Clarke Ching's Rocks and Snowballs

Internet Explorer 7 Beta

I’m not one to MS Bash.  And, to be fair, IE7 is currently only in the 2nd Beta but … it sucks on my PC because opening a new tab causes a terminal error.  Pity.

The good news is that it only takes a few restarts to uninstall.

Dave Nicolette has been using

Dave Nicolette has been using my TDD in Excel exercise.

I found your Excel exercise to be just what I was looking for. We have a recurring process smell at our company that I think is traceable back to development teams not following TDD rigorously. I'm using your exercise as a way to help customers and managers understand what the impact of TDD can be on their projects. To do that I've incorporated the exercise with a presentation that ties "design debt" to financials over the course of development projects and over the course of a product's production lifetime.

Take a look at his excellent presentation - make sure you read the presenter's notes too. My exercise and Dave's presentation go very nicely together.

Nice blog, btw, Dave.

Shocking Behaviour

Clarke Ching:

Help fellow ScrumMasters!

One member of my team keeps talking all the time and no matter what I say I just can't persuade her to talk less. In fact, I find that asking her to stop talking tends to result in drawn-out arguements about why it is her right to talk or - worse - tantrums where she sticks her head on the floor, her bum in the air, and screams loudly. I'm finding it hard to concentrate on my work and I'm certain my productivity is suffering. I recently perferated my ear drum and found that if I put a pillow over the other ear I could block out most of the noise. The ear has almost healed now though and I feel stupid walking around with two pillows attached to my head. My pair-manager is no use - she keeps justifying the inconsiderate behaviour saying things like "but she's so cute and she's only three and a half".

Otherwise, the project is going well. I am perplexed by this problem. I simply don't know what to do. Any suggestions?

---

Hubert Smits :

Put her up for sale on eBay.

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Ron Jeffries:

I once read in a book that Native Americans needed their children
not to make noise because it interfered with hunting or something,
and they would teach them not to cry by covering the child's nose
and mouth whenever they would start to cry, cutting off their air.
The book suggested that they learn quite quickly.

I suspect that your pair-manager, and the local authorities, might
have an issue with this, but the details are left to you.

---

John Brothers:

I have this exact same problem with my 3 1/2 year old team member. However, on the plus side, I have found that my young team member is incredibly adept at "Root Cause Analysis" - you know, the "5 Whys" principle. It is pretty much given that any time I present her with a directive or even a suggestion, she immediately goes into RCA mode to understand the root cause of my statement, often going well beyond the 5-why limit.

It's been a very learning experience for both of us. Interestingly, neither of her slightly older (but still junior) male team members exhibit this RCA behavior.

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DeanG:

This thread is useless without burndown charts.

You know the ones. In the hallway, all over the workspace. Crayon, marker, and quarter inch deep ballpoint pen. It's all Crystal.

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Brent Barton :

I found most of the input to your question thought-provoking... btw: Hubert can talk too! :)

I am guessing she is primarily an auditory learner. This means she may need to hear herself talk through problems. If you cut her off, will she go to the next available ear with the same topic? If she seems to repeat the same topic to multiple people, see if she subtly nuances subsequent talks with new ideas or approaches...

Except that you, as a team member are challenged by the conversation, does she contribute effectively to the team? Do her conversations make a big difference in the teams ability to execute? Is the rest of the team very quiet?

I provided no answers but I am not there so, for your pain, one idea...get sound cancelling headphones (Bose or other) -- because they have a better nerd-quotient than pillows -- agree to pairing-session-level lengths of time where she won't interrupt you because the phones are on (and the little red light is lit up). Other times, look for value in her discussions. I know one person who uses headphones to overcome his sensitivity to the ambient noise of our open work space and it works out OK.

Good luck!

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Dave Martin:

I have exactly the same situation on my team only there are two members who behave this way. I discussed this with a more experienced practitioner who has a much older and more developed team and their advice is to wait. Apparently in about 10 years the team will enter its “teenage” phase where the members top talking altogether and communicate only in grunts. After this they enter the “adult” phase where they will start to communicate normally.

Hang in there. The team will resolve this but it might take a while. In the mean time I find lumps of blue-tac are more effective, easier to attach and less inconvenient than pillows.

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Joseph Little:

Clarke,

This is a tough one.

Ummm. My brother had a problem with his kids watching too much TV.
He gave them each (his 2 dau.) a true fixed time limit (machine
controlled), and they started watching way less TV than the time
limit per week.

A colleague had a talkative associate. He said, "I can listen to
5000 words per day. I save 2000 for my wife, and you've already
used up 2000. I need to save the rest for other colleagues." That
seemed to make a dent.

In other words, say, sincerely (if you can) that you /want/ to
listen for X minutes per day. But you need the rest of the time for
other things. Then be polite but firm about adhering to the time
box.

Psst -- tell me if it works. (Wish I could be more help.)

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Kathy Sierra podcast

Kathy Sierra - she of creating passionate users fame, gives an energetic, charming and shockingly interesting talk (podcast) about creating fantastic learning experiences.  Worth listening to twice, even.

