Red Squirrel Reflections Dave Hoover explores the psychology of software development

I presented the Programmer Tests from the current project I'm leading to the IT directors yesterday. It was a great meeting that solidified the direction we're headed: a pilot project with low-level agile practices. The directors are beginning to see the value of keeping the customer involved throughout the process and equipping the team with tools that will help them adapt to the customer's changing requirements. I can see how this first step might lead them to slowly embracing the high-level XP practices.

There are some interesting political dynamics between the directors that may impact this first project, but I'm just going to keep pushing this stuff as far as I can. I truly believe it will improve our projects' performance.

Posted by Dave [Link]

The presentation itself was not what I had hoped it would be, but the outcome is turning out to be better than I had imagined! As a result of the presentation, our upcoming ATG Dynamo project will be the test case for several XP practices: Continuous Integration, Test-Driven Development, Pair Programming, Refactoring, Coding Standards, Collective Ownership, and Open Workspace. I'm trying to convince management to bring in an XP expert for the first week to get us started off right.

What I learned most from the experience was something my wife told me: they're not expecting me to wow them with my public speaking prowess, they're expecting me to be knowledgable and passionate about software development.

Posted by Dave [Link]

In a little over 2 hours I will present The Agile Programming Approach to the IT directors at work. I have no idea what will happen, but I'm sure I will learn from it.

Posted by Dave [Link]

Last night's ChAD meeting was awesome. We went through a planning/estimation exercise with Ron Jeffries. I learned and re-learned a few things. Past velocity is an accurate predictor of future velocity. Adding more programmers or working longer hours will not increase productivity. Frequent early releases produce financial gains that a product of equal value released later will never regain.

Posted by Dave [Link]

The meeting with our architect went great. I will be presenting to our IT directors next Wednesday. We're going to try to push some of the foundational practices up front, and once we've proven thier effectiveness, push full blown XP. I will give a brief overview of "The Agile Programming Approach" and then focus in on Pair Programming, Test-Driven Development, Continuous Integration and Refactoring. Looking forward to it!

Posted by Dave [Link]

Just two weeks left until the project at work needs to be finished. Unfortunately our velocity has us hitting the mark a week late. Hopefully I underestimated a few of these stories. We're continuing to experience the wonders of Struts as we find it increasingly easy to add-on new features.

I met with Wyatt on Friday to go over my presentation. As always, it was an excellent meeting. I came away once again with my head spilling over with insights and information. I was happy with some of my answers to his questions, but he certainly showed me where I needed to improve. I re-realized that my one-on-one skills are my strong point, no big surprise there. But more importantly, I realized that although I understand and believe in the philosophies of Extreme Programming, effectively conveying and arguing these ideas requires a deeper internalization...and practice.

Tomorrow I'm going to be giving my presentation to our architect. If it goes well, he will set up a time to meet with the IT management team. I've got a feeling that it won't make it past the architect, but we'll see. At least it will be another chance to practice. I'm going to try to practice it on my boss this week as well.

Thursday and Friday should be fun! I am thrilled that my boss will be joining me on Friday.

Posted by Dave [Link]

After spending last week at Object Mentor, I was dreading my return to work. I enjoyed being in an environment with people who were competent and passionate about software development. But on my return, I was energized by the application of what I learned, and my teammates continue to improve and produce quality work. I am excited by their acceptance of test-driven development and ther growing understanding of Struts.

Although it was a slow start with Struts, as the system evolves, it is becoming increasingly easy to add functionality. Yesterday, my pair and I implemented a new feature and found ourselves wondering how we did it so quickly. It is an excellent framework.

My XP presentation is going well. I have the slides pretty much finished. Now I just need to get to work on what I'll actually say. My goal for the presentation is simply to show our IT management team that I am passionate about maximizing our projects' business value and that XP can accomplish this. Hopefully I will strike a chord and they will start asking questions.

Posted by Dave [Link]

I met with James Grenning today to discuss my presentation. It was affirming to see that I was mostly on track!

He gave me some excellent feedback, particularly the sort of questions I could be asking and the non-threatening stance I could take. One question reminded me of my days as a therapist which always helped get things started: what would you change about your current situation? This question helps me to align XP solutions to their perceived problems.

He also added another property alongside quality, cost and productivity: predictability. He encouraged me to stay focused on the business value, resisting the urge to start focusing on the practices unless this was explicity requested.

We're going to talk more again tomorrow...which I guess would now be later today...

Posted by Dave [Link]

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