Sunday, March 14, 2010

Newer Set of Quotes from Twitter

Many things happening over the past couple of months, including becoming a grandfather.  But also preparing for what looks to be a lengthy Agile/Scrum coaching assignment.  So here's yet another set of quotes from Twitter posts in, again, alphabetical order by first name.
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Alan Cooper - Lean is related to "efficiency" which seems to me an industrial age concept. Bob Marshall - Imo Lean is much more about *effectiveness* than efficiency, hence my #rightshifting campaign, not least.

Alan Shalloway - if your team is populated by heroes your process will require them.

Alan Shalloway - sometimes being heroic is just another way of avoiding prioritization. Scott Duncan - Or is a sign of not recognizing the need to prioritize?

Ash Maurya - Build [features] in response to a signal from the "customer", and otherwise rest or improve.

Bob Martin (on liking one-week iterations) - "not much can go wrong in a week"

Brian Foote (in response to Alan Shalloway - There is a big difference between eliminating waste & not creating it in the first place.) - Fasting vs. Sanitation

Brian Marick - If you have one really great idea and express it together with many dumb ideas, the dumb ideas get a free ride in ppl's minds. This is bad.

Brian Marick - It's swell to be compulsive about "delivering value" but let's realize that "value" isn't a real thing out there in the world. "Value" is not an objective fact. It is a prediction, made by some people, about reactions of other people, over some time. George Dinwiddie - I think "value" is a subjective fact. It, of course, begs the question of whose value takes precedence. Brian Marick in response to Mike Hill - different words have different favorite tricks. "Value"s favorite is making opinion look like measurement. Brian Foote - "value" shines at not sounding like a waste of money. "business" too. Whereas, anything with "re-" in front of it sounds like a wasteful do-over. Refactor, Revise, Repair, Reengineer. Mike Sutton - re-birth, re-new, re-'why can we compete with the latest blah?' revisiting the old is a fact of life, we should embrace it.

Carlton Matthews - when you are not living the life you dreamed you tend to envy the lives of others.

Daniel Elliott (via Bob Martin) - Cope suggests a surgeon who has washed his hands still needs to concentrate on the scalpel (or architecture in our case!)

Dave Nicolette - Velocity is a measure of a team's capacity to deliver, not a measure of activity. But velocity depends on having fixed-length time-boxed iterations. For a continuous flow process, I prefer cumulative flow.

David Hussman - I find it interesting that software people tend to talk about "training" where educators talk about "teaching". Your thoughts are welcome. Ron Jeffries - training is possible, teaching is not. neither word is good. one can, at best, provide an occasion where learning is possible.

Delavigne & Rob (via Glyn Lumley) - "We want to get Deming off the quality shelf and have him recognised for his contributions to a unique philosophy of life"

Derek Wood - Any accommodation we make to doing Scrum well is indicative of an impediment that will need to be resolved at some point.

J.B.Rainsberger - Irony alert: Most organizations learning Scrum are actually practising Waterfall in a manner quite similar to what Royce intended.

Jeff Patton - Is the "definition of done" actually a "definition of built"? "Built" is when I get software, "done" is when I get benefit.

Jonathan Bach - As a manager, my mantra always is: "You may report to me, but really, I work for you."

Jonathan Bach - Scrabble analogy #1: Rarely can your most valuable test ideas (letters Q&Z) be easily put into words. Scrabble analogy #2: Sometimes a test (a word) has more value when it's placed on the boundaries (triple word score). Scrabble analogy #3: You get a bonus if you use all 7 letters to form a word (diverse techniques in one test is powerful).

Jonathan Bach - There are no certified musicians, but we know skilled ones from unskilled ones. Still, execs just want sheet music, not the sound.

Joshua Kerievsky - Faster velocity != better software development. Velocity metrics are a powerfully distracting illusion. Story point estimation is a confusing waste of time. Discussion, feature fat removal, bargain hunting are way more useful.

Jurgen Appelo - Separating process (Scrum) from development (TDD etc) is a fine example of loose coupling. Developers should appreciate that.

Mark O Oakes - A company's ability to collectively learn faster than its competitors may be only sustainable competitive advantage

Mary & Tom Poppendieck (from Leading Lean Software Development) via Jason Yip – It is the overhead incurred to enable auditability that induces the waste, not the standards themselves.

Mary & Tom Poppendieck (from Leading Lean Software Development) via Jason Yip – Randomly giving patients medication until they get better would not even be considered. And yet, we randomly give our work processes medicine, adding on more and more 'best practices,' until the processes seem to get better.

Mary & Tom Poppendieck (from Leading Lean Software Development) via Jason Yip – The advantage which a commander thinks he can attain through continued personal intervention is largely illusory. By engaging in it he assumes a task that really belongs to others, whose effectiveness he thus destroys. He also multiplies his own tasks to a point where he can longer fulfill the whole of them. (actually a quote from Helmuth Von Moltke)

Matthew Heusser - my Fathinlaw, a quality engineer at Ford, once told me the quality engineering discipline existed to product cmpny from execs

Michael Bolton - Often enough, bugs aren't mistakes. Sometimes they're differences of opinion, discoveries, dilemmas, etc.

Mike Sutton - i just got reminded of something that i forgot - thank you @netparr - agility is *not* about getting everything right, but being able to respond to them quickly and correctly when they go wrong.

Nancy Duarte (via @johnnieb99, via Brian Stallings) - "If a slide contains more than 75 words, it has become a document."

Naresh Jain - Increasing velocity is one thing and making your team more productive is another. Don't confuse one for another.

Naresh Jain - Instead of asking how much its going to cost & how long its going to take, ask with 2 ppl for 2 months what can I get?

Rosabeth Kanter - Change is a threat when done TO people, an opportunity when done BY them.

Scott Adams (via David Hussman via maiasylba) - Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Design is knowing which ones to keep.

Steve Jobs (via Scott Williams) - Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life.

Steven M. Smith - Effort chases measurement. Measurement chases the discussable. Core org diseases aren't discussable. Diseases elude cure (effort).

Tim Ottinger - Axis: simple<---->complex is a count of structural parts & linkages, unaffected by naming, syntax, obviousness of solution. Axis: clear<----->perplexing is a measure of how easily one may comprehend the solution, aside from structural parts/linkages. A very brief routine may be simple and clear, or may be simple and cryptic. A long routine may be complicated and clear, or may be complicated and impenetrable. We find a certain synergy working in our favor in short, clear, simple routines. I would go so far as to say that brevity with clarity = elegance.