Better Software - May 2008 - (Page 9)

Picks Pair Programming observations by Jeff langr Say “pair programming” to a programmer and he’ll probably frown or turn his back on you. But add some rules the programmers must follow—rules that help maintain each person’s sanity—and he just might come to find this practice rewarding and beneficial. This article, reprinted from Jeff Langr’s Web site, explains the rules and how certain teams have reacted to this structured version of pair programming. www.stickyminds.com/eletterpick10-4a enEWsLEttEr ExtrA A sampling of content from our eNewsletter archives sticky toolLook: November 8, 2007 A Word with the Wise: thinking tools with clarke ching by Joseph McAllister Clarke Ching is an agile advocate living in Scotland. He has an MBA specializing in technology management and is currently writing a book, Rolling Rocks Downhill, about how to make managing software projects easier, more productive, and predictable. Some of the tools he uses most often in his work include software like Microsoft Word, Excel, Gmail, and Typepad, as well as his BlackBerry for email. But his two most useful tools, he says, are “thinking tools.” clarke ching: Both of them are from Eli Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints. The first of these is called the top 3 Myths of requirements Management by John SiMpSon/eric winquiSt This paper challenges the status quo and explores the top myths that continue to exist in the world of requirements management. Even though requirements management has been around for decades, the fact remains that four out of five technology projects and new products developed don’t succeed, which is why it continues to be a major juggernaut and point of frustration for companies. This white paper contains advice for how to dispel the myths and bridge the requirements management gap. www.stickyminds.com/eletterpick10-4b the “Conflict Cloud.” It is a simple way of drawing problems using five boxes. I used it yesterday, for instance, to walk two of my client’s managers through a problem with how they managed projects. Sales would quote prices to their customers based on optimistic estimates. Why? Because they wanted to make the sale. But this annoyed the development managers because they found themselves committed to aggressive schedules with low probabilities of success. The conflict cloud took about fifteen minutes to draw, and within another ten minutes we had identified a number of areas we need to tackle to evaporate the problem. One, for instance, was that the sales people are rewarded for revenue targets, not profit targets. The second tool is to always look at problems by asking first: Where is the bottleneck? In any system the bottleneck determines the output of the system. The only way to increase the output of the system is to improve the output of the bottleneck. Say that a development team identifies its developers as the team’s bottleneck. Imagine that it then asks the team—not just the developers—”what can we do to squeeze more work out of the developers?” Every time I’ve done this we’ve found simple ways (“less meetings” is a common suggestion) to free up time so that the whole team can get more work done. It isn’t as easy to spot the bottleneck when you’re dealing with knowledge workers, but when you do, it’s usually very easy to improve their output by, say, 20 percent, which results in an increase in throughput from the entire system by 20 percent. JM: How did you first decide to incorporate these tools into your work? Have you introduced these methods to other people? cc: I discovered these tools over ten years ago when I first read Eli Goldratt’s business novel, The Goal. It took me a couple of years before I used the bottleneck idea in practice and another five years before I started using the conflict cloud. I’ve had a lot of success with both, but I find other people are happy enough for me to help them to solve problems using the tools, but a little reluctant to use them on their own. JM: Perhaps there’s something to a person with a bank of useful knowledge being a tool of sorts? cc: That’s an interesting way of looking at it. I suppose that as a consultant people “rent” me because I have specialized knowledge and skills, just like I rented a van when I was moving house. Never thought of it like that before. JM: Will you be incorporating thinking tools like the ones you mentioned into your own book, Rolling Questions You should Ask by Michele Sliger It’s a technique children and teenagers have mastered: asking “why” until they get to an acceptable response (or until we’re too tired to continue answering). In this column, find out how Michele Sliger uses a similar approach designed by Six Sigma to drill down into the underlying cause of any problem within software projects. She then continues the inquisition with a series of other questions to find out how these problems affect business value and technology. Read this article to learn what these questions are and how you can start using them to find out why things aren’t going as planned. www.stickyminds.com/eletterpick10-4c Rocks Downhill? cc: Yes. My book is a business novel like Goldratt’s The Goal, and I use the cloud either explicitly or more subtly within most chapters. Novels are about solving crises and problems, and that is what the conflict is about. The bottleneck tool features throughout. In fact, my next StickyMinds article is about bottlenecks. Just thought of another tool. If I am trying to solve a particularly messy problem, then often I will fire up my word processor, give the problem to one of the characters in my book, and let the other character help him out. It’s surprising what they know and what they can figure out. All I have to do is sit back and type what they want to say. They’re very lucky that they know and trust each other well enough to be able to have fierce arguments but still respect each other. I edit out the swearing during the rewrite. www.StickyMinds.com MAY 2008 BETTER SOFTWARE 9 http://www.stickyminds.com/eletterpick10-4a http://www.stickyminds.com/eletterpick10-4b http://www.stickyminds.com/eletterpick10-4c http://www.StickyMinds.com

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

Better Software - May 2008 Contents Mark Your Calendar Contributors eLightenment Technically Speaking Code Craft Test Connection Management Chronicles Cover Story: It's A Bug! The Chivalrous Team Member Let's Talk Agile Product Announcements 10 Things You Might Not Know About... The Last Word Ad Index

Better Software - May 2008

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