Posts Tagged ‘Linda Shafer’
The Punched Cards in the Middle of Your Devops
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pjen/1070766105/
In her foreword to Gender Codes, Linda Shafer vividly describes the flow of programming work at NASA in 1965:
Following a design, we wrote – by hand – computer program instructions on large coding pads (80 columns per instruction, the same width as a Hollerith punched card). A Courier came by twice each day, picking up the coding pads and delivering yesterday’s instructions that had been magically translated into a different physical medium – card decks. Put some paper on a cart one day and presto, the next day, a stack of 7 and 3/8 inch by 3 and 1/4 inch, stiff paper sheets with holes punched in them were delivered. These cards constituted the program, which was sent to the machine room where operators fed the decks through the card reader.
Fast forward to 2010. If you have not yet moved to Continuous Deployment, metaphorically speaking you are still punching card. Not only are you falling behind on value delivery, you are missing up on the following great point made by colleague Josh Kerievsky:
What fascinates me most about #continuousdelivery is how it changes the way we design and collaborate on code.
First IEEE Computer Society Guidebook on Kindle
A Kindle edition of The Concise Executive Guide to Agile is available now through Amazon. It is the first IEEE Computer Society guidebook designed for and issued on an electronic reader. My sentiments about being the IEEE pilot project for Kindle are expressed in the following quote from yesterday’s press release:
“How appropriate it is that a book on Agile software methods was chosen as the pilot Kindle project by the prestigious IEEE Computer Society,” said Israel Gat. “The reach and richness of Kindle make it an ideal vehicle for effectively disseminating the Agile message to audiences that so far have not been touched by it.”
I am indebted to Kate Guillemette and Linda Shafer who made this IEEE pilot project happen.
The Concise Executive Guide to Agile
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The IEEE Computer Society Press published today a ReadyNote[1] that I authored entitled The Concise Executive Guide to Agile. It is available through the IEEE Computer Society Store. A Kindle version will be published in June.
I had two main objectives in writing the guide:
- Provide the know-how for approaching Agile in a concise manner that requires minimal investment of time and effort by the reader. The ReadyNote does so by summarizing most Agile topics in a page or two. Detailed coverage of a topic is left for follow-on reading in the selected references that accompany each topic and in the Further Reading appendix.
- Be accessible to any executive — R&D, Marketing, Sales, Program Management, Professional Services, Customer Support, Finance, or IT. The only assumption I make is that the reader has a conceptual grasp of software and software engineering as well as an interest in learning about Agile. No deep knowledge, let alone technical knowledge, about software engineering is required for comprehending the guide.
There is no fluff in the guide. Every paragraph has been written to satisfy the “And therefore what?!” criterion. It is my intent to drive a point home and make it clear to the reader what he/she could do with the information in as few words as possible.
A simple acid test for the guide is your successful assimilation of it in entirety during a flight in the continental US. Something has not quite worked if you need to fly all the way from the US to Europe or vice versa in order to comprehend the guide…
I would like to express my sincere thanks to Michael Cote, Michael Mah, Hubert Smits and to the fourth reviewer (whose identity I don’t know) for their many helpful insights and suggestions. I am also deeply indebted to Linda Shafer and Kate Guillemette of the IEEE Computer Society who got me to write the guide and supported the writing and editing process along the way.
Enjoy reading!
Footnotes:
- “ReadyNotes are short e-books that are tightly focused on specific topics” [IEEE Computer Society Press].
The Agile Executive 