I have only recently started to present the idea I comment upon below when I teach classes and otherwise discuss development work with people. I’m not sure why it took me so long to recognize this comparison between the traditional phased-sequential (i.e., waterfall) and Agile approaches to development. But it seems an important point.
Traditional phased-sequential approaches to development have many deadlines/milestones as targets for work, but specify no expected tempo for getting work done between those milestones. Agile methods show considerable concern for establishing a work tempo which replaces most of the date-driven milestones in traditional approaches.
To me, the focus on milestones is less desirable than a predictable tempo because distance between milestones will vary from project to project based on the overall size of the work to be done by the final project delivery milestone. Agile’s main milestone is the iteration which is always (supposed to be) the same length. So teams get used to producing some defined result, regularly, at this tempo.
In traditional milestone-driven projects, the weekly/bi-weekly status meeting might be viewed as establishing some sort of tempo, but what is expected to be done between such events is not a delivery of value/product. So I do not view status meetings as having the same tempo impact as iterations.
A predictable tempo seems to me to encourage more of a team approach to work. Milestones allow more individual work expectations using milestones as coordination points. Of course, the time between such coordination points allows a lot of work to be done before coordination occurs and, as noted above, the time between such points will not necessarily be consistent within or between projects. I believe the inconsistency, extended time periods, and individual task focus work against effective coordination.
At least, it places greater burden on individuals to establish coordination behavior ad hoc. On the one hand, coordination is expected to occur. On the other, individuals view any work tempo to be personal. Coordination efforts in this context seem more difficult because they are not collaboration within an agreed upon tempo, but negotiation between individually accustomed to tempos. In such negotiation, some people are almost guaranteed to feel they have “lost”. (And, truthfully, this may be why some people find moving to an Agile approach problematic. The tempo of an iteration is not their natural one and, though it is not the other team members who have imposed the iteration concept on them, someone has.)
This leads me to believe that some talk about individual work styles and tempos is an important part of the “forming” stage for a team. Everyone much fit into the iteration length’s tempo. Discussing how to support and help one another do that, then, seems to me to be an important aspect of team-building in an Agile context.
I don’t hear people talk about this much, but I do believe I see consequences of it in daily work discussions, ability to deliver on commitments, etc. Because there are consequences for not overtly recognizing this, I think it should be discussed when teams are getting started. And certainly think the concept of milestones vs tempo is important for an organization to discuss when deciding to embark on an Agile approach to their development.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Last Quotes From Twitter
Not because folks aren't saying great things still, but I think I've run this idea into the ground and doing this last, very short, set will be a way to start my blog up again after several months of regrettable inactivity.
@FunnyOneLiners - A mighty oak is the result of a nut that held it's ground.
Abraham Williams - Sometimes I write a letter on paper with a pen then burn it laughing about how Google must be crying over information it will never index.
Albert Einstein (via Jason Yip) - The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution...
Albrecht & Zemke (via @ASQ) - People do not just buy things, they also buy expectations.
Bob Marshall - Agile successes - or not; echoes of Rashomon?
Dale Emery – The values (then the principles, then the practices) stand at the brink and wave goodbye as the name moves on. Michael Bolton - I said a couple years back that Agile hasn't crossed the chasm; it's mostly fallen in. But the name made it across.
David Joyce - Toyota manager induction doesn’t take place in a room but instead 12 weeks are spent in the work being coached on how to solve problems.
G. K. Chesterton (via Jason Yip) - There are two ways to get enough: One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.
Glyn Lumley - The manner in which employees treat customers is determined, in part, by the norms for handling internal conflict and frustration.
James Bach - If you don't have a clear goal in life-- then watch out!-- you might wander and learn cool things that no one anticipated. Payson Hall (replied with this from Tolkien) - Not all those who wander are lost.
Jay Arthur - At one time, customers wanted you to be better, faster and cheaper. Now, they want everything free, perfect and now.
Michael James (actually from a mailing list talking about Scrum and Kanban) - I'm not sure it matters too much whether someone edits with vi or emacs, as the real challenge is what's in the file.
@FunnyOneLiners - A mighty oak is the result of a nut that held it's ground.
Abraham Williams - Sometimes I write a letter on paper with a pen then burn it laughing about how Google must be crying over information it will never index.
Albert Einstein (via Jason Yip) - The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution...
Albrecht & Zemke (via @ASQ) - People do not just buy things, they also buy expectations.
Bob Marshall - Agile successes - or not; echoes of Rashomon?
Dale Emery – The values (then the principles, then the practices) stand at the brink and wave goodbye as the name moves on. Michael Bolton - I said a couple years back that Agile hasn't crossed the chasm; it's mostly fallen in. But the name made it across.
David Joyce - Toyota manager induction doesn’t take place in a room but instead 12 weeks are spent in the work being coached on how to solve problems.
G. K. Chesterton (via Jason Yip) - There are two ways to get enough: One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.
Glyn Lumley - The manner in which employees treat customers is determined, in part, by the norms for handling internal conflict and frustration.
James Bach - If you don't have a clear goal in life-- then watch out!-- you might wander and learn cool things that no one anticipated. Payson Hall (replied with this from Tolkien) - Not all those who wander are lost.
Jay Arthur - At one time, customers wanted you to be better, faster and cheaper. Now, they want everything free, perfect and now.
