Yearly Archives: 2017

[Present day] It’s three days before the deadline. 116 known bugs and still some must-have features that need to be developed. The team is tired and the project manager is…

Why scrum might not be the best tool for your company. The difference between project and product management can sound like contrived management “bullshit bingo”, but it’s key to understanding…

Writing unit tests for non-TDD code makes Jack a dull boy. Writing unit tests for non-TDD code makes Jack a dull boy. Writing unit tests for non-TDD code makes Jack…

Simple solutions are hard to design. They require experimentation, trial-and-error and a load of experience. It’s about deliberately chipping away the marble that doesn’t look like David. So why do…

I remember the first time the agile movement got on my radar. During a session of heavy procrastination, I ran across an article on Extreme Programming that would define my…

“We cannot tell you how long it will take. It will be done when it’s done.” — some developer “We’ve decided that an Oracle Portal is the best tool for the job” — some…

Scrum is hot! Since it’s all technical mumbo-jumbo, you can use this cheat sheet to pretend you know what you’re talking about. Post-its are the only tools you need to…

Why your kitchen is crawling with software vendors We all know stories about companies outsourcing their development to some shady low cost firm and getting sub-par results in return. “If…

Why you should quit them and what to do instead. People are notoriously bad at estimating how long something will take. What they are good at is comparing things and…

I was sitting on the bed in my student flat when a friend suggested we’d “make spaghetti or something” for dinner. While I considered myself to be pretty independent by…