A retrospective is a regular meeting where your creative team looks at and improves its way of working. Retrospectives are one of the tools used in an Agile Development process. Agile is a way of working that focuses on responding to change over following a plan. Like brushing your teeth…

“You’re wasting your money,” my mentor warned. “Scrum is not something you can master in a weekend. That certification will be worth the paper it’s printed on.” I was working retail, making $12 an hour, and I had just put down $1000 for a 2-day course to become a Certified…

Teaching yourself is hard. When I was studying Chinese Philosophy in a Taoist Temple, the master spoke only Mandarin Chinese. Most of what I learned was through an interpreter. So I thought it would be a benefit to learn Chinese and speak with the master directly. I bought books, I…

Picture yourself on a software project at Hyper Gum Dynamics. As it turns out, Hyper Gum Dynamics is a Fortune 500 company with its roots in the Defense Industry. Their premier product is a ballistics-grade chewing gum that once hardened is more effective at stopping high-velocity rounds than kevlar. …

Have you ever been in the water? Not like a bathtub. I mean like a large body of water. A river, lake, or ocean, for example. Something that’s got enough water that you can’t touch the bottom even if you dive to find it. If you’ve ever been in a…

If you’re like me, you love software. It has manifold variations and utility. We are only just scratching the surface. A whole universe exists in its depths, one which could benefit our lives and transform human experience for the better. Exploring those depths and surfacing with a new tool that…

Have you ever had a demanding boss? I don’t just mean one who expects quality work, I mean someone who is a Boss. Capital B. They give you ultimatums, and demand no back-talk. When they ask whether or not you can do a task the answer is “Yes Sir! …

Rehearsal is the key to a good performance. Revision is the key to good writing. Refactoring is the key to good software. You get to Carnegie Hall with practice. Practice is rehearsal. The direction of rehearsal is towards constant refinement. …

You never realize you have a strange upbringing. No matter what your childhood, you naturally assume that what you have is normal and everyone else has largely the same childhood experience, albeit it at a different address. For that reason I thought it was completely normal for my dad to…