Michael James (actually from a mailing list talking about Scrum and Kanban) - I'm not sure it matters too much whether someone edits with vi or emacs, as the real challenge is what's in the file.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Gad...Yet More Quotes from Twitter
Been too long since I posted anything. But, fortunately, I have been very busy with work and still digging out from under a move to a much smaller place. I said it a few months ago, but I hope to turn posting to this blog into a more regular habit.
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@funnyoneliners - When asked "What would you bring with you to a deserted island", how come no one ever replies, "A boat."?
Alan Cooper - Art always contains craft, but not vice versa.
Bob Martin - Any meaningful certification must be hard to acquire with a significant chance of failure. I wonder what the CSD failure rate will be...
Bob Martin - Once any word, like "agile" or "Object" or "Structured" becomes synonymous with "Good" it has lost all meaning.
Bob Martin - Second law of meetings: Meetings are for decisions. If you don't know what's to be decided, don't go. If no decision is proposed, leave.
Brad Burt - In the 'Art of the Effect' in magic, less is almost always MORE. It has to do with purity and thus the ease of a watchers acquisition of what has happened. Amazement is knowledge of a kind.
Brian Marick - The original sin of Agile is that small nimble companies don't pay consultants enough, so all the attention is to the lumbering dinosaurs. James Shore - Such truth in @marick's tweet. Explains "Agile" plan tools, watering down of Agile, desire to "scale" mediocrity. Not only reason, natch. [Brian noted “original sin” term not right one. Other noted consultant focus wasn’t real point, it was “dinosaur” focus.]
Brian Marick (at goosgaggle ) - design happens in writing the test - implementation is just stenography.
David Hussman - Many companies need to slow down to get more done.
Dawn Cannon - The purpose of planning is not to prevent uncertainty, but rather to plan how to deal with uncertainty.
Esther Derby - managers are designers of the experience of work.
Esther Derby - Resistance = "Other people are not doing things I want them to do w/ the speed or enthusiasm that I desire."
FunnyOneLiners - It's not easy taking my problems one at a time when they refuse to get in line.
Hannu Kokko - Partial conditions of satisfaction for a demo: understandable, valuable for customer, wow-factor, shows progress
Hillel Glazer (heard at SE{G NA) - Proposal to add a new value to manifesto: "we value improvement over compliance"
Ian E. Savage - Certifications are only as good as the certifying agency. Got it. Let’s move on, shall we.
James Bach - A lot of my choices are about arranging life so instead of having to control my anger, I don't have anger that needs controlling.
James Bach (at #accu2010 via Tom Gilb) - 'it is Testers Job to not be fooled by What is fooling everyone else'. 'testing is about discovering the significance of the requirements'. ‘The spec is a rumor! Wouldn't you like to know what the code ACTUALLY does before you ship?’
James Bach (at StarEast via Matt Heusser) - "bad rigor is following instructions without understanding them", or "pathetic compliance"
Jared Richardson – Overheard: Jenga development. You're not sure which piece will bring it all down, so you resist any changes no matter what.
Jason Gorman (via Hannu Kokko & Kent Beck) - Knowledge of languages and APIs no more makes you a developer than knowledge of anatomy makes you a doctor.
Jerry Weinberg - When managers don't understand the work, they tend to reward the appearance of work. (long hours, piles of paper, ...)
Joseph Angel Alcala - Apologizing always doesn't mean you wrong and others right...means you respect relationship more than your ego.
Ken Schwaber (in a recent podcast, reported by Tobias Meyer) - Scrum is less a silver bullet and more an enema.
Kent Beck (via Jon Udell) - There's no difference I can see but there's obviously a difference the computer can see. I hate that.
Marcus Ahnve (via Lasse Koskela) - Feedback without conversation is criticism.
Mark Levison (re: Agile retrospectives) - I ask "what needs improvement" and focus is on discovering issues. Next I ask "What does team have energy to improve". Then they create action plan.
Michael Bolton - The *number* of test cases that are passing or failing has no more meaning than the *number* of ideas you had in the shower.
Michael Feathers (via Jurgen Appelo) - If you don't give your software a shape, it's going to get a shape anyway. The reason most of our code sucks is that we don't take ourselves seriously as users of our code. Constraints drive design. TDD is an example of a constraint (testable code), and design thrives in constraints.
Morrell (via Jesse Fewell at InfoTech2010) - your team doesn't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.
Naresh Jain - Little things make big things possible. Close attention to fine details brings out excellence in your craft.
Payson Hall - Pondering process improvement/decay cycle oscillation: +Pain > +motivation > +rigor > -pain > -motivation > -rigor > +pain... (repeat)
Peter Scholtes (via Glyn Lumley) - Explaining why change is important will not make the change happen.
Phillip G Armour - and testing is also about finding out how to find out something you don't know you don't know.
Stephen King (via Peter Murphy) - If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.
Stephen Mann (via Anna Nachesa) - Love the old management saying ... meetings - where minutes are saved and hours are lost.
Tom Kealey - Instead of asking the question "how agile are we?" try "how are we agile?" The difference is profound.
Woody Williams - The absence of failure is not an indication of success.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@funnyoneliners - When asked "What would you bring with you to a deserted island", how come no one ever replies, "A boat."?
Alan Cooper - Art always contains craft, but not vice versa.
Bob Martin - Any meaningful certification must be hard to acquire with a significant chance of failure. I wonder what the CSD failure rate will be...
Bob Martin - Once any word, like "agile" or "Object" or "Structured" becomes synonymous with "Good" it has lost all meaning.
