Stuff I Have Found Interesting Today

Mud Rooms, Red Letters, and Real Priorities

Great read on priorties. I mean awesome, must read for anyone who thinks they have too much to do. For the rest here is my favroite line:  "Because only babies and crazy people get to pretend that reality actually changes when you close your eyes and hum."

 

Keep It Simple, Stupid

Old idea on new technology. Why is it that the simplest rules are the most often broken?

 

Agile Transition "Initiatives" — Just say no!

David Anderson nails this one on the head. I think his article applies to all corporate initiatives. Some gems:

• "The problem with these transition initiatives, and their champions, and their change agents, and their sponsors, and their improvement projects, and their quality teams, and process experts, and black belts, and green belts, and funny handshakes, and secret rituals, and coded handbooks, and group hugs and therapy sessions is, quite simply, they don't work!"
• "By giving the transition a name, the management has given the workforce a new hate object. Something to despise!"

• "Continuous improvement is everyone's business!"

 

8 must read papers for project managers

Have read some and look forward to finding time to read all of IT doesn't Matter. While I agree with a lot of the historical sections in the begining I disagree with the conclusion. I once had a heating debate with a freind over this exact issue and the one thing we could agree on it that most IT is done so poorly as to hurt the business.

 

Pronounce Names

Good idea for those working with foreign born folks on a daily basis.

 

The World in panoramic 
Interesting concept, although most of the pictures are in Europe.

Gall's Law

My personal experience agrees with this, but I am biased.

 

TDD Anti-Patterns

A great list of names to call your unit tests! 

 

Why Messaging #1 - Intro

Interesting take on enterprise integration. Links to a Arnon calls a Knot ("A knot is an Anti-pattern where the services are tightly coupled by hardcoded point-to-point integration and context specific interfaces"). Not really my area of concern, but it is interesting.

 

Obama: The Grand Strategy

Charles Krauthammer says what I have been thinking for a while "In the end, the spinach must be served." Althought I would have used kale as I like spinach.