Archive for January, 2009

Smart software estimation. How does it work?

By shoogend at 27 January, 2009, 1:36 pm

The general idea around (Smart) estimation is to be able to express project effort at any given time before or during a project. Doing so, you should be aware of something which is called the Cone of Uncertainty. This simple but valuable graph demonstrates that estimates will get better as the project progresses, but also [...]

Talk at Javapolis 2007. Popular project anti-patterns

By shoogend at 27 January, 2009, 12:40 pm

This is the video from Parlays.com that presents the talk I gave at the last JavaPolis conference in Antwerp, Belgium. During the talk I ask myself the question how everybody in their own role can attribute to making our project fail, as it is far too complicated to make your projects succeed. The talk presents [...]

Bite the bullet

By shoogend at 26 January, 2009, 2:28 pm

Mensen die mij al langer kennen, weten het inmiddels. Ik heb wel iets met presenteren. Al zolang ik het me kan herinneren. In mijn lossy geheugen staan in elk geval presentaties gegrift die tenminste dateren van twee decennia, drie werkgevers en zo’n tweehonderd klanten geleden. En ook toen al vond ik het leuk om te [...]

Seattle in January

By shoogend at 21 January, 2009, 8:27 pm

And still I am in Seattle. Well, Redmond to be more specific. Seattle is not a bad city. It’s not colder than the Netherlands now, and the buildings are a bit higher. Had a walk on the waterfront in the evening. Took some pictures.

Trying out Windows Live Writer

By shoogend at 21 January, 2009, 1:51 am

While I was at the .NET Partner Advisory Council meeting in Redmond, one of the other members made us aware of the existence of Windows Live Writer, a small tool from the Windows Live group to edit blogs. So I downloaded it and I am now trying it for the first time. It actually looks [...]

Why Newton was agile and the Titanic was not

By shoogend at 16 January, 2009, 10:38 am

Let’s be perfectly clear about one thing: 2009 will not only be known as the year the financial crisis hits in hard, it will also be known as the year everything turned agile. Please allow me to explain. The times when banks, insurance companies, car industries and the likes could start up multi-million software development [...]

Why do you need a layered architecture?

By shoogend at 12 January, 2009, 5:56 pm

The first business software I wrote professionally – that is, got paid for – was a set of small and similar calculation applications. I wrote these in the pre-Windows era in some version of Turbo Pascal. And no matter how ignorant I still was about good software architecture, these small applications already had a notion [...]

Guest lecture Hogeschool Utrecht on implementing smart use cases in agile projects

By shoogend at 9 January, 2009, 5:51 pm

On January 13 from 14:30 – 16:00 the Hogeschool Utrecht organizes a guest lecture by Sander Hoogendoorn, Principal Technology Officer at Capgemini. When asked who to invite for presenting a guest lecture, the students of the Hogeschool specifically requested for Sander. His lecture will be titled Implementing smart use cases in agile projects. Process, techniques, [...]

Calvin & Hobbes metaphor for financial crisis

By shoogend at 2 January, 2009, 12:24 am

Calvin & Hobbes is one of my favorite comic strips of all time. Funny and so well drawn. I was already convinced of the sheer genius of creator Bill Watterson – and now his work proves of predictive character as well. This fifteen years old Calvin & Hobbes Sunday comic strip illustrates a very fine [...]