Bob Martin - Second law of meetings: Meetings are for decisions. If you don't know what's to be decided, don't go. If no decision is proposed, leave.
Brad Burt - In the 'Art of the Effect' in magic, less is almost always MORE. It has to do with purity and thus the ease of a watchers acquisition of what has happened. Amazement is knowledge of a kind.
Brian Marick - The original sin of Agile is that small nimble companies don't pay consultants enough, so all the attention is to the lumbering dinosaurs. James Shore - Such truth in @marick's tweet. Explains "Agile" plan tools, watering down of Agile, desire to "scale" mediocrity. Not only reason, natch. [Brian noted “original sin” term not right one. Other noted consultant focus wasn’t real point, it was “dinosaur” focus.]
Brian Marick (at goosgaggle ) - design happens in writing the test - implementation is just stenography.
David Hussman - Many companies need to slow down to get more done.
Dawn Cannon - The purpose of planning is not to prevent uncertainty, but rather to plan how to deal with uncertainty.
Esther Derby - managers are designers of the experience of work.
Esther Derby - Resistance = "Other people are not doing things I want them to do w/ the speed or enthusiasm that I desire."
FunnyOneLiners - It's not easy taking my problems one at a time when they refuse to get in line.
Hannu Kokko - Partial conditions of satisfaction for a demo: understandable, valuable for customer, wow-factor, shows progress
Hillel Glazer (heard at SE{G NA) - Proposal to add a new value to manifesto: "we value improvement over compliance"
Ian E. Savage - Certifications are only as good as the certifying agency. Got it. Let’s move on, shall we.
James Bach - A lot of my choices are about arranging life so instead of having to control my anger, I don't have anger that needs controlling.
James Bach (at #accu2010 via Tom Gilb) - 'it is Testers Job to not be fooled by What is fooling everyone else'. 'testing is about discovering the significance of the requirements'. ‘The spec is a rumor! Wouldn't you like to know what the code ACTUALLY does before you ship?’
James Bach (at StarEast via Matt Heusser) - "bad rigor is following instructions without understanding them", or "pathetic compliance"
Jared Richardson – Overheard: Jenga development. You're not sure which piece will bring it all down, so you resist any changes no matter what.
Jason Gorman (via Hannu Kokko & Kent Beck) - Knowledge of languages and APIs no more makes you a developer than knowledge of anatomy makes you a doctor.
Jerry Weinberg - When managers don't understand the work, they tend to reward the appearance of work. (long hours, piles of paper, ...)
Joseph Angel Alcala - Apologizing always doesn't mean you wrong and others right...means you respect relationship more than your ego.
Ken Schwaber (in a recent podcast, reported by Tobias Meyer) - Scrum is less a silver bullet and more an enema.
Kent Beck (via Jon Udell) - There's no difference I can see but there's obviously a difference the computer can see. I hate that.
Marcus Ahnve (via Lasse Koskela) - Feedback without conversation is criticism.
Mark Levison (re: Agile retrospectives) - I ask "what needs improvement" and focus is on discovering issues. Next I ask "What does team have energy to improve". Then they create action plan.
Michael Bolton - The *number* of test cases that are passing or failing has no more meaning than the *number* of ideas you had in the shower.
Michael Feathers (via Jurgen Appelo) - If you don't give your software a shape, it's going to get a shape anyway. The reason most of our code sucks is that we don't take ourselves seriously as users of our code. Constraints drive design. TDD is an example of a constraint (testable code), and design thrives in constraints.
Morrell (via Jesse Fewell at InfoTech2010) - your team doesn't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.
Naresh Jain - Little things make big things possible. Close attention to fine details brings out excellence in your craft.
Payson Hall - Pondering process improvement/decay cycle oscillation: +Pain > +motivation > +rigor > -pain > -motivation > -rigor > +pain... (repeat)
Peter Scholtes (via Glyn Lumley) - Explaining why change is important will not make the change happen.
Phillip G Armour - and testing is also about finding out how to find out something you don't know you don't know.
Stephen King (via Peter Murphy) - If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.
Stephen Mann (via Anna Nachesa) - Love the old management saying ... meetings - where minutes are saved and hours are lost.
Tom Kealey - Instead of asking the question "how agile are we?" try "how are we agile?" The difference is profound.
Woody Williams - The absence of failure is not an indication of success.
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Even Newer Set of Quotes from Twitter
Been far too long since I lasted posted anything, but there was a lot of moving going on in December and some other things so far in January. More moving is left, but I am going to promise to post more often. However, as I have another collection of quotes from folks on twitter, I thought I'd put them out before the list gets too long:
Alan Shalloway - a process tells you to fix your problems is different than a process that gives you information on how to fix it.
Alan Shalloway - There is a big difference between eliminating waste & not creating it in the first place.
Alistair Cockburn (reported by Biran Marick) - Remember talk from about "micro-techniques". If I recall right, he said his observation of ppl like @kentbeck and @wardcunningham was that they gained great speed by doing many small things extremely well and quickly. Alistair Cockburn - Right & I could never develop that idea because micro-techniques come in xtremely context senstitive bushel-basket-loads not onezies.
