Viewing profile — markshead

Too often a daily standup is really just a way to try to make sure everyone is busy. Asking everyone what they did yesterday, what they are going to today, and if they have any blo…

That is an excellent point. If everyone knows exactly what the next most important thing is for the customer, and they are already working collaboratively to deliver it, maybe the …

I haven't ever seen an organization focused on "doing Scrum" that gets good results. However, some teams trying to deliver working software iteratively for their customers do find …

> Video was supposed to be the future. Instead, it’s just another way to pick up the phone. If you are using it to replace a phone call, then yes. It is just another way to pickup …

There are few better ways to increase your learning on a technical topic than to write a post about it and get lucky getting traction on HN. I wrote a post on State Machines a few …

Back in the early 2000s I had a blog where I would try to post multiple times each week. While I wasn't a poor writer before, it was amazing how much I learned about overcoming wri…

A few books that I've found useful: The Goal - Eli Goldratt - It is a novel about optimizing a factory, but it is immensely valuable in thinking through what are the actual constra…

A decade ago Harvard Extension School's ALM in Software Engineering was a good match for what I was looking for as a self taught programmer with a Bachelor's and Master's degree in…

> "Jira is the worst project management tool, except for all the others" This is key. The problem with Jira is less about Jira as a tool and more about how we approach project mana…

I was once looking for a solution to some technical problem, clicked on a promising web result, and found myself at my blog. I had posted a solution several years earlier but had f…

Felix Mendelssohn wrote a collection of pieces called Songs without Words for the piano. This might suggest that the term "song" can be more nuanced than simply whether or not ther…

> Those with extreme views certainly do exist but they tend to be pushed to the front by those who have vested interests against homeschooling. On the flip side, many homeschoolers…

I've had good luck with video team rooms vs. having lots of video meetings scheduled. With a video team room you basically "hang out" like you would in a real team room. You might …

I own a home in a very rural part of the US, but do a lot of work with people in large cities. I was talking with some people in NYC about our 5 bedroom home that we bought for $12…

Just having a book that you've written on any topic listed somewhere on your resume is nearly always a positive. It is kind of like having a college degree in that it shows you can…

If you like the idea of a small lisp machine, you should look at uLisp. Last time I priced out the components they came to somewhere in the $20 to $40 range.

Do most people think that autopilot is used to avoid other planes and obstacles like mountains? I always assumed autopilot was basically like cruise control for planes and just kep…

If that is the case, autopilot on a plane seems to be more like cruise control expanded to maintain pitch, yaw, and roll than autonomous flying.

Also dramatically different than the low cost $13.95 time-of-flight sensors. ( https://www.adafruit.com/product/3316 )

Obviously, this can be used to simply lie about not having a dog. On the other hand, it is also the way you deal with any objections that might be raised if you are dealing with a …

Nand2Tetris was very good. I think Coursera has it listed as "Build a Modern Computer from First Principles: From Nand to Tetris." The course does an incredibly good job of walking…

Keep in mind there is a whole spectrum of what constitutes thought leadership. Several times, I've had clients say, "Last night I was looking for X and I found a great article on i…

So where would you put what we call "determination?" When someone has 9 businesses/jobs/experiments/etc fail and gets "lucky" with the 10th one, it seems like there is another aspe…

I have. It is interesting but didn't really stick for me when I tried it. I've found some techniques that didn't work well in one period of my life work incredibly well in a differ…