Better Software - March 2008 - (Page 9)

Picks done and doNE-done by eNEWsLEttEr Extra A sampling of content from our eNewsletter archives PaySon hall As a professional project manager and amateur magician, Payson Hall assures us that effective project management isn’t magic. While a magician should never reveal how a magical effect is accomplished, good managers do share the rationale behind their actions to help others become more self-sufficient. Demystifying effective management actions improves our ability to get results, allowing us to move on to new and different challenges. In this column, Payson explains the strongest management “trick” in his repertoire— the pursuit of unambiguous completion criteria. He also tells us that perfecting this trick takes a lot of practice, but it can serve us immediately and throughout our careers. www.stickyMinds.com/eLetterpick10-2a Using Mocks to Verify interactions by stickyLetter: March 15, 2006 our take: the Headline Method When I have a decision to make and I’m not quite sure what to do, I have a silly little way of working it out in my head. I call it the Headline Method. It’s really quite simple and effective. For example, recently a friend and I discussed the idea of my family taking the train on an overnight trip. The idea was that my husband, baby daughter, and I would get on the train, go to sleep, and wake up at our destination. It sounded like it was worth a try until we realized the sleeping cars were sold out. We thought about roughing it in seats, but then my husband and I couldn’t sleep at the same time—someone had to stay up to watch our daughter. No way, chirped my buddy incredulously, my husband and I could both sleep and my daughter would be fine. We’d be traveling in the middle of the night, and everyone else would be sleeping too, he explained. The real problem here, according to my friend, was that I needed to relax. For a moment, I wondered if I was being overprotective and if my friend were right. Then a headline flashed in my mind: “Mother Sleeping on Train Wakes to Find Baby Missing.” And with that, I nixed the train idea. But that’s just the first half of my handy dandy Headline Method. It isn’t just about the horror of what could happen as the victim of the headline; it’s also about how I would feel as a stranger to the situation reading the headline. In this example, I would have thought, “What sort of moron goes to sleep on a train when she has a baby with her?” Think about it. There are many situations where this sort of prethinking could have saved people a lot of embarrassment, horror, tragedy, injury—you name it. Had Bode Miller thought about the headlines that would follow his announcement that he sometimes skis drunk, maybe, just maybe, he would have kept that colorful tidbit to himself. Well, that might be a stretch. The Headline Method is, simply put, risk mitigation made fun. Make up a couple of headlines to give whatever irks you a humorous perspective. The next time you’re annoyed with a coworker or feeling overwhelmed at work—stay professional and don’t act on your headlines, but have a laugh while you think to yourself: “Man in Cubicle with Sauerkraut Sandwich Sentenced to Three Months in Pickled Herring Factory.” If you find yourself at a decisional crossroads or in need of a good laugh, give my Headline Method a try. Put your story on the front page of an imaginary newspaper and think about how you would feel both as the subject of the headline and as a stranger reading it. This technique boils right down to something your mother probably told you: Always consider the consequences! Do you have any quirky ways for working through the decision-making process? Email me and let me know. Until next time . . . live well, and build better software! Holly Bourquin Director of Publishing hbourquin@sqe.com Read more handpicked editorial content and “Our Takes” at: www.stickyMinds.com/eLetter10-2. dan north In the March 2006 issue of Better Software magazine, Dan North began a discussion of the evolution of behaviordriven development from test-driven development. Here, North continues the conversation with a closer look at “mocks, utility classes that, for testing ” purposes, pretend to be some component or service with which your object will interact. www.stickyMinds.com/eLetterpick10-2b What software development Projects can Learn from the Quality revolution by clarke ching The Japanese manufacturing revolution—a combination of lean production, quality techniques, and sheer necessity—lifted the Japanese industrial phoenix out of the ashes of World War II until it eventually dominated world manufacturing. The concepts used to rebuild the empire can easily be applied to the software development industry. In this article, Clarke Ching describes why the majority of the software industry has done a poor job of incorporating these quality techniques and reveals the one secret ingredient that makes them easy to adopt. www.stickyMinds.com/eLetterpick10-2c PoiNtEr Want Better software? Just ask. by Mike Cohn An effective Project Customer can turn a good product into a great one. But he’s got to know how. Mike Cohn gives Project Customers seven simple rules for communicating product goals effectively to development. www.stickyMinds.com/eLetterpick10-2d www.StickyMinds.com MARCH 2008 BETTER SOFTWARE 9 http://www.StickyMinds.com/eLetterpick10-2a http://www.StickyMinds.com/eLetterpick10-2b http://www.StickyMinds.com/eLetter10-2 http://www.StickyMinds.com/eLetterpick10-2c http://www.StickyMinds.com/eLetterpick10-2d http://www.StickyMinds.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Better Software - March 2008

Better Software - March 2008 Contents Mark Your Calendar Contributors eLightenment Technically Speaking Code Craft Test Connection Management Chronicles Cover Story: Breaking Ground On SOA Software Development Worst Practices Mind the Gap Product Announcements 10 Things You Might Not Know About... The Last Word Ad Index

Better Software - March 2008

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