Bob Marshall - Imo Red Bead is profound because it has many layers; vain hope; delusions (all round); (false) pride; introspection; etc. Don Reinertsen - Profound and possibly dangerous. It intentionally creates a situation where the player's actions have no effect on outcome. Bob Marshall - Yes. But that's kinda the point, really? From Deming's perspective... Don Reinertsen - To some extent players are taught to accept variation rather than improving the process. (e.g. batch size reduction) Bob Marshall - Yes. But that's reality for most orgs and most workers. Variants on Red Bead can explore more "enlightened" scenarios. Don Reinertsen - The game certainly proves the methods Deming dislikes won't work. It also incorrectly shows SPC doesn't help outcomes. I think it would be more profound if outcomes had both controllable and variable components. Teach the middle way... Bob Marshall - For me, Red Bead is very Zen, in that it's point is left for the participants and audience to draw out themselves. I concur Red Bead fails to show benefits of SPC: In coaching, "ARC" reminds us Awareness -> Responsibility -> Commitment. I participated in an enlightening 15min workshop at Agile 2008 with teams and dice that could show SPC well (!RedBead). Karl Scotland - Red Beads useful to change thinking on purpose/demand/outcomes. Intentionally exaggerated scenario is powerful.
Bob Martin - humans test creatively. Machines test reliably. Both are vital. Confusing the two is disaster.
Carlton Matthews - overheard someone use this quote, "Don't ask me to cook dinner if I can't buy the groceries"
Daniel Lapin (via Carlton Matthews) - The complacent are always conquered by the committed and the diffident are always defeated by the determined.
Dave Rooney - Fair enough... knowledge is indeed power. Scott Duncan - And applied knowledge is powerful. I think more people know what to do than do it. How to transmit belief plus knowledge?
David Anderson - in next decade aim to change focus to "manage rules of game" not "manage work" or "manage people" - Deming system design.
Don Reinertsen (on “value”) - Economic view also allows Gilb's subjective dimension. A thirsty man will pay more for what is objectively the same water.
Gary Hamel (from a retweet by Bob Marshall) - "In the absence of purpose, only thing that will disrupt the status quo is pain." http://tinyurl.com/yjes5zn
Jeff Bezos (via Jason Yip) - There are two kinds of companies, those that work to charge more and those that work to charge less.
Jochen Schuchardt - We sometimes equate project mgmt with the visible planning artifacts. But the heart of it is people and relationships.
Johanna Rothman (from her blog, ptd to from Twitter) - good interviews should make a candidate (and an interviewer) think, not sweat [preceeded by “Good interviews do not surprise people. Good interviews build rapport with a candidate, learn about a candidate, preferably with behavior-description questions and auditions. Maybe with hypothetical questions. Maybe with a meta-question.”
Jon Bach - FB is an album for friends, Twitter is a coffee shop for colleagues.
Kent Beck - there's a world of difference between telling me what to do and helping me learn by telling me what to do.
Max Planck (via Michelle Sliger) - A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
Michael Feathers - I still think the best way to predict the future is to have friends in time zones ahead of you.
Michael Feathers - If you want to learn from experts listen to their questions more than their answers.
Ralph W Emerson (Via Alan Shalloway) - "As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble."
Ramsey Show (via Carlton Matthews) - "Savings has to be done on purpose. Debt can just happen."
Rob Myers - so the msg could be "slow down for quality & use quality to speed up"
Ron Jeffries - If we write a great tester's tests before even writing the software, and ship when they run, have we found or prevented defects?
Ron Jeffries - It is becoming clear that w sufficient disrespect, sarcasm, recalcitrance, we can stop any/t good from ever happening again.
Roy Atkinson (via Noami Karten) - If each of us holds up a little bit of the world, it will weigh none of us down.
Scott Duncan - Change may be hard as 1 change often causes/requires another, then another. What looked like absorbable change cascades.
Scott Duncan - I think we can/should talk about both what is valuable to do & how best to do it. Being clear about what both mean. Don't see a need to create a dichotomy between the what & how as long as we realize the latter serves the former. Perhaps an uber-value [is] "We value being clear about what is important to accomplish over how we achieve that end"?
Seth Godin (not from, but pointed to from, Twitter) - Organizations thrive on their ability to allow individuals to remain faceless. It permits them to act badly, not in the interest of their customers.
Skip Angel - Decided that bug repositories are evil. Gives teams excuse 2 defer defects not show-stoppers. Don't all bugs cause workarounds 4 team/users?
Skip Angel - While #scrum is based on empirical sys 4 learning, u must have values & principles 2 guide ur learning. Agile Manifesto does that. Chris Sterling - agreed. I am more interested in teams learning & changing rather than being "right"; a team will get better when focused on both.
Stephen Parry (via Grant Rule) - "If you measure your business using averages, don't be surprised to find yourself running an average business.”
Tobias Mayer - IMO waste is defined as 'work that adds no value for any stakeholder' (others restrict to 'for customer'). Much refactoring is waste ie rework.. due to commiting too early. Lunch breaks are not work, hence not waste.
Tobias Meyer - Are agreements the same as rules, & if not, what's different? I've always found group rules to be unnecessary, in fact detrimental. Dale Emery - Agreements come from people who agree. Not all rules come from (explicit, negotiated) agreement.
W. Edwards Deming (Via Glyn Lumley) - 'Examples teach nothing unless they are studied with the aid of theory. Most people merely search for examples .. to copy them'
Ward Cunningham - Estimating is the non-problem that know-nothings spent decades trying to solve.
Alan Shalloway - a process tells you to fix your problems is different than a process that gives you information on how to fix it.
