Random Musings

How social media is changing our lives.

that’s how ‘Alexander The Great’ (Agile) kicked Darius’s (Waterfall) butt. And this victory against such great odds can teach us some useful lessons about how to improve the delivery of our software development projects. 1. Avoid committing too early — especially when you don’t have all the information you need. You’ll make better decisions if you wait till the last possible moment . 2. Collecting requirements upfront — and assuming they will never change over the duration of the software development project — can cost you dearly in terms of delayed delivery times, additional development costs and software that has little or no value to your customer. 3. It’s better to develop software incrementally . Because with each iteration we learn more. And the more you learn, the better you get. 4. Empowered team members make better technical decisions, are more productive and develop higher quality software. 5. Face to face communications are much more effective than documentation at el...

A very heartning story.... " My social network helped diagnose a rare disease that our doctors initially missed."

" Before my son arrived and when he was an infant, I was pretty adamant about no TV or videos or video games before age 2 and very limited exposure after that. He's now almost 3 and he still doesn't watch TV, but does watch videos in small doses and play some interactive games on our iPAD. I have to say that when we were traveling, a well-timed iPAD app that could entertain our son for a few minutes was a godsend that headed off tantrums or crying in restaurants and other public places when he got antsy. So, I've relaxed my rules about media consumption. I've been amazed at how quickly and intuitively even very young toddlers pick up the touch screen manipulation. At around 15-18 mos. our son enjoyed flipping through photos on the iPAD. For our next trip in July (for which we will NOT be flying first class!) I may need to download a couple more apps!" - A parent.... http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/rememberwhentheyusedtoplaywithyourcarkeys/