tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44054348999621761352024-09-14T21:44:17.411-04:00Rants and musings about making the software world a better place.Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.comBlogger176125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-23789929684045997032018-03-22T12:31:00.000-04:002018-03-22T12:31:06.662-04:00

(This post was originally published on Medium) The irony would be sublime — “Rising from the ashes of Phoenix”. Irony, however, isn’t my goal. Instead I intend to provide a concrete way forward to our elected & appointed federal government officials to replace the Phoenix pay system. It frustrates me to no end that in 2018 we have to pay for failed IT systems that use approaches firmly

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-59606326438828718472015-05-18T06:00:00.000-04:002015-05-18T06:00:00.584-04:00

Predictability in software system delivery is as close to a Holy Grail as it comes in the IT industry. I’ve heard many people stress being able to have a predictable delivery cadence as something valuable to them. As recently as today I saw a reference to “predictability over commitment” on Twitter! But why is predictability so important to so many people? The people who pay for the

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-30171724276288458642015-05-07T12:00:00.000-04:002015-05-07T12:00:15.119-04:00

If you have ever built software using a true Test-Driven Development (TDD) approach, do you remember the first problem you had to overcome? Was it perhaps: Where do I start? What’s the first test? That’s a very common issue - simply not knowing where to start. Quite a few years ago, I was coaching at a client in the St. Louis, Missouri area. I attended a meetup of the local XP group and it

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-33338782972559795842015-04-27T12:00:00.000-04:002015-04-27T12:00:10.831-04:00

If you’ve done any amount of programming that wasn’t test-driven, the entire notion of writing a test before writing any code may sound odd. I can tell you from my own experience in late 2000 and early 2001 that it certainly seemed like a strange way to build software. When I first tried writing code in a test-driven manner, it felt more than odd or strange - it felt as if I was using my "

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-76414316056097238502015-04-16T13:30:00.000-04:002015-04-16T13:30:01.075-04:00

Ah, the 80's! A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away known as my teenage years, I used to watch the popular CBS show Magnum, PI. The show's protagonist, Thomas Magnum (portrayed by Tom Selleck), had a running self-narration throughout the show which helped fill out the plot and characters. One line of narration that Magnum often spoke was, "I know what you're thinking...". He did this

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-84819579811252768352015-04-06T12:00:00.000-04:002015-04-06T12:00:12.212-04:00

In the Agile world we the often hear statements like, "Fail fast, fail often", and "Failure is how you learn". Equally often we hear about organizations whose culture disapproves of failure. We say that such organizations will be a difficult fit for any Agile process and there will be much pain and suffering during the transition. But what do we actually mean by the term failure? When

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-78687851490348520362015-03-26T12:00:00.000-04:002015-04-14T12:31:29.290-04:00

You're driving down the highway trying to reach a distant destination. You've had delays such as traffic along the way, and you know that you're going to have to "push it" in order to have any hope at all of arriving on time. You start to feel something strange in the steering wheel. The car seems to be pulling to one side and the steering is rather "mushy". It dawns on you that you're

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-56754573358552887782015-03-16T12:00:00.000-04:002015-03-16T12:00:11.380-04:00

I spend quite a bit of my coaching time helping teams improve how they determine what needs to be built in order to satisfy a business need. I warn them right from the start that they're going to hear me repeat the same term many, many times before they get rid of me. That term is "Shared Understanding". There's a thinking tool that I use to help people understand what shared understanding

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-91000372931998240802015-03-05T14:00:00.000-05:002015-03-09T22:44:53.122-04:00

Many organizations in which I've coached are concerned when the people on their teams aren't being "utilized" at 100% of their capacity. If someone is at work for 8 hours per day, minus an hour for lunch and breaks, that's 7 hours of potential capacity. Some organizations are progressive enough to see that the organization's overhead of administrative activities lowers that value to 6 hours

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-27983199375385850602015-02-25T12:00:00.000-05:002015-03-09T22:45:15.246-04:00

Despite the protestations of many people, the term resource continues to be widely used as a synonym for person. I've written about it before, but I'd like to explain again why I feel so strongly about the issue. This is lumber, specifically spruce. Suppose I took one of the 2x4s from the pile, put it back and took another. I could be reasonably certain that both 2x4s had close to the same

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-85399385601818277812015-02-24T21:50:00.000-05:002019-02-11T09:15:33.341-05:00

I'm often asked if the principle of emergent design used by many agile teams really makes sense. Usually the question comes from someone who is heavily involved in the design process, such as an architect or senior developer. That person may have spent years designing software, and is somewhat uncomfortable with the idea that the hard work done up front can be adequately replaced by allowing

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-91991239567958514262014-10-11T12:00:00.000-04:002015-03-09T22:42:32.848-04:00

As I've said before, I'm a huge fan of Jeff Patton's Story Mapping technique. While Story Mapping goes a long way towards identifying the work that needs to be completed to deliver a viable system, you will inevitably miss some stories. This is a natural outcome of the discovery process that is inherent to software development. When you discover that some functionality is missing or

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-66359124999330918512014-09-16T11:49:00.001-04:002015-03-13T06:26:44.208-04:00

