Waltzing With Bears by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister

Why I recommend Waltzing With Bears:
Reason 1: It is a very fast read covering many topics concisely and accurately
Reason 2: It is the best book I've read about risk and managing risk
Reason 3: And the shortest best book on estimating


It has been 3-4 years since I read this book and I still recommend it to every PM and PMO and any other team member who is interested in the topics in it.

What is to be done for the single biggest blocker to an agile transition?

I've been interviewing a number of candidates for a role in my team of Agile Coaches these past few months. One of the topics we like to discuss with candidates is that of "serious resistance".

I've reflected on the topic a great deal over the years, as well as read several books and articles, discussed here and there at various conferences, trainings and war story sharings. It is not an easy topic, and its clear that many "new process/practice" people run into it constantly.

Through all this, 2 approaches dominate:
1. Back off, and attempt to influence via the resisters influencers
2. Fire/promote

AKA:
1. Do nothing
2. Do something radical (AKA change your organisation, or change your organisation)

Both sound lose-lose to me.

Today I had a slightly different thought - what if the pressure/focus was turned instead to the resister's line manager? What if the line management was forced to accept the accountability that comes with the management position and actually conduct coaching/mentoring 1-1 sessions with the resister? What if the line manager's job was on the line instead? That seems to me to have far bigger and quicker impact potential...possibly at the actual root cause of the problem!

:O

Thankyou for reading!

My latest saying - Together We Stand At Least A Chance

Together we stand...at least a chance!

Strange ATM / Cash Card bug?

I recently had a cash card from a major UK bank.

I used to put it in any ATM / Cash Point, punch in my pin, and get access to the services. I used to be able to draw statements and check my balance. But as soon as I tried to draw money, immediately the machine would eject my card and give me the error message "Temporary error processing your request. Please try again later". No matter which machine or bank I tried, always the same result.

A while ago, friends of mine in that space told me about the ATM / Cash Point algorithm. And the only really significant thing that I remember, is that the machine only actually authenticates your pin against your bank once you select the service that requires authentication... eg balance request, mini statement, draw money.

So...what was going on? I have thought about it for a while now, and still no idea. When I eventually contacted my bank, they told me not to worry as clearly the faults I was experiencing were temporary faults that existed only the Cash Point machines. Yet all my data points told me something else was happening. Eventually the "helpful" call centre operator suggested I just get a new card. Which I did, and it did solve my problem.

I can only think that there was a "magic sequence" of numbers encoded somewhere in the chip / magnetic strip of that particular card which was causing a very nasty bug on the various Cash Point hardwares/softwares to show itself. Lucky me.

Or unlucky them...could such a magic number really exist somewhere and be used somehow to cause a buffer overflow attack on what I've pretty much taken for granted is a well and truly stable set of components and systems after all these years?

These kinds of puzzles is why software, software engineering and software quality will always keep me interested.

Scaling Software Agility Presentation by Dean Leffingwell

This is a followup to one of my previous book recommendations - Scaling Software Agility by Dean Leffingwell

You can access a summary basically of the major themes Dean focusses on for Scaling of Agile: Scaling Software Agility (pdf)

Thanking Your Teacher

Teachers' Best Thank You Present

"The best way of making an offering to your teacher is to practise what you have been taught"

- HH The Dalai Lama from "The Essential Dalai Lama"

...you can also thank THIS teacher/me by clicking any Google advert (it costs you 0), or buying my recommendation or anything else you happen to want from amazon.com/amazon.co.uk after following one of my Amazon links!

Thank you! ;-)

The Ideal Student

Lama Tsong Khapa in one of his "Great Exposition" writings stated that the 3 principal qualifications of an ideal student are:

1. An objective and open mind
2. The intelligence to judge between right and wrong
3. The enthusiasm for and interest in the subject