Re: Development

A recent meetup for Agile Ottawa focused on short presentations in the form of lightning talks. We had a number of excellent talks including: five reasons to do agile projects, lining up your units to help you be successful, applying code refactoring to improve your life, the importance of craftsmanship, and how different testing looks in the hardware and software worlds. I am a big proponent of big visible walls, so my lightning talk was a demonstration of how to build your wallboard using a roll of painter's tape, a few stickies, and eight story cards.

My time at Embotics has sadly come to an end. It was a decision that I wrestled with for a number of months before I could finally arrive at a decision that I was comfortable with. It was a classic example of a wicked problem: no experiments that can be run to help make the decision, no way to know afterwards that the decision is correct, no way to go back for a do-over.

Enchantment: Art of Getting People to Do What You Want
by Guy Kawasaki

Summary: A number of ideas and techniques to create enchanting products and relationships for the benefit of all involved

Intended Audience: Those in positions of influence who are looking for ways to build deeper relationships

The Lean Startup
by Eric Ries

Summary: A significant contribution of ideas about how to improve capital efficiency in startups and more deeply engage employees and customers to create tighter learning and feedback loops.

Intended Audience: Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs-at-heart. And anyone interested in helping their organization learn faster. And probably you.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
by Malcolm Gladwell

Summary: An anecdotal and scientific investigation into whether initial impressions are helpful or hindering.  Packed with examples, it includes tips on when to recognize which situation is which.

Intended Audience: Anyone who has every had a gut feeling that they should read this book

I think I was pretty lucky with my choices for sessions this year at Agile 2011 as I was able to take a number of things of interest from almost every one of them.  I've summarized talks by Christopher Avery and Stephen Denning in other notes, as well as some additional books for my reading list. This posting includes the remainder of my notes from the conference.