Waterfalls

When I think of waterfall development, I always imagine myself standing under the waterfall, with all that code, design and requirements crashing down on my head.

Turnaround Situations

For a project manager looking for work they're the best situations. The enterprise already knows projects are hard to do.

Egoless Programming

Egoless programming is a way of developing systems that's based on the idea that, with a few unique exceptions, the group is always wiser than the individual. The programmer is asked to shed her or his ego and become an instrument of the group. And the device used to accomplish that end is the structured walkthrough, where the developer submits her work to the group for a step by step review. But developers, like other creatives, do have egos. So how do we protect those egos, even as the individual developers bend to the superior wisdom of the group? The solution to that paradox is in the exact nature of the structured walkthrough. To begin with, attendance is by invitation only, and the developer gets to send out the invitations. The setting is informal. The developer provides snacks and drinks. And there is an iron-clad rule about what the reviewers can and cannot do. All they can do is ask questions about the way the code works, about things they don't understand. They can't offer suggestions, they can't express opinions, and, if one of their questions happens to uncover a problem, they can't help solve it. That's the developer's job, and the developers don't fix their code in the walkthrough. They take the questions away and solve the problems in their own time, in their own way. It turns out that in structured walkthroughs it's the reviewers who have to leave their egos outside the door. 

Charismatic Leaders

Should project managers be charismatic leaders?

The User's Experience

Has to be exciting

Where project managers come from

Film and video production is still the best place to find them.

As Designed versus As Built

Many differences

Empowering Everyone

To do their own work.

Usability

One of the most important components of quality. Particularly in web apps.

Effective Testing

Without effective testing, it is not unusual for errors that should have been found in unit testing to pop up as late as acceptance testing.

Specifications

The operator's manual completely defines the system. Consider this carefully, because it is common practice to create user manuals after the system is created.

Testing

The only meaningful measure of testing is the number of errors detected per module.

Trade-offs

There are four trade-offs available to the Project Manager: Scope, Resources, Time and Quality. You must research this well. Inferior project managers, asked to name the trade-offs, will be able to name only three.

Sharks

Project Managers are like sharks. You keep moving forward or you die.