I liked the way this presentation style really forces you to be precise and deliver the real message, it took ages to produce for such a small presentation time, this I guess is the point, i.e. deliver maximum value in the shortest time period.

The content blends my recent ramblings based on the “trousers of reality” book as well as a few other insights.

The exercise has given me an insight into how I would like to structure a book on this subject, pictures one side and words on the other, all forming a Koan – Practical “how to’s” at the end – Need to work more on this.

You can find the raw material here (note in terms of the slides, the first slide was triggered on a mouse click, the remainder on a twenty second timer – The last slide filled a question and answer section – I stuck to the “rules”).

I can supply a power-point version (on request), also I have higher resolution images available.

SoftwareCosmos_Presentation_Notes and SoftwareCosmos_Presentation_Slides

Fundamentally we need principles and feedback!

This is starting to ring bells with my current journey into lean thinking and the roots of lean and agile. I’m beginning to think they all come back to these two items, at the micro or macro scale they all involve getting a feedback loop going (or developing an existing one), guided by some simple practices/guidelines. So, if I could think of a snazzy name for it I would start a new software development methodology(?) which consists of just these elements.

Get everybody nodding at the notion that feedback is the fundamental principle on which to operate, define or pick some simple practices/guidelines, choose appropriate information to analyze and use to modify the input, keep testing and evolving the system. It seems to me the only difficult part is seeding, some activities are easier than others, unit testing has this cycle and books to hand out, whereas getting say a monolithic waterfall development process changed when your say an outsourced part is harder – But I think achievable so long as you get them to agree feedback is good and start showing them some useful big visible charts?

This new methodology, is just really a principle, a foundation, on which lean and agile are built, so its a meta-principle or a deep principle? The bit I like is its really obvious (or it is to me now I see it) and cuts through all the endless material written on these subjects, allowing people to develop systems suitable for their needs. Essentially its all about continuous improvement, get grounded principles and iterate/evolve, apply this principle to anything (software or otherwise).

As mentioned in the trousers of reality, its all recursive and fractal in nature, I’m starting to sound a bit like an insane hippy these days, maybe I am! Here are my pictures:

Personally this is a great honour (i.e. out of 50-60 engineers I was chosen as the representative – Through a voting scheme where anybody could be chosen). I hope I can handle it and not let people down…

I recommend Gaia if you are around Leith walk

A link to a Panelle recipe, only included because it has a picture! When (if) I make my own I will add a home grown picture and recipe.