Most of us have been there... the release or sprint planning meeting to goes on and on and on and on. There is constant discussion over what a story means and endless debate over whether it's 3, 5 or 8 points. You're eventually bludgeoned into agreement, or simply too numb to disagree. Any way you look at it, you'll never get those 2, 4 or even 6 hours back - they're gone forever! And to what

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-38661196371134221972014-08-24T13:00:00.001-04:002023-03-25T21:35:40.192-04:00

Graphene is pure carbon in the form of a very thin, nearly transparent sheet, one atom thick. It is remarkably strong for  its very low weight and it conducts heat and electricity with great efficiency. Wikipedia If you have spent any time at all working in an Agile software development environment, you've heard the mantra to split your Stories as thin as you possibly can while still

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-45114217572356643792014-08-14T12:25:00.001-04:002015-03-09T22:49:23.131-04:00

I've been part of a discussion on Twitter about the vices of imposed Agile adoptions versus the virtues of the approach put forth by Daniel Mezick, OpenAgile Adoption. Regardless of the arguments for or against each approach, creating this dichotomy misses the point. In May 2012, organizational change consultant Maureen Cunningham gave a talk at Agile Ottawa about Change. She used a number of

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-84586384534199093462014-08-12T13:00:00.000-04:002015-03-09T22:49:51.250-04:00

I found a tweet I saw this morning rather disconcerting: An embedded #agile coach billing $2500 a day for 221 days can in theory generate this much per yr: $552,500. Q: What does the client get? — Daniel Mezick (@DanielMezick) August 12, 2014 The clear implication is that coaches, like all consultants, follow the mantra, "If you can't be part of the solution, there's plenty of money to be made

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-31750949366701734662014-04-21T09:48:00.001-04:002014-04-21T09:48:45.481-04:00

If you're scanning my blog for "Phase 1", you will do so in vain! Phase 2 is a reference to the infamous "Underpants Gnomes" from South Park: In the case of an Agile transformation, Phase 1 is the good old pilot project. If all we coaches ever did was to assist with pilot projects, we'd be rock stars! Pilot projects are by definition set up for success. Mountains are moved in order to ensure

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-86491132051880780612014-03-24T14:00:00.000-04:002014-03-24T14:00:27.460-04:00

For readers to whom English isn't their first language, we use the phrase "eating crow" to describe a situation when you must admit that you were wrong after taking a rather strong position about something. While this isn't exactly that case, hence the second title, it does illustrate a lesson in perspective. First Hat - "Sherpa" While I was working at Shopify, one area on which I focused

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-72974432547203199072014-03-20T09:32:00.001-04:002014-03-20T09:55:39.894-04:00

There was an interesting exchange recently on Twitter about Agile adoptions/transformations that are mandated. Dan Mezick asserted that: Between 75% and 85% of all #agile adoptions fail to last. 99% of these adoptions are implemented as mandates. Any connection here? I responded, asking for Dan's source to those stats. His answer was that it was "pro coaches" like myself. What ensued was a

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-56988538283138892622014-03-19T09:23:00.000-04:002014-03-19T09:23:17.432-04:00

Over twenty years ago I learned a valuable lesson about solving the right problem for the people who used the software that I was building. I was working on a training management system, specifically on the reports that were needed by the people who handled training for a relatively large organization. There were a number of 'canned' reports, meaning that the format was fixed and the query

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-39794022695267305542014-03-09T11:21:00.000-04:002014-03-24T12:27:43.821-04:00

My good friend Gil Broza, author of The Human Side of Agile, pointed me towards an upcoming virtual training event called the Packing List for Your Agile Journey. It's a 5-day event with a tremendous "cast of characters", including Johanna Rothman, Arlo Belshee, Ted Young and Paul Carvalho among others. Gil's approach is to interview each of these 10 industry leaders, having them discuss

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-88328240070125732392014-03-06T09:16:00.001-05:002014-03-06T09:16:29.720-05:00

I've started working on a new book with the rather lofty goal of cutting through the marketing hype and near religious dogma of the various brands of Agile. My focus is on conveying what is effective in the context of a group of people building software in their particular domain. Effectiveness is the book's overarching concept. There are a multitude of different ways to deliver software

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-33426036743483756642014-03-05T13:09:00.000-05:002014-03-05T13:10:51.820-05:00

I'm in the process of writing a book entitled Effective Software Delivery - Agility Without the Dogma. This video is an interview with me describing the history and concepts behind the book. You can register to be notified of updates on the book's Leanpub page. Please share if you like the video and concept for the book! I will be releasing updates as they're available, with a target

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-85258803531366358542014-02-28T09:42:00.001-05:002014-02-28T09:42:12.690-05:00

After spending nearly two years working at Shopify, I took the plunge and actually created my own online store! There are two aspects to the store. The first represents a simple way to view and purchase the coaching and training services I provide. For example, you can purchase blocks of time for both Remote and Onsite Coaching simply using a credit card. There's no need for hassle of

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4405434899962176135.post-23252637726191894572014-02-27T12:40:00.001-05:002014-02-27T12:40:48.220-05:00

Click for more! (This post was inspired by Tim Ottinger.) At Agile Coach Camp 2012 here in Ottawa, I led a session called "I'm done with Agile". The discussion during that session focused on how the marketing of various 'brands' had fractured the Agile world to the detriment of people and organizations who were trying to become more effective at their software delivery efforts. I jokingly

Dave Rooneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934266695771206046noreply@blogger.com0