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July 19, 2019July 10, 2019 Common Anti-Patterns

The AntiPattern Season in Review

We have marched through 31 examples during this antipattern season. Therefore, we have enough of them to step back and look at themes, bad habits, and commonalities. While it is helpful to know about the individual patterns, it is better to see the big picture approaches we should avoid. Let’s get to beating some dead horses. Communication Is Key We can do everything right and still end up down a dark hole if we fail to communicate. This recommendation involves vertical communication among staff and management as well as horizontal across roles. We also want to be sure that we have made context and our “why” clear as part of the communication. Provide a good map and give it to... Read more

July 17, 2019July 9, 2019 Common Anti-Patterns

Death By Planning – A Rigid Anti-Pattern

Death by planning is an anti-pattern that makes us look like lemmings. We make a plan, and then we follow it mindlessly. This approach can work for some projects like building a house. However, software development does not work this way. There are always changes and unknowns that we encounter during the SDLC process. Thus, we want to be able to adjust to those instead of staying rigidly to the initial course. Defining the Death By Planning Anti-Pattern The Sourcemaking site provides the definition we will use for this episode. It is lengthy, but this anti-pattern calls for that. [Click Here to See The Page] “In many organizational cultures, detailed planning is an assumed activity for any project. This assumption... Read more

July 15, 2019July 7, 2019 Common Anti-Patterns

The Fire Drill Anti-Pattern

The fire drill anti-pattern is one that falls on project management. While we can personally place ourselves in this sort of situation, the anti-pattern comes from planning. To be specific, it comes from poor planning. Think of the idea that we can cram for a test the night before and extend it to slamming home a project at the last minute. Defining the Fire Drill Anti-Pattern The definition for this anti-pattern has been selected from the anti-pattern site. IT provides a bleak picture of the pattern that is also a common root cause. [Click Here to See The Page] “Management waits until the last possible moment to allow developers to proceed with design and implementation; then they want results almost... Read more

July 13, 2019July 13, 2019 Become a Better Developer

Success and The Pareto Principle

While everyone desires perfection, there is a cost to creating it. Balance is essential for us to get products out the door that are good without waiting to make them perfect. Thus, the Pareto principle, or 80-20 rule, is worth reviewing. In this presentation, we look at the Pareto principle and how it can help us produce better products at a higher velocity. Improve Velocity With The Pareto Principle We have previously looked at the Agile Process as a way to improve on time-to-market. In that case, we used the idea of regular releases to get new features out the door incrementally. This time, we look at that first release. There is always some level of minimally viable product (MVP)... Read more

July 12, 2019July 5, 2019 Common Anti-Patterns

The Throw It Over The Wall Anti-Pattern

The throw it over the wall anti-pattern is shared across a broad range of disciplines. However, it is particularly damaging to the software development process. We will focus on that discipline as we dig deeper into this communication-related issue. Defining the Throw It Over The Wall Anti-Pattern The Sourcemaking site provides an excellent setup for this anti-pattern. Thus, we will start there instead of our typical definition approach. [Click Here to See The Page] “Rarely is documentation entirely self-explanatory, yet understanding the vision and insight of the authors is an essential part of understanding the documentation. This is especially true of guideline documents, where there is an implicit assumption of independent decision making. This assumption also implies an in-depth knowledge... Read more

July 10, 2019July 3, 2019 Common Anti-Patterns

Analysis Paralysis – An Over-thinking Anti-Pattern

The “Analysis Paralysis” anti-pattern may be the most well known. It has a few other names. However, a search on this one will return a broad range of results. The detrimental effects of thinking over action are not seen only in software development. They make an appearance universally. Defining the Analysis Paralysis Anti-Pattern This time our definition is more of a description. The linked article provides a lot of reasons to avoid this anti-pattern. [Click Here to See The Page] “Delaying action while over-analyzing information clearly doesn’t help when it comes to getting things done. In fact, a 2010 LexisNexis survey showed that, on average, employees spend more than half their workdays receiving and managing information rather than using it to do their jobs!“... Read more