''Fifty Quick Ideas to Improve Your User Stories'' by Gojko Adzic and David Evans provides solutions to many issues involving Agile projects. Victor Chircu reviews here.
In this post, I will highlight one of the available progress bar widgets, which is a great tool for displaying the progression of a workflow to the user.
What happens to an organization when its most experienced and knowledgeable employees leave the company? What exactly is the organization losing? Read on to find out how important it is to keep the knowledge when employees leave.
OpenCart is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms available on the market today. In this article, we will walk through the simple steps involved in setting up the multi-store feature using a single OpenCart installation.
Journald is a log data storage and collection system. Here's an overview of Journald, and why it's great, with a glance at Syslog issues and Journald improvements.
You’re sitting at your desk, trying to “track” down a bug that’s been reported, when it happens. The hunt takes you into some method that inspires you to do a double take. It’s about 1,200 lines long, it has switch statements nested three deep, and you think (but you aren’t sure) that it does the same thing two or three times in a row for no particular reason. You look at the source control history and see that this is another “Bob special.” After seeing this, you start thinking about finally having a long overdue talk with Bob so that you don’t have to keep cleaning up these messes. That sure won’t be a fun talk. So how do you approach it? Philosophically Speaking Let’s be clear about something up front. Getting really good at telling teammates that their code is littered with problems is like getting really good at breaking into your car after locking yourself out of it: it’s tactically useful in the moment but indicative that you need a better overall strategy. Your goal shouldn’t be to master gently telling coworkers about their bad code but rather to make the mastery unnecessary. And I say that not as some kind of meta cop-out, but rather to put your strategy into context as an attempt to start or further a relationship. “Getting really good at telling teammates that their code is littered with problems is like getting really good at breaking into your car after locking yourself out of it.” Tweet This Quote When you’re part of a team, someone on your team who is committing bad code is a failure of everyone on the team—yourself included. So as you prepare for the intervention you’re planning with the person in question, keep in mind that you aren’t some kind of neutral crime scene investigator, sizing things up antiseptically. You’re part of the problem, and you share in the responsibility. Your team. Your code. Your problem. The good news is that if you approach this conversation constructively, you’re taking the first step toward fixing the problem, the code, and thus the team. So the key is making it constructive. 5 Ways to Not Make Code Criticism Constructive Before I go into detail about how to approach this conversation, I’ll give you a quick rundown of 5 things not to do. Don’t have the conversation when you’re frustrated or angry. Instead, wait until you’re calm and rational. Don’t get into this unless there’s a demonstrable problem. If you and he just have different casing preferences or something, the tension you create is probably going to nullify the benefits of standardization. Cosmetic coding standards and other relatively minor concerns can and should be addressed with automated static analysis. Don’t rely on seniority or status in any way. There’s no faster way to breed resentment than forcing people to do things they don’t agree with “because you say so.” Don’t expect to revolutionize someone’s entire approach in a single sitting and make the conversation a marathon affair. You want to have a clear and relatively concise message so that you get your point across without exhausting the other person. Improvement will happen over the long haul. Finally, don’t say that the code is “” That’s a useless, subjective way to categorize. Everything in software is about trade offs, so what you want to do is show Bob that he’s paying for quick and dirty coding with maintenance headaches for the rest of the team. Build A Constructive Code Strategy and Environment You’ve already prepared a bit by reading what not to do, so now it’s time to complement that with what to do. There needs to be three main components to this preparation: (1) the gaps you want to address (2) the support for your argument (3) the outcome for which you’re hoping. These three things are going to frame the discussion you intend to have. The gaps are actual, specific problems with Bob’s code. You don’t want to stroll over to Bob’s desk, pull up a chair, sit on it backwards and say, “So, Bob, you’re pretty bad at this programming thing…great talk!” You need to decide what tangible items you want to address during this discussion. What’s the most egregious source of problems? Is it the gigantic methods? The nested switch statements? The duplicate code? Pick one or maybe two of these things to cover. Just as you don’t want to be critical and vague, you also don’t want to be critical and devastatingly specific, reading off 95 of Bob’s greatest coding flaws like some kind of departmental Martin Luther. There may be 95 things wrong with Bob’s code. But if you want to fix all of them, it’s important to lay the groundwork for a mentoring relationship because you’re definitely not going to fix all of them in one day. Building Support: Do Your Research. Let’s say that you’ve decided to focus on method length as the topic to address. The next thing to do is build support for your argument. It’s a lot more credible to cite some supporting studies or widely respected industry figures on the matter than to march over to Bob and declare that his methods are too long. Build a case with evidence for the principle that you want to cover, and then also find specific, problematic instances in the code base to discuss. The last thing you want is to be hand-wavy about the problem—you want to be able to point at it and say, “for instance, this right here is a really big method.” The Outcome Should Be Actionable Having picked your issue and built a case, the last thing to do is choose an outcome toward which to steer the conversation. So you’ve shown Bob a giant method that he wrote and convinced him of the evils of giant methods. “Uh, okay,” he’ll say. “So what now?” Decide ahead of time that you want to work together to break the method into X number of smaller methods or that you want to leave the code in a state where no refactored method is longer than Y lines. Whatever it is, pick something actionable so that you and Bob can cap the conversation off with a joint win. Be courteous At this point, you’re ready to have the hard conversation. If you do it right, it won’t be nearly as hard as you might think, and it will serve as a productive starting point for a series of subsequent conversations that will be easier and perhaps even pleasant. This article originally appeared at SmartBear's Blog, written by Erik Dietrich.
