Exploring Extreme Programming
Chris Crawford on Game Design, Chris Crawford, New Riders Games, 2003. Chris Crawford is the designer of Balance of Power and numerous other games. He surveys his own and others’ games, and considers games along the dimensions of play, challenge, Continue reading Review – Chris Crawford on Game Design
Surf Ninjas, directed by Neal Israel, 1993. It’s mostly a silly romp, though you could probably pull out a lesson on developing a shared vision. But it’s worth it just to hear Rob Schneider’s rant on knives. (Reviewed May ’03)
The Princess Bride, directed by Rob Reiner, 1987.This is one of those movies where people have the lines memorized, but in addition to having a good story, it has real lessons on management, teamwork, and destiny.(Reviewed May ’03)
Office Space, directed by Mike Judge, 1999. A peek into cube life. (Reviewed May ’03)
Test-Driven Development: By Example, Kent Beck. Addison-Wesley, 2002. Test-driven development is a programming method that says: write a test, write some code, refactor, repeat. For me, the biggest hole in Extreme Programming Explained was the lack of explanation of this technique, Continue reading Review – Test-Driven Development (Beck)
Thinking Beyond Lean, Michael A. Cusumano and Kentaro Nobeoka, Free Press, 1998. The subtitle is “How multi-project management is transforming product development at Toyota and other companies,” and that pretty much says what it is. Once you have lean approaches, Continue reading Review – Thinking Beyond Lean
Starting Fit To use fit, you create a web page that has tables in it; the tables specify tests. (There are other options but that is easiest.) In this case, I’m using Microsoft Word™ and saving the file in HTML Continue reading Fit Spreadsheet – Output
Ward Cunningham has created an acceptance testing framework known as fit. (See http://fit.c2.com for more details.) In this brief experiment, we’ll use tests to help specify a simple spreadsheet for strings. Continue reading Fit Spreadsheet
Results from the Heart: How Mini-Company Management Captures Everyone’s Talents …, Kiyoshi Suzaki, Free Press, 2002. It’s kind of hard to classify this book. It’s from a lean manufacturing consultant, but it’s geared to the whole organization. Suzaki argues that Continue reading Review – Results from the Heart
Coaching: The ASTD Trainer’s Sourcebook, Dennis Kinlaw, McGraw-Hill, 1996. This is focused on “life coaching,” but there are good thoughts on characteristics of coaches and coaching. It’s designed to provide you materials for a variety of workshop formats. I wouldn’t Continue reading Review – Coaching (ASTD)