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...It would be really nice if, as an industry, we could stop being such a bunch of screwed-up clowns and start living up to our potential. Ship It! is one of the things that could help, if only tho...
-Mike Gunderloy |
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They have gathered together the ‘best bits’ of various styles and methodologies they have been directly involved with, and combined them into a practical approach with the focus on delivering a pro...
-Mitch Wheat |
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If your shop has trouble shipping quality software on time -- and let's face it, most do -- then this book is for you. If you're a manager, I'd say that doubly so.
-Ernest Friedman-Hill "JavaRanch Sheriff" |
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(Dec 21)
Winter has arrived here in the US. Even here in the normally temperate North Carolina, it's been 5 to 10 degrees below freezing for the last several weeks. A number of local lakes are frozen... or are they?
When you look at a lake with ice on top, it's a lot like looking at a software project that's "doing fine." It's very difficult to tell how thick the ice is. Will it support you? Is it paper thin or six inches thick? Can you walk on it? Or drive a truck on it?
There are a few different ways to understand the ice. You can look at historical data (it's been well below freezing for the last month), run a few experiments ("Joe, you go first!"), or ask a few people who live beside the lake ("It's never safe this time of year.") Or you could just be stupid and drive your truck onto the ice.
Software is very similar. Are you taking a naive approach? "Look! Everything's working. Keep moving forward." Sure, you're not automating builds. Your automated testing coverage is minimal. Most of the essential bits of knowledge around your system are in one or two people's heads. But it looks like everything is working fine. The water "looks" frozen. Why can't I drive a truck on it?
The problem with software, like ice, is that things can look pretty safe from shore, but still be very dangerous. Putting any weight on a thin project can bring everything crashing down very quickly.
Take some time this week and look at your project. Are there key factors you know your missing? Are there good practices you know you should be introducing, but you've been too busy? Frequent code checkins. Peer code reviews. Defect driven testing. Test driven design. Time boxed iterations.
Nothing? Okay, but watch your back... that water can be very cold, and it's usually deeper than it looks.
Category: Agile
(Nov 22)
I've been filtering resumes recently and one I had to read this morning inspired me to write this. I hope it helps a few people improve their resume. Remember that the resume is what gets your foot in the door. If people don't ever get to meet you, you're not getting the job! Be sure your written ambassador is the best it can be.
Certifications
There's nothing wrong with them, ~unless~ you think they make you competent. Treat them as a gentle introduction to the topics, and they'll supplement your resume.
Place all your certifications as the top item on your resume and be very sure it (and you!) won't get much respect.
No Paragraphs
I just read someone's description of work at their last job and I don't understand what they did. I think I started to understand the work details after the fifth time I read it.
Instead of prose, use terse, bulleted lists that a resume reviewer can quickly scan and understand your work history. If I'm forced to read a sentence more than once to understand it, you're wasting my time and your chance at making the cut.
For the record, a bulleted list of sentences isn't what I'm talking about!
Work History and Multi-page Resumes
I'm sure you did great work 10 years ago, but I don't care. I assume you've forgotten it all anyway. If you feel the overwhelming need to list your work from years ago, make it brief. The older the job, the fewer the details.
If you want to provide detail, make it about your recent work. That's what I'm most interested in learning about you.
Many developers I know insist on providing multi-page resumes. "But Jared, I did this much work and I'm proud of what I did." I believe you, but as a person filtering resumes, I don't care. Sorry! If I'm running through pages of candidates, I'll go deeper on a two page resume, but on a seven page resume? I'll skim the first page and move on.
When you provide page after page on your resume I assume you don't know how to boil down things to their essence. You'll create wordy code, long unreadable docs, and contribute to overly long meetings. Are these fair assumptions? Probably not. Will I make them anyway? Yes.
Listing Skills
Adding a skills block is fine, but please differentiate between what you know at a detailed level and what you're merely familiar with. Tech you used five years ago doesn't fit in the current skills block. Don't make me read through your resume and figure out what's current and what's old.
Sum Yourself Up
Do you like to work with a variety of technologies and projects? Would you rather dig in on one project and stay there for a long time? What do you really enjoy doing? If you don't know, you can't tell me (and that's another problem completely!).
When I hire someone, I want them to hang around for a while. If you don't tell me where you'd like to be placed, I have to guess. And that's a risk for me and the company I'm hiring for. Save me the trouble and let me know you understand yourself.
Summary
Your resume is your one chance to get your foot in the door at a company. Ask other people to read and critique it. Be sure it's short and easy to read. Design it to be easily skimmed and understood.
A good resume is unusual. A great one is truly rare. Be sure yours helps you stand out from the crowd!
