Category: Change
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Your Software is a Nightclub
Why a nightclub? Well, it’s a better model than a home loan. I’m talking here about technical debt, the concept that describes how retarding complexity (cost) builds up in software development and other activities, and how to manage this cost. A home loan is misleading because product development cost doesn’t spiral out of control due to missed interest payments over…
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Dumbbell Delivery; Antifragile Software
Not online fitness shopping. Not the brogrammer pumping iron. This is a brief discussion of Antifragile – the latest book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb – and relevant insights for software delivery or other complex work. This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive exploration of the topics. It’s more a join-the-dots exercise, and it’s left up to the…
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Narrative Visualisation Tools
I use narrative visualisations a lot. I like to frame evidence so that it commands attention, engages playful minds, and tells its own story (see also Corporate Graffiti). I’ll put new tools on GitHub as I create them. Here are three to start. Visualising Stand-Up Attendance I used the Space Invader metaphor with a busy leadership team…
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Visual Knowledge Cycles
Visualisation is a key tool for the management of knowledge, especially knowledge from data. We’ll explore different states of knowledge, and how we can use visualisation to drive knowledge from one state to another, as individual creators of visualisation and agents within an organisation or society. (There’s some justifiable cynicism about quadrant diagrams with superimposed crap circles. But, give me…
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Corporate Graffiti – Being Disruptive with Visual Thinking
As you go about your work you’ll come up against walls. Some walls will be blank and boring blockers to progress. These need decoration; spraying with layers that confer meaning. So pick a corner and start doodling. With a new perspective, you’ll find a way around the blockers. Other walls will come with messages – by…
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Telling Stories for a Change
Sometimes, in a professional setting, we can see a need for change, we can even provide evidence, but we can’t get other people to see it like we do. There’s one time, however, in a social setting, when most people will agree on the need for change: at the climax of a movie when the…
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Agile Board Hacks
It’s been great to be working with Nick from Agile Board Hacks, and contributing some material to the site! Feature Burnup Charts are on the Cards presents a technique for “zooming in” from program level to feature level. Stand-Up Heat Map shows what happens when a team is not organised around a single objective.