Alan Shalloway - There is a big difference between eliminating waste & not creating it in the first place.
Alistair Cockburn (reported by Biran Marick) - Remember talk from about "micro-techniques". If I recall right, he said his observation of ppl like @kentbeck and @wardcunningham was that they gained great speed by doing many small things extremely well and quickly. Alistair Cockburn - Right & I could never develop that idea because micro-techniques come in xtremely context senstitive bushel-basket-loads not onezies.
Bob Marshall - Imo Red Bead is profound because it has many layers; vain hope; delusions (all round); (false) pride; introspection; etc. Don Reinertsen - Profound and possibly dangerous. It intentionally creates a situation where the player's actions have no effect on outcome. Bob Marshall - Yes. But that's kinda the point, really? From Deming's perspective... Don Reinertsen - To some extent players are taught to accept variation rather than improving the process. (e.g. batch size reduction) Bob Marshall - Yes. But that's reality for most orgs and most workers. Variants on Red Bead can explore more "enlightened" scenarios. Don Reinertsen - The game certainly proves the methods Deming dislikes won't work. It also incorrectly shows SPC doesn't help outcomes. I think it would be more profound if outcomes had both controllable and variable components. Teach the middle way... Bob Marshall - For me, Red Bead is very Zen, in that it's point is left for the participants and audience to draw out themselves. I concur Red Bead fails to show benefits of SPC: In coaching, "ARC" reminds us Awareness -> Responsibility -> Commitment. I participated in an enlightening 15min workshop at Agile 2008 with teams and dice that could show SPC well (!RedBead). Karl Scotland - Red Beads useful to change thinking on purpose/demand/outcomes. Intentionally exaggerated scenario is powerful.
Bob Martin - humans test creatively. Machines test reliably. Both are vital. Confusing the two is disaster.
Carlton Matthews - overheard someone use this quote, "Don't ask me to cook dinner if I can't buy the groceries"
Daniel Lapin (via Carlton Matthews) - The complacent are always conquered by the committed and the diffident are always defeated by the determined.
Dave Rooney - Fair enough... knowledge is indeed power. Scott Duncan - And applied knowledge is powerful. I think more people know what to do than do it. How to transmit belief plus knowledge?
David Anderson - in next decade aim to change focus to "manage rules of game" not "manage work" or "manage people" - Deming system design.
Don Reinertsen (on “value”) - Economic view also allows Gilb's subjective dimension. A thirsty man will pay more for what is objectively the same water.
Gary Hamel (from a retweet by Bob Marshall) - "In the absence of purpose, only thing that will disrupt the status quo is pain." http://tinyurl.com/yjes5zn
Jeff Bezos (via Jason Yip) - There are two kinds of companies, those that work to charge more and those that work to charge less.
Jochen Schuchardt - We sometimes equate project mgmt with the visible planning artifacts. But the heart of it is people and relationships.
Johanna Rothman (from her blog, ptd to from Twitter) - good interviews should make a candidate (and an interviewer) think, not sweat [preceeded by “Good interviews do not surprise people. Good interviews build rapport with a candidate, learn about a candidate, preferably with behavior-description questions and auditions. Maybe with hypothetical questions. Maybe with a meta-question.”
Jon Bach - FB is an album for friends, Twitter is a coffee shop for colleagues.
Kent Beck - there's a world of difference between telling me what to do and helping me learn by telling me what to do.
Max Planck (via Michelle Sliger) - A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
Michael Feathers - I still think the best way to predict the future is to have friends in time zones ahead of you.
Michael Feathers - If you want to learn from experts listen to their questions more than their answers.
Ralph W Emerson (Via Alan Shalloway) - "As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble."
Ramsey Show (via Carlton Matthews) - "Savings has to be done on purpose. Debt can just happen."
Rob Myers - so the msg could be "slow down for quality & use quality to speed up"
Ron Jeffries - If we write a great tester's tests before even writing the software, and ship when they run, have we found or prevented defects?
Ron Jeffries - It is becoming clear that w sufficient disrespect, sarcasm, recalcitrance, we can stop any/t good from ever happening again.
Roy Atkinson (via Noami Karten) - If each of us holds up a little bit of the world, it will weigh none of us down.
Scott Duncan - Change may be hard as 1 change often causes/requires another, then another. What looked like absorbable change cascades.
Scott Duncan - I think we can/should talk about both what is valuable to do & how best to do it. Being clear about what both mean. Don't see a need to create a dichotomy between the what & how as long as we realize the latter serves the former. Perhaps an uber-value [is] "We value being clear about what is important to accomplish over how we achieve that end"?
Seth Godin (not from, but pointed to from, Twitter) - Organizations thrive on their ability to allow individuals to remain faceless. It permits them to act badly, not in the interest of their customers.
Skip Angel - Decided that bug repositories are evil. Gives teams excuse 2 defer defects not show-stoppers. Don't all bugs cause workarounds 4 team/users?
Skip Angel - While #scrum is based on empirical sys 4 learning, u must have values & principles 2 guide ur learning. Agile Manifesto does that. Chris Sterling - agreed. I am more interested in teams learning & changing rather than being "right"; a team will get better when focused on both.
Stephen Parry (via Grant Rule) - "If you measure your business using averages, don't be surprised to find yourself running an average business.”
Tobias Mayer - IMO waste is defined as 'work that adds no value for any stakeholder' (others restrict to 'for customer'). Much refactoring is waste ie rework.. due to commiting too early. Lunch breaks are not work, hence not waste.
