Category Archives: breaking models

The Joy of Arrogance

Posted on October 2, 2012 by

I’m awesome, and arrogant. I’m awesome, and arrogant, and I know it, and this makes me joyful. I wanted to share that joy with you, and explain why I think arrogance is so important, and humility overrated. For a start, … Continue reading →

Posted in breaking models | 17 Comments

It’s about the examples you can’t find, not the ones you can

Posted on February 20, 2012 by

A long time ago, I was toying with the idea of starting my test methods with “will”, instead of “should”. Dan explained to me, “If you start with the word ‘will’, you’re already making the assumption that you understand what … Continue reading →

Posted in bdd, breaking models, real options | Leave a comment

The Real Cost of Change

Posted on January 30, 2012 by

We have a strange desire for control. I was in a planning meeting with my project manager and several of the devs. “What happened?” the project manager said. “Why did this one story take so long?” “There was some functionality … Continue reading →

Posted in breaking models, cynefin, learning, spike and stabilize, testing, uncertainty | 14 Comments

You’re doing it wrong

Posted on December 23, 2011 by

The first time I did it wrong, it was because I didn’t know any better. The second time I did it wrong, it was because I forgot about the first time. The third time I did it wrong, it was … Continue reading →

Posted in breaking models | 1 Comment

Conversational patterns in BDD

Posted on September 22, 2011 by

BDD isn’t about the tools. It’s about the conversations you have, exploring examples (or scenarios) of an application’s behaviour, to see if everyone has the right understanding. Of course, we don’t know what we don’t know, so feedback is still … Continue reading →

Posted in bdd, breaking models | 4 Comments

The Evil Hat

Posted on January 6, 2010 by

You’ve got a problem. You want to measure, and improve, something about your project or people. You’ve got a good idea about how to do this. Perhaps the metric you want to use is already widely measured. Perhaps it’s been … Continue reading →

Posted in breaking models, evil hat | 7 Comments

Doing the simplest thing and YAGNI

Posted on June 2, 2009 by

On an aside, some people have asked me why I’ve chosen to set up my services site as a hard-coded website with server-side includes, instead of using another WordPress blog or something similar. I did it because: It was the … Continue reading →

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Cargo Cults and Agile Values

Posted on May 22, 2009 by

What’s a Cargo Cult? Once upon a time, during World War II, there was an island on which planes landed. The islanders loved the planes landing, because they brought goods that the islanders couldn’t normally get. The soldiers shared the … Continue reading →

Posted in breaking models, feedback, learning models, values | 1 Comment

I am not a Pr0n Star: avoiding unavoidable associations

Posted on April 29, 2009 by

I just read Matt Amionetti’s thoughtfully worded response to the reaction he’s got from his presentation, “CouchDB: Perform like a Pr0n star”. Indeed, reading the response, it seems almost inconceivable that anyone could possibly be offended by his presentation. Matt … Continue reading →

Posted in breaking models, feedback | 54 Comments

What does “Not Agile” look like?

Posted on April 14, 2009 by

Last week, the XtC London group met up with the SPA2009 attendees. Joseph Perline ran a panel session with Tim Mackinnon, Rachel Davies and others in which they discussed the weakening of the Agile brand. One of the most interesting … Continue reading →

Posted in breaking models | 4 Comments