agile

Recognize Failure and Avoid the Sunk Cost Fallacy:
There's no shame in shooting for the moon and missing

Failing fast is one of the most overworked business tropes. The underlying motivation is for companies to take big risks with immense potential payoffs. To fail fast, the company must put sensors in place to recognize early if the risky move is panning out and worth continuing.  In comparative mythology, the hero’s journey requires the protagonist to face and overcome adversity before they become worthy of winning. Biographers of business… Read More »Recognize Failure and Avoid the Sunk Cost Fallacy:
There's no shame in shooting for the moon and missing

Firefighters putting out an uncontrolled blaze in a building

Containing and Eliminating Business Fires:
Unexpected catastrophes kill companies

Startups are motivated by youthful energy, fueled by adrenaline, and supplemented by caffeine. The frenetic pace of a startup cannot be sustained forever.  If a company remains a startup too long, it will either burn through its cash or the original team will become too long in the tooth to muster the same enthusiasm that powered its early victories. Or both.  Companies that successfully navigate the transition from a startup… Read More »Containing and Eliminating Business Fires:
Unexpected catastrophes kill companies

A flight of craft beer

The Commonality of Craft Brewing and Software Development:
The benefits of small-batch brewing and small-batch coding

Imagine a small craft brewery that produces award-winning India Pale Ales (IPAs) and stouts. The brewery is acquired by a national brand determined to make the beer available countrywide.  Somehow, whatever gave the beer its uniqueness in small batches cannot be replicated on a large scale, and it doesn’t taste as good as before. It may be a matter of micromanaging small-batch brewing along the way. For example, the brewmaster… Read More »The Commonality of Craft Brewing and Software Development:
The benefits of small-batch brewing and small-batch coding

Two surfers in the water

Burger Shack and the Beach Bum Burger Moguls:
A case study in how growth stresses an organization

Suppose two beach-bum friends start up a burger stand at the beach. They share a vision of high-quality burgers at a fair price. They also want a lifestyle that enables them to surf every morning and make enough money to afford their rent.  They set up a grill in a little hut with a window where they serve lunch to customers. When the friends begin, they offer hamburgers, cheeseburgers, lettuce,… Read More »Burger Shack and the Beach Bum Burger Moguls:
A case study in how growth stresses an organization

A muddy rugby scrum

Agile’s Dirtiest Secret:
Working before getting answers causes chaos

Ask almost any technical team nowadays, and they’ll claim they’re using some flavor of Agile practices instead of the debunked Waterfall method.  Teams using Scrum may engage in story point poker-playing, a method of estimating the level of effort of stories. Or they may relinquish their chairs for daily standup meetings. The corniness of Scrum aside, there’s no arguing that the Agile Manifesto is rock solid.  Still, the technical landscape… Read More »Agile’s Dirtiest Secret:
Working before getting answers causes chaos

Quality Series Part Three: Is Continuous Delivery Dead?:
How to Separate Aspiration from Pragmatism for Enterprise Software Releases

High-end Thoughtworks consultants Jez Humble and David Farley wrote the book on Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD). The thought leadership espoused by Martin Fowler, Humble, and Farley around CI/CD provides customers with well-tested, frequent deployments. Dig deeper into Continuous Delivery’s principles, and, interestingly, very few engineering teams follow them. Is Continuous Delivery dead? Part 2 of this series outlines different use cases, some of which lend themselves to Continuous Delivery (CD)… Read More »Quality Series Part Three: Is Continuous Delivery Dead?:
How to Separate Aspiration from Pragmatism for Enterprise Software Releases

Quality Series Part Two: Continous Deployment – Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should

Nostalgia for simpler times often glosses over the rough edges of the past. We may complain about our COVID-19 isolation, but it’s nothing compared to our ancestors who lived through the Spanish Flu (1918-1920) without internet connectedness. The previous post in this series exposes the negatives of old-time, infrequent software releases while presenting the good and the bad of the current day Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) approach. No matter how… Read More »Quality Series Part Two: Continous Deployment – Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should

The Dirtiest Secret of Agile

Ask just about any technical team nowadays and they’ll claim they’re using some flavor of Agile practices in lieu of the debunked Waterfall method. For all the corniness of poker playing and daily standups where people actually stand up, it’s hard to argue against the eminently sensible Agile Manifesto. Still, the technical landscape is dotted with software releases that don’t cut the mustard, from quality problems to software that fails… Read More »The Dirtiest Secret of Agile