Month: March 2015

Buffet’s ABCs of Corporate Decay

[The] ABCs of business decay… are arrogance, bureaucracy and complacency…. When these corporate cancers metastasize, even the strongest of companies can falter. Warren Buffet in letter to stakeholders as reported in http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-28/buffett-says-next-ceo-must-fight-decay-complacency-at-berkshire

Having an Employee Performance Metrics Policy

About two years ago, pondering some of my new managerly duties, I wondered, “How do you rank employees?” Every year I have to rank employees and make tough decisions: Should we extend that internship? Should we promote that developer? How will we distribute raises? I can’t manage based on my gut. It’s not enough to feel… Continue reading Having an Employee Performance Metrics Policy

Agile: The Good and Bad Parts

Agile: the Good Parts (according to Bertrand Meyer): developing in short iterations of two to six weeks … has profoundly transformed the software industry for the better. absolutely no one, regardless of rank, is allowed to add anything during [an] iteration. And now, some bad bits of Agile: the general rejection of what’s derisively called… Continue reading Agile: The Good and Bad Parts

SimpleProgrammer’s: 11 Rules All Programmers Should Live By

Yesterday’s Simple Programmer post has a lot of good ideas in it.  If you’re in a rush I give you the rules themselves below. Read his post for the details.

  1. Technology is how you get to the solution, it is not THE solution
  2. Clever is the enemy of clear
  3. Only write code if you absolutely have to
  4. Comments are mostly evil
  5. Always know what your code is supposed to do before you start writing it
  6. Test your sh—code before you ship it
  7. Learn something new every day
  8. Writing code is fun
  9. You can’t know it all
  10. Best practices are context dependent
  11. Always strive to simplify

He correctly predicted getting a lot of comment grief on number 4. I personally agree with him. Developers tend to over-use/mis-use comments.

#7 is a lot like yesterday’s post One-a-Day Keeps Mediocrity at Bay.

Why Am I Happy About Giving Up

The snow-shoe hike to Donut Falls was supposed to be the capstone to last night’s overnight camp. So, why do I feel good about giving up on the hike this morning? Just yesterday I posted about sticking to your plan. Why am I satisfied now with an outcome that doesn’t resemble the plan?

Stooping for Pennies Loses the Crown

I’m on a scrum team. In sprint retrospective many members of the team share a concern that the team isn’t moving as fast as it could. Things seem to have slowed down. We brain storm as a team.  We look closer at the coming sprint’s plan. The Product Owner considers the team’s concerns and throws some… Continue reading Stooping for Pennies Loses the Crown

Would You Hire Me if I Didn’t Have a Degree

Any hiring manager has to decide how she feels about college degrees. Is it a must? Nice to have? Irrelevant? It comes up in conversation. You have to decide whether it influences your hiring decisions. Applicants want to know, too. Should I stick it out in college? Should I change my degree from psychology to CS?… Continue reading Would You Hire Me if I Didn’t Have a Degree

Drucker’s Five Basic Operations of the Manager

There are five basic operations in the work of the manager. Together they result in the integration of resources into a viable growing organism. A manager …  sets objectives. … She makes the objectives effective by communicating them to the people whose performance is needed to attain them. A manager organizes. … He classifies the work. He divides… Continue reading Drucker’s Five Basic Operations of the Manager

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