Agile Otter Blog

Pretend you have a really great programming day.   You only have to attend a few meetings, have only a few off-topic conversations, don't get distracted or interrupted much, don't have to do a bunch of status or time reporting, and you put in a good six hours of serious programming [note: this RARELY happens in an 8-10 hour day].   I want to review your work in the morning, so I print out a diff of your day's work before going home.   Sadly, overnight the version control system crashes and they have to recover from the previous day's backup. You have lost an entire day's work.   If I give you the diff, how long will it take you to type the changes back into the code base and recover your six-hours' work? Programming is 11/12ths Thinking I've been touting this figure for some time now, and people keep asking me where the study is that produced such an odd number. Well, it's not pulled out of thin air and it's not the result of a thoro...

Understand your office situation better w/RSA Animate & David Coplin Raised many interesting points. I still see value in being able to pair and mob, and would like to have heard more talk about that, but I think his idea about being in control of how you work is important. Enjoy.

Here is Christopher Avery shows us a mental model that will help us to become more responsible. I found it concise and helpful. I hope you may also.

Communication is a very human process. A quick model Every being has its own mental model of a domain Connected to it is a hearing/understanding apparatus. When you tell me the sky is beautiful, my mental model suggests it is a nice shade of blue and had some light, interesting clouds. But it could be that we don't share a model, and you meant really intense lightning and fast-moving thunderheads. Provided that there are not too many great disconnects, though, what you tell me may provide information that I can add to my mental model. This is true whether I understand the words I heard in the same way that you meant them or not. Recognize there is a difference between what I hear, and what I understand. It is sometimes said that "memory is the residue of thought" so my memory of our conversation may not be my memory of the sounds and words used, but of my thoughts/interpretation of the sentences as they occurred. I probably remember what I was thinking while you...