Tobias Meyer - Are agreements the same as rules, & if not, what's different? I've always found group rules to be unnecessary, in fact detrimental. Dale Emery - Agreements come from people who agree. Not all rules come from (explicit, negotiated) agreement.
W. Edwards Deming (Via Glyn Lumley) - 'Examples teach nothing unless they are studied with the aid of theory. Most people merely search for examples .. to copy them'
Ward Cunningham - Estimating is the non-problem that know-nothings spent decades trying to solve.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
New Set of Quotes from Twitter
[Been occupied with packing and moving since my last post until a couple days ago, though more packing and moving needed. Hopefully I'll get on a daily posting schedule before too long.]
As with the others, this list of Twitter tweets is sorted by first name. (Hmmm...a thought just struck me. By posting these collections, am I engaging in mass retweeting? Guess not since it isn't on Twitter. But there must be a name for this...or should be, I guess.)
Alan Shalloway - people are often confusing predictability with control. if you do, you won't believe you can control your dev process. being in control is not a bad thing. being controlled by someone else is.
Alan Shalloway - the more i work w/ lrg orgs (300+ devs) the more i believe that any approach that focuses solely on the team or is bottom up is doomed. top down does not mean top down control. but rather top down enabling of working on the right things in the right way.
Alan Shalloway (series of quotes) - Issue isn't "when does agile work?", rather "how agile can i be?" This implies a continuum. Going to iterations is a break. Scrum is evolutionary in perspective but revolutionary in implementation (making it hard). Kanban is revolutionary in perspective but evolutionary in implementation. Many (most?) people in Agile community think Agile==Scrum. So when Scrum won't work they think Agile won't. At conferences people say "we're doing agile" when they mean they are learning scrum.
Andreas Boes at XP Days Germany 09 on “The New Industrialization” (via Alistair Cockburn) – “Industrialization" converted subjective process to objective process (remove individual's capabilities). Taylor reduced 'processes' to invidual activities and actions. Taylor was a micro-methodologist (studied microtechniques). Alistair Cockburn - I think modern agile ppl are doing Taylorist work: study top performers, decompose, teach to others. That's exactly what we're doing! (I disagree with [Boes] - he says programmers are black box. but nano-TDD opens that box. I think agilists are whitewashing a secret Taylorist agenda, and it worries me.) what does he mean with “separate subjectivity from individuality”? I need a translation of Taylor’s 3 ground rules. Boes - agile brings in "living process"; which also lean brings in, too. diff : Taylor = optimize before announcing the process; Lean = optimize after deploying the process. Agile brings self-organization; Lean brings repeatable processes. Agile = collective learning & knowledge capture; this makes the "objectivity" and visibility needed. What does agile mean for the average worker? we haven't thought through it (bad things to follow?) Alistair Cockburn - Boes/audience Taylor tried to diminish the human, sw tries to augment (I worry that parts-replaceable programmers goes the wrong way.
Bob MacNeal (more on being self-directing) - 1) Responsibility - given or takes responsibility for results and 2) Autonomy (free to determine, plan & schedule activities).
Chris Sterling - scrum is a learning system; modify tools, practices, & process when your team learns something.
Dave Rooney - Agile is a collection of those 'things that work' put together in a synergistic way... whole is greater than sum of parts.
David Anderson - Kaizen done right is statistically based systems analysis often using SPC. Diana Larsen - Retros done right get at diff probs than SPC - esp human issues & + deviance. Well-run retrospectives incl subjective & objective data, as relevant to retro focus, + analysis & action. David Anderson - retros tend to project level focused. higher maturity orgs will have an organization level focus across teams/projects. This is not guidance or opinion. This is field reported cases. You need to be open to ask why? and challenge your beliefs. Paul Dyson (via Rachel Davies) - Like all agile practices (or practices in general), there is a risk of 'cargo cult execution' with retrospectives.
Gerald Weinberg - Definition of Bureaucracy: Each thing is in control, but everything is out of control.
James Bach - Saying ISTQB certification makes a tester better is like saying a chefs hat makes you a good cook. I had a woman in my class who studied for two years to be a baker. Then she studied for a few days to get a tester certification. Why are donuts worth two years of school, and testing worth no training at all? Because testing is easier to fake than donuts.
Jason Yip - Crisis is required to provoke deep change only if top management has a monopoly on setting strategy.
Jean Tabaka asked about 100-130 chars to describe Kanban and some responses were: Karl Scotland - Map value stream, visualize, limit WIP, establish cadence. Reduce WIP to improve value flow & individual fulfillment. David Anderson - visualize flow, limit WIP to encourage evolutionary change towards lean outcome, high maturity culture.
Jurgen Appelo - Introverts are not shy. Introverts just prefer low-noise communication. [Added by Dave Rooney in a retweet - Introvert == shy is common misconception]
Karl Scotland - If your process is designed to expose dysfunction, what do you do when your process becomes the dysfunction?
Karl Scotland (asked) - Are retrospectives a form of Schewart/Deming Cycle? David Anderson (replied) - I find most retrospective guidance to suggest subjective, anecdotal feedback rather than objective data-based Deming style info. SEI classifies OID based on subjective, anecdotal evidence as low maturity even though OID is a ML5 process area. Deming's method would be considered high maturity OID/CAR ML5 by the SEI. Typical retros are a low maturity precursor to PDSA. meanwhile, @kjscotland and I are only reporting facts from field. High maturity kanban teams tend to drop retros as waste.
