Bobtuse

A Personal Approach to Agility

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 17:44:00 PST

I will always appreciate the spirit of the Agile Manifesto. I revisit the 12 principles behind the Agile Manifesto on occasion, particularly after experiencing recipe-driven nincompoops who use the...

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Simple, Assertive Software

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 11:13:00 PST

Do you want your app to Kick Ass & Call it Love Story? Keep it simple. And make it assertive. Focus on doing at least one thing right. Distill that thing to its essence. Industrial designer...

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YSOD is the New BSOD

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 03:56:00 PDT

Old Paradigm New Paradigm In the enchanted land of Microsoft Windows OS and Microsoft IIS, the Yellow Screen of Death (YSOD) has all but replaced the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)....

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Should Designers Code?

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 03:41:00 PDT

Bobtuse Honeybee Pagoda I am an long-time programmer. I have a keen interest in simple design and providing a pleasurable aesthetic experience in most things I build. Jon Kolko's post code...

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Say No to Brogrammers

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Sat, 26 May 2012 11:36:00 PDT

I have observed a disturbing trend in software circles where cocky, mean-spirited brogrammers infect development teams. Urban Dictionary defines brogrammer...

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Agile Anti-Patterns

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Fri, 04 May 2012 18:23:00 PDT

A few Agile anti-patterns I have experienced as a developer are: Business Allowed to be Lazy. A counter-productive friction exists between highly productive developers (held accountable by...

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Design Quest - Interaction Design Day #1

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:46:00 PST

Day One of Cooper's Interaction Design Practicum had many highlights. Some of the topics covered includes the following ideas, practices & tips: Design Is - Groundwork...

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Design Quest - Day Zero

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:45:00 PST

Priming for Cooper's Interaction Design Practicum, I visited Less and More - The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams at SFMOMA. Dieter Rams is a German industrial designer whose body of work is...

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Cloud Green or Cloud Nine?

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 08:12:00 PST

The cloud metaphor gives the cloud storage of our data a misleading somewhere-up-in-the-clouds, ethereal quality. Perhaps we could use a bit of grounding from the implied benevolence of cloud...

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You and The Org

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 05:28:00 PST

Trust shapes the quality of our relationships in the market of jobs, gigs, and careers. Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. ~ William Shakespeare Jurgen Appelo's clever t-shirt test is one...

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Information & The Common Good

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 03:39:00 PST

Information is power. But power tends to corrupt whether in revered individuals or in authoritarian institutions. One need only reflect on the sordid history of the Papacy, or the recent...

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Ownership & Responsibility

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 04:53:00 PDT

On the collaborative teams I have enjoyed working on, we quickly forget who the assigned leader is and often coalesce around a de facto leader. In Cisco and a Cautionary Tale about Teams Rosabeth...

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When Fast Was Turbo

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 03:35:00 PDT

By dumb-luck and fortunate timing in the mid-80s, I scored an undergraduate fellowship from the University of Minnesota Civil & Mineral Engineering department to develop engineering applications...

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Silent But Deadly Guy

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 03:20:00 PDT

I get testy when the software community measures developers. Many software projects use Sprint Burn-Down charts (SBD charts) thinking they are measuring Velocity. My beef with SBD...

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Not What, But Who

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 08:53:00 PDT

I've been moving from project to project for quite some time now. What I've realized is that for most professional gigs, it's not what you're doing that's important as much as who you're doing it...

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Management & Leadership Psychobabble

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 06:28:00 PDT

I'm weary of management & leadership psychobabble (e.g., The manager does this, while the leader does that). While not bullet-proof, two tenets that hold true more often than not in my...

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The Filler Anti-Pattern

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 07:54:00 PDT

There aren't enough killer apps to go around. Most software developers perform a daily slog making information massaging applications or information shuffling applications. A developer I know...

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Agile Adaptations

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 13:22:00 PDT

I've been following the Lean-Startup movement since I wrote about it in Framing Product Development. In the Spring of 2010 I was jazzed up about Lean-Startup following a gathering at DevJam with a...

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Make Software for People

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 22:07:00 PDT

Whenever software professionals extol the virtues of Lean Manufacturing, I think of the I Love Lucy episode where Lucy & Ethel work the assembly line of a candy factory, then I wonder What...

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An Old Story of Story Mapping

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 03:46:00 PDT

Agile software development teams who use Story Mapping in the tradition originated in software circles by Jeff Patton and David Hussman will be amused to learn author Eudora Welty was...

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Relevant Stand-Up Meetings

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Tue, 10 May 2011 03:21:00 PDT

The stand-up meeting has long been used by the military (e.g., roll-call) to account for and synchronize troops. Meetings should last as long as needed. No longer. Nobody schedules a "lunch...

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Team Intelligence & Tectonic Shifts

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 12:44:00 PST

Tectonic shifts have become the norm. To cope with tectonic shifts, collaborators might do well to consider Environmental Adaptability, Direction & Approach, and Team Intelligence. Environmental...

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Legacy of Crumbling Legacy

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 19:18:00 PST

A software middleman's pitch to work on a re-write of legacy code might read like ...WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS, CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE...

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Cadence is Crucial

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:04:00 PST

There's a delightful book called If You Give a Moose a Muffin. My forthcoming missive on iterative software development is tentatively entitled If You Give a Clown a MetricCadence is the most...

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It's a Marriage, Not a Stew

noreply@blogger.com (Bob MacNeal) — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 12:57:00 PST

I'll use a horse racing analogy to illustrate a common Agile software #fail scenario: The developers are thoroughbred horses, with rapid metabolisms, who are impatiently cantering. The...

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