Mar 7, 2017The Future of TestingI started off my career in IT as a tester or test manager and I’ve had twenty odd years of working around the world on companies big and small. Just when I thought the IT industry had stagnated and was subsiding into a morass of blunt instruments and simplistic aphorisms…Dev Ops5 min read
Feb 18, 2017The Evolution of TestingI started my testing career eighteen years ago, mostly by accident. I was a programmer doing tech support for a multimedia conference when I struck up a conversation with one of the presenters. …Agile5 min read
Feb 18, 2017The Lie of Gross Domestic ProductThe way we measure production is fatally flawed. In fact the way we look at work is fatally flawed. In traditional service and manufacturing, managers are tasked with keeping men and machines busy. If the ‘plant’ is busy then it must be productive. …Economics5 min read
Feb 16, 2017Lean TestingI first encountered Agile in 1999 in London — and I wasn’t impressed. But in about 2009 I came across agile again, as head of Testing at Bankwest; and agile had changed. It had got smarter — it had grown up. But it wasn’t until I started studying Lean that…Agile9 min read
Feb 16, 2017A Primer on User StoriesThe Problem with Specifications The traditional way of building software is to write down everything that the customer wants in a document called a specification or requirements document. It doesn’t work very well. Here’s something I wrote way back in 2005–06 : In technical software projects, clients are generally unfamiliar with not only the…Agile5 min read
Feb 15, 2017The value of fasterThere is a common ‘wisdom’ these days that software development should move faster. From agile to continuous delivery and DevOps, everything is about the need for speed. But many people struggle to understand the benefits of ‘faster’. At a gut level people believe that the faster they go the more…Agile6 min read
Nov 17, 2016The Hubris at the Heart of AgileI came across an interesting example of perspective the other day. A large company I was working with (and shall remain nameless) had commissioned a vendor to build and supply a software product. …Agile5 min read
Jun 22, 2016Design is the “commander’s intent” of businessI was listening to Mary Poppendieck the other night when I surprised myself by answering my own question. The long and rambling question had to do with the prominence of ‘design’ in Mary’s description of management roles. Mary seemed bemused by the question, as if it was obvious that the…Product Management4 min read
May 25, 2016Algorithmic Decision Making in BusinessI recently devoured “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman. It describes two systems of thought that drive our behaviour — the impetuous, intuitive System 1 and the rational, lazy and structured System 2. As a very short and inadequate précis of Kahneman’s work: the book demonstrates that while we…Psychology5 min read
May 18, 2016What do I do now?One problem I often encounter in business (startup or otherwise) is a lack of clarity, a lack of direction. As I detailed in an earlier post linking your strategic goals to your day to day activities is essential to stay on track, to stay focussed and ultimately to deliver. And…Startup3 min read
