Beyond an Exercise
It happens more often than we would like to admit. We understand that capturing some form of information should provide some benefit, we follow the prescribed guidance and a decent template to provide structure, and apparently get the job done. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, we never realize that deep value we were looking to achieve. Chances are we have completed the exercise to the letter only. Read more
Go With Your Strength
I see many companies that start out with a compelling idea for solving a nasty business problem, but somewhere along the way their implementation gets a lot fuzzier. In more than a few situations, we are best served if we remember to go with our strength. Read more
Teaching Software Process
One of the many lists that I lurk on, the Agile Leadership Yahoo Group, became active a few days ago, with a thread that ranged from quite thoughtful to somewhat disrespectful, as these threads often do (which is why I generally only lurk). At one point, a question was posed: if you were teaching in, say, the Masters program at Carnegie Mellon, how much time would you dedicate to teaching about the past and how much about the processes for the future? I took a bite, here’s a paraphrasing of what I had to say. Read more
Is It Worth Not Doing It?
Usually, when I’m talking about different requirements practices, I use traceability as a practice that adds quite a bit of value for things like impact analysis. In most shops, though, the cost of developing and maintaining exhaustive traceability, whether real or perceived, far exceeds any potential value. That’s not always the case, though, and sometimes it takes a different approach, risk analysis, to understand how that value reaches the tipping point. Read more