Vasco Duarte - Ppl talk a lot about business value, but they forget that for most people business value is totally subjective! (i.e. unquantifiable)
Vince Lombardi (via Jason Yip) - Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.
As with the others, this list of Twitter tweets is sorted by first name. (Hmmm...a thought just struck me. By posting these collections, am I engaging in mass retweeting? Guess not since it isn't on Twitter. But there must be a name for this...or should be, I guess.)
Alan Shalloway - people are often confusing predictability with control. if you do, you won't believe you can control your dev process. being in control is not a bad thing. being controlled by someone else is.
Alan Shalloway - the more i work w/ lrg orgs (300+ devs) the more i believe that any approach that focuses solely on the team or is bottom up is doomed. top down does not mean top down control. but rather top down enabling of working on the right things in the right way.
Alan Shalloway (series of quotes) - Issue isn't "when does agile work?", rather "how agile can i be?" This implies a continuum. Going to iterations is a break. Scrum is evolutionary in perspective but revolutionary in implementation (making it hard). Kanban is revolutionary in perspective but evolutionary in implementation. Many (most?) people in Agile community think Agile==Scrum. So when Scrum won't work they think Agile won't. At conferences people say "we're doing agile" when they mean they are learning scrum.
Andreas Boes at XP Days Germany 09 on “The New Industrialization” (via Alistair Cockburn) – “Industrialization" converted subjective process to objective process (remove individual's capabilities). Taylor reduced 'processes' to invidual activities and actions. Taylor was a micro-methodologist (studied microtechniques). Alistair Cockburn - I think modern agile ppl are doing Taylorist work: study top performers, decompose, teach to others. That's exactly what we're doing! (I disagree with [Boes] - he says programmers are black box. but nano-TDD opens that box. I think agilists are whitewashing a secret Taylorist agenda, and it worries me.) what does he mean with “separate subjectivity from individuality”? I need a translation of Taylor’s 3 ground rules. Boes - agile brings in "living process"; which also lean brings in, too. diff : Taylor = optimize before announcing the process; Lean = optimize after deploying the process. Agile brings self-organization; Lean brings repeatable processes. Agile = collective learning & knowledge capture; this makes the "objectivity" and visibility needed. What does agile mean for the average worker? we haven't thought through it (bad things to follow?) Alistair Cockburn - Boes/audience Taylor tried to diminish the human, sw tries to augment (I worry that parts-replaceable programmers goes the wrong way.
Bob MacNeal (more on being self-directing) - 1) Responsibility - given or takes responsibility for results and 2) Autonomy (free to determine, plan & schedule activities).
Chris Sterling - scrum is a learning system; modify tools, practices, & process when your team learns something.
Dave Rooney - Agile is a collection of those 'things that work' put together in a synergistic way... whole is greater than sum of parts.
David Anderson - Kaizen done right is statistically based systems analysis often using SPC. Diana Larsen - Retros done right get at diff probs than SPC - esp human issues & + deviance. Well-run retrospectives incl subjective & objective data, as relevant to retro focus, + analysis & action. David Anderson - retros tend to project level focused. higher maturity orgs will have an organization level focus across teams/projects. This is not guidance or opinion. This is field reported cases. You need to be open to ask why? and challenge your beliefs. Paul Dyson (via Rachel Davies) - Like all agile practices (or practices in general), there is a risk of 'cargo cult execution' with retrospectives.
Gerald Weinberg - Definition of Bureaucracy: Each thing is in control, but everything is out of control.
James Bach - Saying ISTQB certification makes a tester better is like saying a chefs hat makes you a good cook. I had a woman in my class who studied for two years to be a baker. Then she studied for a few days to get a tester certification. Why are donuts worth two years of school, and testing worth no training at all? Because testing is easier to fake than donuts.
Jason Yip - Crisis is required to provoke deep change only if top management has a monopoly on setting strategy.
Jean Tabaka asked about 100-130 chars to describe Kanban and some responses were: Karl Scotland - Map value stream, visualize, limit WIP, establish cadence. Reduce WIP to improve value flow & individual fulfillment. David Anderson - visualize flow, limit WIP to encourage evolutionary change towards lean outcome, high maturity culture.
Jurgen Appelo - Introverts are not shy. Introverts just prefer low-noise communication. [Added by Dave Rooney in a retweet - Introvert == shy is common misconception]
Karl Scotland - If your process is designed to expose dysfunction, what do you do when your process becomes the dysfunction?
Karl Scotland (asked) - Are retrospectives a form of Schewart/Deming Cycle? David Anderson (replied) - I find most retrospective guidance to suggest subjective, anecdotal feedback rather than objective data-based Deming style info. SEI classifies OID based on subjective, anecdotal evidence as low maturity even though OID is a ML5 process area. Deming's method would be considered high maturity OID/CAR ML5 by the SEI. Typical retros are a low maturity precursor to PDSA. meanwhile, @kjscotland and I are only reporting facts from field. High maturity kanban teams tend to drop retros as waste.
Vasco Duarte - Ppl talk a lot about business value, but they forget that for most people business value is totally subjective! (i.e. unquantifiable)
Vince Lombardi (via Jason Yip) - Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
"The System," "They" and "Policy"
This was such a funny/weird situation involving communication with a customer that I just had to pass it along.
