Posted by Mike on July 9, 2009
I googled the title of this blog post, as I am working through a difficult transition. I have been a full-time project manager (PM), but I am switching to 50% PM and 50% developer. I want to be the best developer I can be in that 50%.
Here is my story. I went into management for a better salary. Back when I did that, I had reached the top of the career path for developers – Systems Analyst. Several years into my time as an IT Manager, I was tapped to lead the Project Office. I oficially became a project manager and earned my Project Manager Professional (PMP) certification.
The more I worked with software development teams, the more I missed doing software development. As a PM, I also saw problems with software development that I figured would be hard to improve unless I got involved in the work. A hands-on approach would show me what was going on and build credibility for potential solutions.
My problem? Besides the tinkering I do in my spare time, most of my programming skills are rusty, out-dated, and underdeveloped. That being said, I have always been able to learn new things. With budgets tight, it is up to me to get started and prove my value. This is where the web really comes handy. There are so many good, free resources available for learning!
Here are a few that I am using:
Here are a few articles worth reading:
Finally, a couple book lists:
Here is a quote from the “Rock Star” article referenced above that sums it up nicely.
I’ve lost track of how many times this simple fact has been proven to me. The qualities of a great engineer carry over to any platform, and a great engineer will pick up a new platform quickly — mostly because they love learning new things. If you’re starting out in software development, concentrate on being a great engineer. That’s far more valuable than an engineer that knows a platform.
I have seen this too. If you look at the articles and book lists I’ve noted above, you will see that very little is said about specific languages. The languages are just the tools. They are important and you need to know them. However, it’s not the knowledge of languages that make a developer valuable. It’s the higher skills – learning, networking, understanding, and problem solving.
Posted by Mike on June 25, 2009
We were having our scrum yesterday and the discussion turned to three, low-hour, tasks that one particular developer has left to complete. He also has another larger task remaining to complete. His choice was to postpone the small tasks in order to complete the larger task. It will only take a maximum of four hours to complete the small tasks.
The BA’s on our team came to me later and spoke to me why these small tasks were important. (They weren’t sure they could speak to the impact during the scrum.) The accuracy of a key calculation, which is being tested right now in another system, was at stake. I requested that the developer put aside the larger task and complete the small tasks today.
As scrum master, I was acting to remove an obsticle that a different team was encountering. I also wonder what could have happened differently so that I wouldn’t have had to intervene. Could it be that with just a little extra push, the developer could have completed this task earlier so it wouldn’t have become an issue? Could it be that the importance of this task been discovered earlier in our sprint?
What do you think?
Posted by Mike on February 20, 2009
I have been teaching myself Java. Starting out, I am reading Java For Dummies
. I also needed some kind of practice exercises that give me immediate feedback on how I am doing. Fortunately, through The Java Tutorials’ Weblog I found a great site called JavaBat.
JavaBat is a free site created by by Nick Parlante who is computer science lecturer at Stanford. It contains numerous coding problems and gives immediate feedback if your code solves the problem correctly. (The site can also be a good tutorial on unit test case development. Just study how the test cases are structured.) Helpful links to tutorial pages, as well as sample code, help you learn.
The site focuses on improving your method coding skills. Each area has a large number of problems to solve, ensuring that you can get plenty of practice. It also has the facility to enable a teacher to monitor the progress of his or her students.
I would bet that both new and experienced developers will find something on JavaBat to help strengthen their coding skills. It could also be used as a tool in evaluating potential developers you want to add to your team. Finally, I also like the the minimalistic design of JavaBat.
Posted by Mike on February 12, 2009
I just read a great article by Paul Graham called Holding a Program in One’s Head. In it, Graham, explores the value of programmers having large blocks of uninterrupted time to code. This seems like a simple way to improve the quality of code and the productivity of your developers.
He lists eight points that help programmers and makes the following observations:
- It’s striking how often programmers manage to hit all eight points by accident.
- Even more striking are the number of officially sanctioned projects that manage to do all eight things wrong.
It looks like there is plenty of room for managers (and programmers) to improve!
Posted by Mike on January 31, 2009
Take a 2 million dollar project.
Industry data shows that outsourcing saves 20%.
Outsource the project above and it costs you $1.6 million.
Introduce Scrum locally and you can realize a 240% improvement.
Local Scrum for the above project only costs $0.83 million.
Source - Jeff Sutherland - 2006
Posted by Mike on January 30, 2009
I have been doing some research on agile software development methodologies, specifically Scrum, and found the following videos.
Posted by Mike on September 19, 2008
Dr. Dobb’s Journal has an article called
Beyond Functional Requirements On Agile Projects in its October 2008 issue. I think that it is not only worth reading for the subject matter contained in the title, but also for the view you will get of agile software development.
Figure 1, in the article, shows the full system lifecycle when using agile software development. I especially appreciated the mention of Iteration -1 and Iteration 0. These two iterations are completed before starting the Construction Lifecycle. They include pre-project activities (Iteration -1) and the Inception Phase (Iteration 0). The Inception Phase includes the work required to get the project started, including initial modeling and planning.
The article makes mention of disciplined agile. This implies that you can also have undisciplined agile. It’s all about mastering your craft and this is important enough that the article concludes with a strategy of Developer Education.
There is more to the article and it is well worth the read.
Posted by Mike on May 20, 2008
I was searching the other day on how to become a better developer and came across the following series of articles. I really liked how each part encourages the developer to examine different facets of their job. Part 11 might work, if you like “boughten” massages.
If you are a software developer, I think it is worthwhile to read one part each day and reflect on it. It just might help you become a better one!