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When I was a Team Lead of 8 programmers, I envied them.  Not because their job was easy, but because I missed programming.  I missed writing software each day.  I missed the periods of deep focus, of technical problem solving, of putting the final touches on something I was proud of.  I missed delivering something…

Last week I wrote with thoughts on this question: How do you know a story is too big before it’s too late?  But I think there’s a deeper issue here we could explore.  A better question might be Why do stories get too big in the first place?   If we only limit the bigness, as…

Nathan and I were discussing the abuse of burn-down charts on Twitter. He asked an important question: How do you know a story is too big before it is too late? Since this was twitter, I’ll expand the question a bit: How do you know a story is too big to finish before the end…

When you talk to your boss about refactoring code, do they exhibit floccinaucinihilipilification?  If so, you might struggle to get approval for the project. (In case, like me, you haven’t heard of “floccinaucinihilipilification,” it means “the act of estimating something as worthless.”  Now we both know! <grin>) When I read this definition, I saw a bit…

Many teams wish they had more time for four activities: 1. Rewriting code 2. Refactoring code 3. Training and improving skills 4. Experimentation with tech and techniques The problem is, these events don’t look like adding features, which is what bosses and clients want. Everyone is doing it. All software teams do these things, but…