26 Truisms I’ve Learned as a Coach

A friend of mine asked a group of us for our little sayings that we keep repeating in our heads as we coach organizations and developers. While I have a few tried and true ones, I put together a list of ones on the spot for him based on my experience...

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Jul 21, 2022
We Ain’t Got Time for That

There exists a trait common to most developers and development groups that causes lots of delays and costly mistakes. That trait is when you believe you can figure it out if you have more time.

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Jul 20, 2022
Dear Architects, Do Better

Today I’m going to make a few people mad, get a few things that have been bothering me out there, and hopefully, get a few folks to try something a little different.

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Jul 19, 2022
Prioritizing for Feedback

There are a lot of prioritization techniques that exist, and it’s worth getting comfortable with a handful of them. Each one has strengths and weaknesses, so having a few you can use rounds out your ability to prioritize.

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Jul 15, 2022
Book Review - The Checklist Manifesto

I was talking with some friends the other day about the state of our industry, as we often do, and someone mentioned various problematic metaphors that people use. In particular, the metaphor that software teams should work like a surgical team led b...

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Jul 13, 2022
Make One Small Adjustment to Your Roadmaps

I’m not a fan of most roadmaps or their usage, but so what? They are a near-universal tool in many companies that awkwardly try to communicate what is going on and their timelines. Despite them turning into vague work-breakdown schedules, there is so...

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Jul 11, 2022
Tales of Efficiency

The alarm goes off in the morning, and as usual, I begin my day by putting on my clothes. Now, I’ve been putting on my clothes for a long time, and I like to do things efficiently, so I put my clothes on in the following order:

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Jul 06, 2022
What Almost Every Example of User Stories Gets Wrong

User stories are ubiquitous these days as the method of representing work that development teams need to do. Yet, very few groups ever really understand them well enough to get much value out of them. While I still think user stories are an excellent...

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Jul 01, 2022
Seven Weird Lessons From the Fortune 100

For the better part of eight years, I’ve been consulting for the Fortune 100. I thought I’d share some quirky truths I’ve learned along the way. Before I go into them, some clients don’t exhibit these truths, but they’re an exception.

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Jun 29, 2022
How To Make Software Development Predictable

I wrote an article last week about the Theory of Constraints. In particular, I highlighted how variability is probably the biggest enemy you have to a method like that working. So in this article, I’m going to explain a way to help reduce variability...

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Jun 27, 2022