I’m a bit of a to-do list nut, always looking for new and better ways to manage the list. It sounds trivial, and in some ways it is, but I think it’s also very important for a manager. One of the distinguishing features of management work compared to engineering is that you have [...]
Archive for the ‘Management’ Category
My to-do list
Posted in Management on September 8, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Just use a bug database!
Posted in Management on August 15, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Last time I said I’d talk a bit about my preferred tools for software project management. Right now, I’m a huge believer in just using the bug database. Pick a good one, a web-based one, and I can’t see any better tools out there today.
It has to be on the web
Firstly, I believe firmly in [...]
Gantt charts are a waste of space
Posted in Management on August 4, 2009 | 1 Comment »
When I first started managing a small software team, I was expected to use MS Project and its Gantt charts as the primary means of planning the team’s work. For a while now, I’ve believed that this is a terrible idea. Today I’m just going to focus on why I don’t like the Gantt chart [...]
Why hiring is all about elimination
Posted in Management on July 11, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Question: when hiring engineers, do you look for positive reasons to hire someone (they’ve done something good, have a good capability, a particular strength or good potential), or do you look for reasons not to hire someone (not enough experience, no degree, failed a question you asked)?
On some logical level, it seems a meaningless distinction. [...]
Unifying multiple priorities
Posted in Management on January 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Here’s a fairly common project management problem:
You need to assign priorities (or some other kind of value, say “risk level”) to a number of different project elements. You need these values to be balanced so they make sense across the entire project, so you can compare two values and have them make relative sense.
Allowing someone [...]
Fraternising with the Dark Side
Posted in Management, Software development on December 10, 2008 | 3 Comments »
I just stumbled upon this in the Scrum development newsgroup:
On the Scrum Trainers Yahoo site, this was posted in reference to Halliwell’s blog by a trainer who trained Halliwell in Scrum. I removed the trainers’ (last) names (by the way, Halliwell did soften his rhetoric in a followup blog entry):
Interesting. Paul and I [presented] a [...]
Development without a name
Posted in Management for Geeks, Software development on November 26, 2008 | 1 Comment »
After the rant, it’s time to be constructive. I was pleasantly surprised last time round by the comments: while I may have vented more strongly than some would have liked, there’s a clear dissatisfaction with capital-A Agile in many quarters, and a definite perception from many that it’s had its day. Over time, management fads [...]
The Agile Disease
Posted in Game development, Management for Geeks, Rants, Software development on November 16, 2008 | 68 Comments »
The games industry is rushing headlong to Agile development methodologies just now; it’s a great source of excitement for some, with conference sessions and magazine articles left, right and centre, and “evangelists” spreading the word.
I’m sick of it. I can’t wait for the day when everyone realises how much of a fad-diet, religious-cult-inspired, money-making exercise [...]
The Art of Doubt
Posted in Management for Geeks on October 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Do you believe in ESP? Precognition? Clairvoyance? Telepathy? Psychokinesis? Assuming you don’t (!!), how do you argue against such things? It’s pretty simple, right: you apply the critical thinking techniques that are essential to science:
Is the theory falsifiable? In other words, what evidence would be required to disprove the theory? To say that a theory [...]
Dysfunction and fanatics
Posted in Management for Geeks on October 11, 2008 | 1 Comment »
A game developer starts putting bugs in his code deliberately. A teacher helps their students to cheat on an exam. Another teacher throws a student’s exam paper in the bin rather than submitting it. A shoe factory starts producing nothing but size 7, left foot shoes. A customer service representative hangs up the phone on [...]
