Author: Neil

Email Is the Worst Form of Internal Communication

Neil5 Comments

Email is the worst form of internal communication in common usage today. The only redeeming characteristic of email is to create proof that at some point in time, you tried to inform someone of something. In this way, it is very similar to its direct ancestor: paper mail delivered by the postal service, and it is just as obsolete. Unfortunately, as remote work has become an immediate necessity for millions of people worldwide, email has become a primary form of communication.

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The Danger of ‘The Dark Sage’

Neil3 Comments

JP Ventura left an intriguing comment on The Sage that I’d like to explore:

Considering each coin has two sides, what would be the dark side (i.e., opposite) of the Sage?

What I find interesting about this question is the fact that I had not given much thought to the “dark side” of the 12 Underappreciated Developers. The Sage, in particular, can have several dark manifestations as ostensibly, they are supposed to be a benevolent master whose primary interest is helping the members of their team grow. If we look at someone who is pretending to act in a way that could be confused with The Sage but is, in fact, the opposite, we get something like this:

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The relationship between determining technical feasibility and productivity

Neil3 Comments

This is an answer to a question asked by Ashvini Chaudhari in the “Agile and Lean Software Development” LinkedIn group:

Dear All , I m pursuing my PhD in Agile Software Engineering. I have a question regarding spike solution ” If we add spike in project development will it have effect on team velocity? and if yes what could be the parameters ? All the responses will be consider as a general opinion in my PhD thesis.

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I pity Tim Cook

Neil6 Comments

It’s clear the Job’s deathbed playbook has long since been used up. The Apple devices are getting worse and worse year over year, but Tim Cook has managed to drive shareholder value despite that. Apple is the most valuable company in the world – no one can take that away from Tim Cook; but Apple has fallen from grace, and as captain of the ship Tim Cook bears all the blame.

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