Dave’s now uploaded a version to YouTube… Fantastic stuff. I love the deadpan humour.

Talk starts at 7:30 on the 13th Jan at The Counting House pub (50 Cornhill, London, EC3V 3PD).  It’s free, but please  signup on the XTC website.

Just to whet your appetite:

The Solutions Focus approach is creating a stir in the fields of psychology and management. Whereas conventional approaches assume stable environments and predicable outcomes, SF is bringing a new, simple and effective flavour to the workplace and the therapy room with a view on ways to make progress while everything changes. Surprisingly, the approach is as effective, if not more so, than conventional methods.

In this session Mark will share his experiences of using SF in many business settings and help us to experience the approach in some quick interactive exercises. We will discuss how SF sits alongside Agile, how the two philosophies reflect each other and how Agile processes like retrospectives might be even more agile with the inclusion of some SF techniques. This will be a session to appeal to both the pragmatist and the philosophical.

Well worth reading. Nice work.

We discussed Robert Dilt’s model of thinking about personal change, learning and communication. Learning, change and communication can take place on different levels. Basically we do not change in bits and pieces, but organically, from one level to the next. To be effective you have to communicate on the same level as the other person. The levels are:

1. Environment: What we react to, our surroundings, and other people we meet. EG: This is a great desk for pairing.
2. Behaviour: The specific actions we carry out, regardless of our capability. EG: I started automating the GUI testing today.
3. Capability: The general skills and strategies that we use in our life. EG: We don’t have access to the real customer to answer our questions.
4. Beliefs and Values: The various ideas we think are true, and use as a basis of our daily action. EG: If we use Agile software development techniques we can deliver more business value and have lots of fun too!
5. Identity: The basic sense of self, your core values and mission in life. EG: I am a great java developer.
6. Beyond (think text books call this Spiritual): This is the deepest level, where we consider and act out the great metaphysical questions. Why are we here? What is the purpose of XP? EG: We need to be more competitive as we are loosing market share to our competitors.

The take-home point for me is that in order to have effective communication with someone you need to form a rapport and respect his or her internal models (ie the best rapport comes when you communicate on the same level). Obvious really, but you have to be told these things sometimes!

One very scary quote (think it was Richard Bandler):

To find out the beliefs and values of a software developer look at their code

Something that interested me is that, while they plan and have clear goals, they are also evolutionary and constantly adapting and changing. One point that they ram home is that visonanry companies create discomfort – to oblitorate complacency – and thereby stimulate change and improvement before the external world demands it.

They also have this wonderful parable of a martial artist kneeling before he master sensei to recieve their hard-earned black belt.

“Before granting the belt, you must pass one more test”, says the sensei.
“I am ready”, responds the student, expecting perhaps one final round of questioning.
“You must answer the essential question: What is the true meaning of the black belt?”
“The end of my journey”, says the student. “A well-deserved reward for all my hard work.”
The sensei waits for more. Clearly, he is not satisfied. Finally, the sensei speaks. “You are not yet ready for the black belt. Return in one year.”

A year later, the student kneels again in front of the sensei.
“What is the true meaning of the black belt?” asks the sensei.
“A symbol of distinction and highest achievement in our art”, says the student.
The sensei says nothing for many minutes, waiting. Clearly, he is not satisfied. Finally, he speaks. “You are still not ready for the black belt. Return in one year.”

A year later, the student kneels once again in front of the sensei. Once again, the sensei asks: “What is the true meaning of the black belt?”
“The black belt represents the beginning the start of a never ending journey of discipline, work, and the pursuit of an ever-higher standard,” says the student.
“Yes. You are now ready to receive the black belt and begin your work“.

I buy that story.

Mary Poppendieck (Lean Software Development) points out that development is an exercise in discovery, while production is an exercise in reducing variation, and for this reason a lean approach to development results in practices that are quite different than lean production practices.

That’s not to say that we cannot learn from Manufacturing – certainly the drive to reduce waste (muda as its called in Lean Thinking). reducing batch sizes and focusing on quality are equally applicable to software. I just liked Mary’s overview.

Oh well, back to the book…

For me the best thing about this book is that it shows you how experienced developers produce a well crafted, easy to test, web application. It walks you through using interfaces to separate the database from the code. It provides oooodles of examples of using mock objects to make testing easier. It shows how experts use Test Driven Development (TDD) on a real world (web) application.

Oh, and it uses some nice open source libraries along the way. One of the best ways to learn something new is to pair with an expert. The next best thing is to read a book like this!

Check it out on amazon (uk)

Shame about the title!