[via Ed]

FT Interview with Larry Ellison

Fascinating interview with Larry Ellison on today's Financial Times. 

priorities

Easter Weekend.

This weekend my 3 year old daughter informs me that I rank just above chocolate, but below icecream with chocolate and smarties. 

That is, she likes us all – chocolate, icecream, smarties – but if one of us had to go then it’d be me.

Nice to know where I stand.

A new (free) software tool for using / teaching Goldratt's Thinking Processes

My TOC colleague Santiago passed the following note to the Yahoo Constraints Management SIG, from highly respected TOC teacher Dr Holt:

WSU EM Students (past and present):

Dr Van Oyen has created Transformation Logic Tree Software to help student create large Thinking Process Trees is a much easier fashion. I've tried it and it has many exceptional features. For a limited time, you can try it too.  Visit the Web Site do download a year trial.

Soon, the software will not be available on the Web for free.  I suspect it will be bundled with some TP Texts in the future.  Or, TLT could be purchased for a nominal fee.

For now, Dr Van Oyen is looking for critical comments (good and bad) about TLT operation and function.  If you try the software, please take the time to give him feedback in return for the free software.

Dr Holt

----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Van Oyen
Subject: A new software tool (free) to enhance teaching of the Thinking Processes of E. Goldratt

Dear faculty member or student with interests in TOC and the Thinking Processes,

From 2000-2005, I taught courses on Goldratt's Thinking Processes to undergraduates, MBA's, and Executive MBA's at Loyola University Chicago.  In my experience, my students attempted to implement their work in PowerPoint, Word, or Visio with varying degrees of success and frustration.  I felt that my students would greatly benefit from "drawing" software tailored to the tree diagrams of TOC. Has this thought every occurred to you?  With an enormous effort from an extremely talented programmer, I can now share with you the software we created for TOC.   My small business has invested our creativity and brainpower, but we also acknowledge the helpful feedback and ideas
  from Richard Putz, Dr. James Holt, and William Dettmer.

You and your students can download our software (Free) from  http://www.transformation-logictree.com   We have additional material on the website including 3 quick tutorials in .ppt, .htm, or .pdf  at: http://www.transformation-logictree.com/tutorial.htm

I believe this software will make it much easier for you to teach the Thinking Processes, for the students learn it, for groups to work together, and for you to give feedback electronically. We call it Transformation LogicTree, a product of LogicTree Thinkware built for Windows XP, and we believe it will be very valuable to anyone who is seriously building trees (or other diagrams such as flowcharts or fishbone diagrams). TLT is powerful and flexible enough for a variety of diagram styles, but it is very user friendly. Say goodbye to off-page connectors - TLT is perfect for developing and presenting large diagrams (e.g., 3 pages wide and 5 pages high and easily expanded or shrunk as the tree develops).  It prints well (WYSIWYG), generating large posters by tiling standard size sheets.  TLT automatically generates a Glossary WorkSheet that lists all entity contents on any WorkSheet in the WorkBook.  In addition to standard copy/paste editing, TLT has "linked" entities that maintain consistent content while appearing on multiple trees.  Edit one and you have edited all linked entities.  TLT's novel "Document Explorer" has powerful search/find and "jump-to" capabilities that you'll love.  TLT graphics can easily be pasted into Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc. to be integrated into reports.

I hope your class will try out our TLT software (I recommend you begin by quickly skimming through the 3 tutorials to get a sense of TLT) and send me your feedback.  We may be able to incorporate a good idea that you may have.  TLT will be available along with a TOC Thinking Processes textbook in the near future. Our goal is to keep TLT inexpensive to support students from around the globe in learning and practicing the Thinking Processes and to advance its use in industry.

Sincerely,
Mark Van Oyen, founder of LogicTree Thinkware

Test Driven Development - using MS Excel and VBA

Download tdd_for_managers_and_nonprogrammers_using_excell_and_vba_final.pdf

Here is the final version of my 16 page walkthrough of Test Driven Development using Excel.  The purpose is to "test drive" Test Driven Development rather than to learn it or how to program in VBA. 

Thanks to the half dozen or so TDD friends who've helped fine tune it.

I've had some good feedback and I'd love to hear more - good or bad ... the document is what I'll call an immature final draft!

For instance, Uday wrote:

Today I ran a TDD workshop at work for my colleagues. I started off with your "Integer to Roman" example in Excel. It was a huge hit! ...

A million thanks t you for the "TDD in Excel"., It is simply brilliant. It makes a huge impact.   The Red and Green colors through conditional formatting is a neat detail and a real master stroke.

Google Calendar has arrived

Google Calendar is very nicely done. 

Try the "Quick Add" - press Q, type in (say) "Work Dinner tonight at 7pm" or "Meeting Nancy at 2pm on Sunday"  press Enter and it just works.

Also add in your local or other holidays very easily.

[via Euan]

New Gladwell Article on the New Yorker

Gladwell asks “Why?” on the New Yorker.