Henrik Kniberg has a presentation online called “What is Agile?” It includes a method of visualizing risk as the gap between cumulative cost and cumulative value, as well as methods of visualizing risk mitigation strategies. I found it valuable. Here are some representative slides: Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Incremental Development
Growing a System
Some years ago, Harlan Mills proposed that any software system should be grown by incremental development. That is, the system first be made to run, even though it does nothing useful except call the proper set of dummy subprograms. Then, bit by bit, it is fleshed out, with the subprograms in turn being developed into actions or calls to empty stubs in the level below. . . . Nothing in the past decade has so radically changed my own practice, and its effectiveness. . . . One always has, at every stage, in the process, a working system. I find that teams can grow much more complex entities in four months than they can build. — Fred Brooks, “No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering” Read more →
Twitter: 2009-11-12
RT @mashable Bill Gates’ Plan for Fixing the World http://bit.ly/4ABw03 # RT @SarahKSilverman: Sometimes when I'm by myself I say out loud, "BarTHelona" & giggle at that lispy accent they have. ah shit, I have fun. # RT @capricecrane: They say a lie gets around the world before the truth gets its pants on. Why the truth is pantsless, no one ever says. # User Story Mapping: modeling user stories for effective understanding of your system and planning incremental releases: http://bit.ly/1LQ17h # If my office gets one degree colder I'm going home… # Read more →
Respect the Classics, Man: No Silver Bullet
This essay by Turing Award-winner Fred Brooks is almost 20 years old now. Sadly, the ideas on incremental development are still considered outside the mainstream in IT, which continues to favor the widely-discredited waterfall approach. Read more →