's not my area. I only guard the water up to that fence. You'll need to wait for Joe to come back from his break."

If we want our projects, and our company, to succeed we've got to look around, see what's not working, and go after it. It may be someone else's area, but if it needs doing, then do it. Don't step on toes, but offer help... get the job done. If we all put out every fire we see, everyone wins.

When someone drowns, don't blame the victim... blame the lifeguards. Jump in.

Category: Agile

(Oct 21)
Soft skills matter more than many of us realize. I'm working on a part of the Career 2.0 book dealing with public speaking and realizing all over again how important this topic is.

How often have you tried to introduce a new idea or technology at work and been shut down? Who's fault is it that no-one listened? I'd suggest it could be your fault, although it's easier to blame the audience.

As the "presenter" in this scenario, it's your job to find a way to reach your audience. If you've never taken the time to learn the basics of presenting and communicating then you've got no-one to blame but yourself when you do a poor job selling the idea.

Here's another way to think about it. Imagine you're at a nice restaurant and order a very expensive Kobe steak. When your waiter delivers it to your table you see it's cooked perfectly, smells great, and just looks incredible. Except for one detail: it's wrapped in a dirty, oily piece of newspaper. It looks like someone picked it up from the alley behind the restaurant, from a puddle of smelly water that leaked out of the dumpster.

Are you still going to eat that steak?

Of course not. And that's the same problem you have when you present a great technical idea without bothering to learn how to present it well. It's a rare manager who's willing to peel away the newspaper and still eat the steak.

Category: Misc

(Oct 15)
I'm giving my Techniques 2008 talk at the northern Virginia Java users's group tonight. If you're in the area, come on out.

Techniques 2008

Category: Java