Agile software development with Paul Stovell

A newsletter that started as a personal learning and getting-in-touch project by Ivan Krnic grew into a sociotechnical newsletter covering topics of technical excellence, organizational improvements, and productivity.

Remember Monopoly?

If you’re lousy at it like me, you’re doing whatever it takes to make it around the board and get that extra cash. It doesn’t matter what you do along the way as long as you pass the Start field and collect the money.

I spoke with Paul Stovell about agile software development, and the similarity struck me. Paul pointed out that the most important thing should be completing a round (iteration!) to create value and get user feedback. Unfortunately, in software development, we sometimes focus too much on the steps themselves (which process? which tool?), forgetting that our goal is a higher one – to complete the round, create value, and collect user feedback. There are 12 principles in the Agile Manifesto, and we, ironically, fail on the very first.

✨ Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

Tools do not exist for their own sake but to help us complete the round sooner. They are just “tools”. We should remember the end game – creating value and collecting user feedback sooner. Listen to our conversation.

TDD with GitHub Copilot – Folks from ThoughtWorks share their experience in using GitHub Copilot with TDD practice.

How to Communicate When Trust Is Low – All of us have been in situations when conversation is difficult. Charity Majors shares her tips for building the eroded trust.

Tolerating, then Eliminating Duplication at Amazon – Pedro Del Gallego writes about prioritizing speed over efficiency and Amazon’s mantra, “Two solutions are better than zero, but one is better.”

It’s still summer, so why don’t you treat yourself to a classic?

I, Robot is a collection of short stories that imagine the future world in which robots are a regular thing, as Isaac Asimov saw in 1950. Asimov is walking us through a series of everyday dilemmas underpinned by the famous Three Laws of Robotics. A masterpiece!

Header photo by Suzy Hazelwood