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Definitely recommend "The Goal", it is fascinating to see its influence on "The Phoenix Project". I would also offer a recommendation for any jaded hacker. Go

Definitely recommend "The Goal", it is fascinating to see its influence on "The Phoenix Project". I would also offer a recommendation for any jaded hacker. Go and work for a manufacturing company. Seeing real world problems solved by lean experts and process engineers is fascinating. See Kaizen (Continuos incremental improvement) in action in critical systems, systems where a mistake can't be reverted easily and the consequences are huge. See them manage complexity. It is a real education.

flail 2y ago
"The Phoenix Project" is basically "The Goal" rewritten in the context of software projects so that people would pick up the ideas easier instead of dismissing them as the "unrelated context." The authors never hid their intentions on this one. BTW: both are great reading. Also, the grand idea described in Goldratt's The Goal is the Theory of Constraints (ToC). While Kanban (as a method) draws from it with the limiting WIP practice, these two don't overlap that heavily.
- galaxyLogic 2y ago
  Makes sense to me that everybody should be aware of all POSSIBLY ANTICIPATED features/stories as soon as they exist, because you can then avoid doing work that later stories would contradict. I'm not sure if I can see a negative consequence for having more stories "on the board". Physically of course the board might get full, but we use computers these days. That doesn't mean spend all your time planning and none implementing, but if you realize we will most like need a given feature in the end we should not hide that realization from the team. An error (or oversight) in specifications is much more costly than an error in design or implementation, is the old Waterfall mantra, which I think is true. But Agile of course might not agree with that. Maybe it would make sense to carry some kind of "Plan for the Future" throughout the process. Be aware of the anticipated features even though they are not fixed into the "plan" yet.
  - flail 2y ago
    Having more (all) the tasks in a backlog from the get-go might make sense if we knew that: a) requirements wouldn't change b) priorities wouldn't change c) we would be able to keep the understanding of the work throughout the effort Then we'd just pull ticket by ticket and fill it with the details when we need it. I've been doing it for 25 years, and I'm yet to see a project where the above assumptions would be true. I don't expect to see it. Requirements always change. So do priorities. We have this saying that our clients always know what they want. Until they see it. Then they know they wanted something different. But even if that wasn't the case, the requirements change because we learn as we build the thing. The moment we know the least about a project is at its beginning. After that, we only know more. So if things change, keeping more tickets in flight (even in backlog) means that every reprioritization, every planning, every pull to development costs more. Heck, we're bound to add work that's already there, but we forgot about it. It's the cognitive load we add to so many activities every day. And it doesn't even solve the problem of having better design because there's too much to remember. Your intuition is right, though, when it comes to understanding the big picture. Not only architecture but also business. When every engineer on the team understands these higher-level goals it's so much easier to make sound decisions about design and implementation. But for that we don't need dozens/hundreds of tickets in backlog. BTW: I have a rule of thumb that on a physical board, there shouldn't be more than 100 items altogether. Our brains are incapable of meaningfully processing more. On a virtual board, it's even less, as our visual capabilities are impaired by screen limitations and crappy design of the tools we use.
    - galaxyLogic 2y ago
      I think we could have "anticipated tasks" kept somewhere maybe not on the "board", and not being committed to (yet). Just raise awareness of what is the high-level view of where we are or might be going. I agree that specifications always change. And that means it's good to be aware of what they might change to. Then we might more easily see how they might conflict with the current tasks, and thus in fact reduce the amount that specs would need to change in the future.
      - 2y ago

flail 2y ago

"The Phoenix Project" is basically "The Goal" rewritten in the context of software projects so that people would pick up the ideas easier instead of dismissing them as the "unrelated context." The authors never hid their intentions on this one. BTW: both are great reading. Also, the grand idea described in Goldratt's The Goal is the Theory of Constraints (ToC). While Kanban (as a method) draws from it with the limiting WIP practice, these two don't overlap that heavily.

galaxyLogic 2y ago
Makes sense to me that everybody should be aware of all POSSIBLY ANTICIPATED features/stories as soon as they exist, because you can then avoid doing work that later stories would contradict. I'm not sure if I can see a negative consequence for having more stories "on the board". Physically of course the board might get full, but we use computers these days. That doesn't mean spend all your time planning and none implementing, but if you realize we will most like need a given feature in the end we should not hide that realization from the team. An error (or oversight) in specifications is much more costly than an error in design or implementation, is the old Waterfall mantra, which I think is true. But Agile of course might not agree with that. Maybe it would make sense to carry some kind of "Plan for the Future" throughout the process. Be aware of the anticipated features even though they are not fixed into the "plan" yet.
- flail 2y ago
  Having more (all) the tasks in a backlog from the get-go might make sense if we knew that: a) requirements wouldn't change b) priorities wouldn't change c) we would be able to keep the understanding of the work throughout the effort Then we'd just pull ticket by ticket and fill it with the details when we need it. I've been doing it for 25 years, and I'm yet to see a project where the above assumptions would be true. I don't expect to see it. Requirements always change. So do priorities. We have this saying that our clients always know what they want. Until they see it. Then they know they wanted something different. But even if that wasn't the case, the requirements change because we learn as we build the thing. The moment we know the least about a project is at its beginning. After that, we only know more. So if things change, keeping more tickets in flight (even in backlog) means that every reprioritization, every planning, every pull to development costs more. Heck, we're bound to add work that's already there, but we forgot about it. It's the cognitive load we add to so many activities every day. And it doesn't even solve the problem of having better design because there's too much to remember. Your intuition is right, though, when it comes to understanding the big picture. Not only architecture but also business. When every engineer on the team understands these higher-level goals it's so much easier to make sound decisions about design and implementation. But for that we don't need dozens/hundreds of tickets in backlog. BTW: I have a rule of thumb that on a physical board, there shouldn't be more than 100 items altogether. Our brains are incapable of meaningfully processing more. On a virtual board, it's even less, as our visual capabilities are impaired by screen limitations and crappy design of the tools we use.
  - galaxyLogic 2y ago
    I think we could have "anticipated tasks" kept somewhere maybe not on the "board", and not being committed to (yet). Just raise awareness of what is the high-level view of where we are or might be going. I agree that specifications always change. And that means it's good to be aware of what they might change to. Then we might more easily see how they might conflict with the current tasks, and thus in fact reduce the amount that specs would need to change in the future.
    - 2y ago