Every year, Microsoft holds a conference called MIX for web developers and designers. This year they had an open call for sessions, and I was lucky enough to be able to submit four sessions. But I need your help – only the top 10 vote-getting sessions get in to MIX, and the voting ends January…
Category: General
Scrum Alliance Community Organizer Update
Just a quick note – for those of you who were familiar with my role as the Community Liaison with the Scrum Alliance. Effective today, my role has been transition out due to some reorganization happening. There will be announcements in the near future, but for now if you need something related to the Scrum…
DotNet Koans
For quite a while now, if you want to learn Ruby, you have the Pickaxe book, Why’s guide, and the fabulous Edgecase Ruby Koans on GitHub. The Koans are especially interesting because all you really need to do is setup a working environment and go. It tells you what you need to do next, by…
Essential Skills for Agile Developers – .NET Edition Scheduled for February in Tampa
Agile. Scrum. XP. Lean. It’s hard to turn anywhere without running into the signs that something is afoot in the development community. Next thing you know, your manager is asking you to deliver working software in a week – with code coverage metrics to boot! In this intensive, hands-on, 3-day session we cover the basics…
Announcing a New Venture
While this has been known for a little while, I’m now officially announcing that I am an independent consultant and have launched a new company, Cory Foy, LLC, with a new website: http://www.coryfoy.com. I’ll be offering consulting and training services around lean and agile practices, as well as .NET Debugging and Training. I’m also going…
Reward Systems and Organizational Change
Most of us don’t give much thought into what happens if our house catches fire. We call 911, the firefighters come in their shiny red (or green, or yellow) trucks, pull some hoses, spray some water, and then we call our insurance agent and begin rebuilding. But there is a lot of training and preparation…
Change your organization, or change your organization
Dawn Cannan has a great post up called Change your organization, or change your organization. This is a phrase I use quite often to people, and something I struggled with because of this very thing: There are many techniques for pushing through resistance, but how can you tell a fight that isn’t winnable? Or, at…
For Value Blockage, Take Some X-LACKS
This week, I had the distinct pleasure of co-presenting with the ever lovable Mitch Lacey at the Agile Development Practices conference in Orlando. I also got the chance to have a great conversation with Alan Shalloway about the state of Scrum and the Scrum Alliance, and to run into Alistair Cockburn. This got me thinking…
Guest Post up on 5 Whys about Team Leadership
Roy Osherove has just posted a guest post from me on Team Leadership called Leading Through Learning: The Responsibilities of a Team Leader on his new blog about Team Leadership called Five Whys. Thanks for the opportunity to post Roy!
Programmers: The Top Ten Things Management Hates About Agile
Damon Poole just did a post on the Top Ten Things Programmers Hate About Agile. But it’s not just programmers who dislike agile methods. I’ve come across many managers who feel many of the same things that are on Damon’s list. So without further ado, the top ten things management hates about agile: #10 Agile…