First, some setup information. In August of 2008 we changed cell phone company to fit in with the last job I had. So no contact from the prior provider since then. That is, until two days ago...
A 4-page (2 sheet) bill from the provider (one of the big four) shows up saying its from the Oct 10-Nov 9 Bill Period with a Nov 13 Bill Date. First page shows
Oct 13 Tax Adjustment ............................................. -$1.81
New Charges ........................................................... $1.81
Total Due $0.00
On the payment remit slip is says "DO NOT SEND PAYMENT. This amount will be credited to your next bill. $0.00."
On page 4 (after 2 pages of legal stuff and ads for buying more services) it says
Charges
Toleance.................................................................. $1.81
Total $1.81
(and that is the only thing on the page except the "4of 4" page number, the company logo, and billing acct number and dates).
Now the fun begins since I wanted to know what this was all about after 14 months of not being with this provider. So I call the customer service number from the first page of the bill and explain all this to the person who answers. I tell them I'm trying to find out why I got this and what it means given I have not been a customer since August of 2008.
The person was quite nice but said her records of our account doin't show any such credit/charges. But she said we didn't owe anything, so just ignore it. But, again, I asked why did I get this and what does it mean. Since she seemed to feel I should not care, I asked for a supervisor.
The customer service supervisor was also quite nice, but could not explain it, i.e., nothing showing on any records she could see. She guessed it was a credit left over after we closed the account. So why, I asked, did it take 14 months to contact us and why what was the charge for that cancelled out the credit. She did not know and put me on hold a few times trying to find someone who might know. Finally, she sent me to their finance/accounting folks.
That person, also very nice, suggested "they" must have noticed this credit recently so "the system" sent me a letter letting me know. I said, it wasn't a letter, it was a bill and asked what a "Tolerance" charge was. I never got an answer to that last question. But it seems, since we closed the account and paid the final bill, somehow "they" decided we were owed a $1.81 for some overpayment of tax. However, it is the provider's "policy" not to send out checks for less that $5. But the finance person could also not really explain much beyond this and did not show anything in their records either specific to this "bill" being sent.
So, apparently, to clear the account, "the system" or some "they" decided to send a bill to acknowledge the credit and the charge in that credit amount to make the account $0 since it was not the provider's intent to actually reimburse the credit amount given it was under $5.
This silliness, of course, was to satisfy some legal and accounting rules that I didn't know or care about.
But a couple things struck me about all this, besides the silliness:
First, some setup information. In August of 2008 we changed cell phone company to fit in with the last job I had. So no contact from the prior provider since then. That is, until two days ago...
A 4-page (2 sheet) bill from the provider (one of the big four) shows up saying its from the Oct 10-Nov 9 Bill Period with a Nov 13 Bill Date. First page shows
Oct 13 Tax Adjustment ............................................. -$1.81
New Charges ........................................................... $1.81
Total Due $0.00
On the payment remit slip is says "DO NOT SEND PAYMENT. This amount will be credited to your next bill. $0.00."
On page 4 (after 2 pages of legal stuff and ads for buying more services) it says
Charges
Toleance.................................................................. $1.81
Total $1.81
(and that is the only thing on the page except the "4of 4" page number, the company logo, and billing acct number and dates).
Now the fun begins since I wanted to know what this was all about after 14 months of not being with this provider. So I call the customer service number from the first page of the bill and explain all this to the person who answers. I tell them I'm trying to find out why I got this and what it means given I have not been a customer since August of 2008.
The person was quite nice but said her records of our account doin't show any such credit/charges. But she said we didn't owe anything, so just ignore it. But, again, I asked why did I get this and what does it mean. Since she seemed to feel I should not care, I asked for a supervisor.
The customer service supervisor was also quite nice, but could not explain it, i.e., nothing showing on any records she could see. She guessed it was a credit left over after we closed the account. So why, I asked, did it take 14 months to contact us and why what was the charge for that cancelled out the credit. She did not know and put me on hold a few times trying to find someone who might know. Finally, she sent me to their finance/accounting folks.
That person, also very nice, suggested "they" must have noticed this credit recently so "the system" sent me a letter letting me know. I said, it wasn't a letter, it was a bill and asked what a "Tolerance" charge was. I never got an answer to that last question. But it seems, since we closed the account and paid the final bill, somehow "they" decided we were owed a $1.81 for some overpayment of tax. However, it is the provider's "policy" not to send out checks for less that $5. But the finance person could also not really explain much beyond this and did not show anything in their records either specific to this "bill" being sent.
So, apparently, to clear the account, "the system" or some "they" decided to send a bill to acknowledge the credit and the charge in that credit amount to make the account $0 since it was not the provider's intent to actually reimburse the credit amount given it was under $5.
This silliness, of course, was to satisfy some legal and accounting rules that I didn't know or care about.
But a couple things struck me about all this, besides the silliness:
- None of the people could access any system of information that would allow them to find out what this was all about. (The Finance person was basically guessing what happenbed based on "policy" rules, not based on any information about the actual account.)
- I wonder if this was something that was done to many people to clear out old accounts, i.e., the cost to do this and then to deal with people like myself calling up to find out why, if so, would clearly be a substantial waste of time, money and company credibility.
- It would be interesting to know how much the provider makes each year keeping all credits under $5 (and what legal loophole makes this possible) since they waste the postage and time sending out silly $0.00 balance bills anyway.
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