Pair Programming
There’s an interesting new model being used in the software development space. It’s called Pair Programming. It works pretty much the way it sounds. Two developers working on a single codebase together. Here’s an article that provides some background info. I like the idea, but must admit, haven’t tried it. To me, it sounds like a good fit in companies where new technology is being introduced that directly affect developers. (By that, I mean that if a new...
Read MoreA Real Good Business Book
A few weekends back, while enjoying a beach day with family, I took along a book I had purchased a couple of months ago named “Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Yourself”. It’s written by Alan Webber, one of the co-founders of Fast Company magazine. It looked like a quick read, ideal for an afternoon in the sun. Well, it wasn’t a quick read at all. It could have been but I enjoyed it enough that I found myself stopping fairly...
Read MoreWhen Winning Isn’t Winning
Many years ago, I had the opportunity to work with a seasoned executive who had run a tech company and who had orchestrated that company’s sale to a larger tech company, making lots of shareholders of the former very happy. It turned out that I had been one of the initial users of his company’s flagship product many years before. It was a wonderful product and was arguably the crown jewel that ultimately triggered the purchase of his company. What I found interesting was that all...
Read MoreMotivational Graffiti
I saw this graffiti painted on a wall of a utility building while running on the Iron Horse Trail in Kitchener a couple of months back. I liked it so much, I went back a few days later and snapped this picture. For some reason, it really resonated with me. I equated it with the old saying “What have you done for me lately?” or “You’re only as good as your last game”. However, this has a more upbeat feel to it. It has a classic message that is a call to dust...
Read MoreWhen Delays Are More Than Delays
One of things I’ve learned over many projects big and small is that delays in any aspect of a project can have some unanticipated consequences. One of the most common but unintuitive of these consequences is that sometimes a simply delay in one task, or task group, can actually result in changes to the definition of a task or task group that is dependent on the work that is delayed. Why do I suggest this is unintuitive? Consider that project managers typically build plans by identifying...
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