2. Magic Pixie Dust: Increasing the pace of software delivery … through people Matthew Heusser matt@xndev.com Presented at the Grand Rapids Perl Mongers 26 August 2005

3. What this talk is not

4. Agenda The Nature of Innovation Effective Habits IN-Effective Habits (bad pixie dust) Common Objections What to do tomorrow Agenda

5. Managing Euler The Nature of Innovation

6. Managing Thomas Edison The Nature of Innovation

7. Life in the widget factory The Nature of Innovation

8. Innovation in the white space Innovation is concerned with redefining a task or the way a task is done –Gerald M. Weinberg, Becoming a technical leader Process Innovation and Product Innovation Effective Behaviors

9. Bad Pixie Dust Examples: –Extended mandatory overtime –Pressure –Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt –Implicitly cutting quality standards –Short-Term Cost reductions Ineffective Behaviors / Bad Pixie Dust

10. The Big Game The role of the leader Ineffective Behaviors / Bad Pixie Dust

11. The Status Meeting Who’s status are we talking about? Ineffective Behaviors / Bad Pixie Dust

12. Getting it wrong “Gathering Requirements” Telephone Game The Ambiguous Spec Effective Behaviors

13. Encouraging collaboration … Craftsmanship Prototypes Effective Behaviors

14. Efficiency or Effectiveness? Effective Behaviors

15. Maslow - Applied Effective Behaviors

16. The trouble with learning Effective Behaviors

18. Single-Tasking Effective Behaviors

19. Co-located Project Teams Effective Behaviors

20. Commitment Amateur-ism Excellence Dedication Effective Behaviors

21. Deliver Early, deliver often Image from Software Engineering, a practitioner’s approach, 5 th ed Effective Behaviors

22. My boss needs to hear this … Common Objections

23. But, Fred Taylor said … Common Objections

24. What to do tomorrow Make a plan to change your culture –The legend of Holgar Dansk Identify bottlenecks in the way things are done –Remove them Find ways to reward experimentation –Keep it fun For Quality, Consider ‘Arete’

25. Discuss

26. References Weinberg, Gerald. Becoming a technical leader. DeMarco, Tom and Lister, Timothy. Peopleware Lister, Timothy. Slack. Pirsig, Robert, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Go google some famous inventors.

27. Bonus Section

28. Mappers or packers? The Context-Driven School –A Microsoft QA Manager –A Stryker Instruments QA Manager Effective Behaviors

29. Managing Da Vinci Error Copy Combine The Nature of Innovation

30. Managing Issac Asimov The Nature of Innovation

31. The Agile Manifesto Effective Behaviors We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.