Category: Misc
(Nov 9)
Having an entrepreneurial point of view is essential for a independent consultant, but it's also great for a small to medium size company full-time employee as well. You can learn to be aware of upcoming trends. Of managing costs. Of always keeping one eye on the future. These are skills your manager wants you to have anyway, and we all have them in some measure, but the independents among us have honed these skills to a razor sharp edge.
These skills are essential for any consultant, but also vital for a full-timer (like myself) who wants to be more than a cog in their organization.
Do you want to rise above the herd? Be more than mediocre? Come to Indie Conf this Saturday.
Can't make it? Then be sure to find another way to get this mindset. It can be the difference for you, and your company, surviving a corporate in tight times.
Category: Misc
(Oct 7)
There's an upcoming one-day Agile conference here in North Carolina. Catherine Louis and Patrick Wilson-Welsh have been working hard to bring a world class set of speakers for a short, very affordable conference to RTP.
If you're involved with bringing Agile into your organization, you shouldn't miss this event. There will be content for developers and testers (including a remote tester/developer pairing session. The tester will be in the room and the developer will be in another country!), but there's a strong focus on management as well. We'll have Tom Grant, a Senior Forrester analyst, talking about Agile and innovation, Andy Hunt, Jeff Patton, and more.
Between now and October 22nd you can register for $50. After that it's $100.
Sign Up now
You can read more here:
Take Back the Park
Here's the press release:
Agile thought leaders come to you, Thursday, October 28th, in the Triangle.
Come hear Andy Hunt (of Pragmatic Programmer fame), Jeff Patton (agile planning and UX expert), and Dr. Laurie Williams (agile researcher) share their latest observations, discoveries, and passions.
Come meet others in the Triangle who are practicing, learning, teaching, or coaching agile software development. Ask questions, share your stories, join the discussion. Learn how agile principles and practices actually do scale to large organizations, fit in well in regulated environments, and help even the largest organizations increase ROI, morale, and fun, while reducing waste, re-work, and turnover.
Register now at Take Back the Park
For more information on Agile Software Development, we suggest starting with these on-line resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development
The Agile Manifesto
http://www.agilealliance.org/the-alliance/the-agile-manifesto/the-twelve-principles-of-agile-software/
We can't wait to see you there!
Category: Agile
(Aug 29)
I saw a retweeted Twitter entry from a user named Agile Redneck, and I'd listened to way too much of XM Radio's comedy station Blue Collar Comedy. And I was inspired. Between conferences and clients, we've all seen a lot of insane "Agile" teams. So I started twittering a few. Then a few more. I finally decided to turn this into a blog entry.
Please don't let it stop here though... post your own. :) I have no idea who started the Agile Redneck account, but let's help them out with the crazy stuff we've seen too.
- If you have your daily standups once a week, you might be an Agile redneck
- If you think Agile is a synonym for XP or Scrum (or both!), you might be an Agile redneck
- If your "continous integration" system requires you to push a button, you might be an Agile redneck
- If you don't know what work your pairing partner has been doing all day, you might be an Agile redneck
- If you said "That's not my job" last week, you might an Agile redneck
- If your Agile team has more people on it than a baseball team, you might be an Agile Redneck
- If you've ever kept developers away from your customers on purpose, you might be an Agile redneck
- If you claim to be Agile, but have never heard of Martin Fowler, you might be an Agile redneck
- If you think you're Agile, but have never even read the Agile Manifesto, you might be an Agile redneck
- If you turned off your continuous integration system because the frequent failures distracted the team, you might be an Agile redneck
- If you're "Agile", but you don't write automated tests because you think they'll slow you down, you might be an Agile redneck
- If you move the end date of your "fixed length" iterations to be get all of the work done, you might be an Agile redneck
- If you haven't "gone Agile" because you haven't been able to buy the right vendor's tool, you might be an Agile redneck
- If you've even used Agility as a tool to hide your work from your manager or co-workers, you might be an Agile redneck
- If you've even said "Don't code that. We don't need until later this week. YAGNI!", you might be an Agile redneck
- If you think any Agile topic can be mastered in a two day class, you might be an Agile redneck
- If you think nothing useful can be learned in a two day class, you might also be an Agile redneck
- If you think using any single Agile practice makes your team "Agile", you might be an Agile redneck
- If you think any single book, author, or movement is the definitive source of agile knowledge, you might be an Agile redneck
- If you've ever pulled your tests out of your continuous integration system so the builds wouldn't break so often, you might be an Agile redneck
- If you think the Enterprise Agile Manifesto is right, you might be an Agile redneck
- If you think your flavor of Agile is better than anyone else's, then you're definitely an Agile redneck
- If you blame your continuous integration server or source code management system when your last code check in doesn't compile, you might be an Agile redneck
I'll try to do another round if time permits. These things are just fun to write! Track the topic on Twitter and you might see more of them popping out.
Enjoy!
Category: Agile
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