Why Program Adaptability Is So Important

One software characteristic, “adaptability” has become so important in recent years that it should be considered specially, and it should be optimized, even at the expense of other characteristics. If a system is not designed with this sort of adaptation in mind, it can only degrade to chaos in the face of ever-changing requirements.

"Boss, I Want a Coach"

If you want to achieve a big, complex goal in your professional life, it’s very likely that a professional coach can be a great help in getting there. If it’s important enough to you, you can simply hire a coach yourself, but many companies are willing to underwrite all or part of the cost of coaching if you can show that it’s in their interest as well as yours. So, to get your boss to pay for your coaching, you need a plan.

Changing the culture of a working organization is not only possible – it’s fairly straightforward. The difficult part is to decide what kind of culture you want to create, and how that culture will effect your productivity and profitability. This paper came out of my conviction that a respectful, open, supportive working environment dramatically improves programmers’ productivity and can dramatically improve the quantity and quality of the software the produce.

(Paper) Documentation Considered Harmful

It’s been part of programmers’ training since the earliest days: “Documentation is part of the product!” But our current ways of documenting requirements, architecture, design, and code are vestiges of earlier eras, when word processors and virtual paper were the only choice for communicating ideas. But there are disadvantages to paper-based documentation.
And yet, the need to describe the purpose and structure of the software to people than the developers remains, so how can we get the benefits of documentation without the drawbacks of paper?

Effective, Efficient Meetings

Most professionals report spending between 15% and 30% of their time in meetings. How about yourself - do you know the inside of the conference rooms better than you know your office? And of the time that you spend in the meetings, how much of it is really valuable to you, and how much does it cost?

Keep Track of Your Stress

I know that you’ve seen them: the magazines are full of questionnaires that claim to measure your stress level. Some of them are useful because they make you think about your stress, but most of them seem sort of silly. First of all, they don’t tell you how much you’re stressed, and they don’t give you any clue what to do about it. But here’s a different approach: I’ve shown a very short stress test that you can take in three minutes or less.

Knowledge Management for Software Projects

What is the most important product of your software development project, after the working software itself? If you’ll reflect for a moment, you’ll realize that the knowledge produced during the project is precious, because it provides guidance for maintaining and extending the product, and for planning follow-on projects. But in most organizations, this knowledge is discarded, or lives on only in organizational tradition and folklore. How can you effectively capture, organize, and retain this information?

Shopping for a Coach

Imagine a best friend who wants nothing more than your complete success, who always listens with interest to what you have to say, and who gives you the feedback you need to make tough choices and changes. This is the essential job of a coach, to help you state the problem clearly and understand it, to plan an approach to solving it, and to execute that plan. Coaches believe that you already have the knowledge and skills you need for its solution, and that their job is to help you bring out the skills and use them effectively.

Clear Thinking About Stress

There seems to be a lot of confusion and loose thinking about stress in popular journals and books. How else can you explain terms like “good stress” and concepts like “A certain amount of stress is good for you,“ or advice like “Stress is unavoidable.” Once you understand the meaning of stress you’ll realize that stress is always harmful, that there is no “safe” level of stress, and that you can deflect stress if you know how.