Remembering Jerry Weinberg: Perfect Software… and other illusions about testing

It’s been four years since – sadly – Gerald M. “Jerry” Weinberg passed away. Ever since then, I struggled with some public mourning about him, until recently I had just the right idea. On a weekly basis, I will publish a review of a book I read that Jerry either wrote himself or is about some of his work. For this week, I picked Perfect Software… and other illusions about testing, co-authored with James Bach, and published by Dorset House in 2008.

Continue reading Remembering Jerry Weinberg: Perfect Software… and other illusions about testing

Imagine…

Imagine a world of work in which we no longer fight about agile or not agile, Scrum or not Scrum, Kanban or not Kanban.

Imagine a team that continuously adds value while providing the needed information for the business to have the company thrive.

Imagine what would be possible in such a world, and what would stop working.

I think at the heart of agile software development once stood this imagination, resulting in all the different things we see in the agile cosmos today.

Unfortunately, this imagination sort of has been replaced by all the discussions we have around this vs. that. To maybe bring back these initial driving thoughts, I send you off to the weekend with your own imagination, hoping that you will bring back that agile essence next week.

Release trains – let’s critique the metaphor

A couple of years back, while I was involved in a group that eventually created the ScALeD principles, we were of course discussing the benefits of the different scaling approaches out there. One of the participants – I think it was Andreas Schliep – mentioned to me that the release train concept in the scaling approach that Mike Beedle always referred to as S_Fe was pretty clever. Since I spent some amount of time on trains in the past twelve years, I tend to disagree. Let’s see how I perceive the release train metaphor based on my experiences in the German train infrastructure.

The only picture I managed to take upon arriving in Bielefeld Hbf. after riding the ICE train called Bielefeld.
Continue reading Release trains – let’s critique the metaphor

Remembering Jerry Weinberg: More Secrets of Consulting

It’s been four years since – sadly – Gerald M. “Jerry” Weinberg passed away. Ever since then, I struggled with some public mourning about him, until recently I had just the right idea. On a weekly basis, I will publish a review of a book I read that Jerry either wrote himself or is about some of his work. Today, we continue the topic of consulting as I picked More Secrets of Consulting – The Consultant’s Tool Kit published by Dorset House in 2002.

Continue reading Remembering Jerry Weinberg: More Secrets of Consulting

Remembering Jerry Weinberg: The Secrets of Consulting

It’s been four years since – sadly – Gerald M. “Jerry” Weinberg passed away. Ever since then, I struggled with some public mourning about him, until recently I had just the right idea. On a weekly basis, I will publish a review of a book I read that Jerry either wrote himself or is about some of his work. Today, I picked the classic The Secrets of Consulting – A guide to giving & getting advice successfully published by Dorset House in 1985.

Continue reading Remembering Jerry Weinberg: The Secrets of Consulting