Curated TED Talk playlists integrated within Cornerstone Learning enable organisations to instantly access new, innovative ideas and share knowledge across their workforce June 30, 2015 - Cornerstone OnDemand, a global leader in cloud-based talent management software solutions, today announced the company is teaming with TED, the non-profit global community devoted to spreading ideas, to deliver curated TED Talks to Cornerstone clients for a new, innovative approach to professional learning and development. The first and only collaboration of its kind, Cornerstone clients now have the ability to provide their workforce with modern, mobile-enabled TED Talks from world-class leaders at the forefront of their fields from within Cornerstone Learning. Cornerstone's collaborative learning functionality also allows organisations to enable peer-to-peer knowledge capture and discussions that can extend the learning impact of TED Talks. Watched and listened to more than 1 billion times this year, TED Talks introduce ideas that can help companies transform how their people think and work. Cornerstone clients will have access to a series of curated TED Talk playlists designed to address key business challenges in an innovative format that is unique, powerful and inspiring. With curated TED Talk playlists through Cornerstone: Inspire your workforce. TED brings together the world's most inspiring and ingenious people whose ideas can strengthen how professionals understand and think about the world around them. TED's curation of talks on behalf of Cornerstone can help organisations generate excitement and engagement among employees, help management crystallise goals, start important conversations, and spark collaborations. Provide the best, most relevant content. Organisations will gain access to the very best collections of TED Talks across a wide range of topics that are central to innovation and talent development, including change management, culture building, leadership, technology, globalisation, diversity and design. Playlists have been curated to reflect talks from visionary leaders across the most influential industries, such as healthcare, education, technology, manufacturing, finance and more. Amplify the value of your learning and development strategy. Employees can view TED Talks from within Cornerstone Learning, the global learning management system (LMS) for over 1,800 leading organisations. Integrating TED Talks into professional development curriculum allows organisations to inspire each individual employee at any stage in their career. Organisations can easily target and deliver learning and development to groups or individuals with the support of TED Talks and measure impact on workforce development from within Cornerstone. Watch and Share Instantly on Mobile: As smartphones emerge as the leading platform for watching video and Web content among busy professionals, TED Talks allow employees to consume and share content on their mobile devices while on the go. Comments on the News "TED Talks are brilliantly crafted and make an emotional connection with viewers. Their ability to convey innovative and complex ideas through powerful, first-person stories is the type of talent management content that can inspire and drive real change in the workforce," said Kirsten Helvey, senior vice president, client success, Cornerstone OnDemand. "We are dedicated to helping people reach their potential by providing our clients with the most innovative talent management solutions that support their professional development and training initiatives." "With the growing demand from companies for TED Talks, Cornerstone provides TED with the expertise and efficiency in reaching millions of learners in organisations across the globe that can benefit from our content," said Deron Triff, TED's director of global distribution and licensing. "This collaboration also provides TED with an important opportunity to understand how the talks can be utilised for professional development to strengthen how we collaborate with the business community. Cornerstone will be a great alliance for bringing TED Talks to companies and sparking innovation among their employees." Additional Resources Learn more about curated TED Talk playlists for Cornerstone via the Cornerstone Marketplace: marketplace.csod.com/#/content/90 Read additional commentary by Cornerstone's director of talent management, Jeff Miller, on the value and influence of TED Talks for empowering today's workforce via the Cornerstone blog: www.cornerstoneondemand.com/blog/how-ted-gets-your-workforce-talking
At Bloomfire’s User Conference in May, I had the pleasure of listening to City of Austin’s Chief Innovation Officer Kerry O’Connor present on how government knowledge management is changing. The Innovation Office focuses on internal and public service innovation, as well as open government. O’Connor has worked in the public sector for many years – at the U.S. Department of State, the Office of Management Policy Rightsizing and Innovation, and several U.S. Embassies. She talked about seeing firsthand that the government is changing from a “need to know organization” to a “need to share organization.” O’Connor argues that disruption is inevitable, and will come whether in the form of opportunity or threat – and there’s no script. “When there’s no script,” O’Connor says, “we have to be intentionally improvisational.” O’Connor defines innovation as any project that is new to you and has an uncertain outcome. She talked about how important knowledge is in supporting innovation. As the first person to ever fill this role, her goal for her first year in office was to set up an innovation infrastructure. This included putting into place the processes, teams, and skills and information to create an environment that fosters innovation. O’Connor recommends that to facilitate intentional improvisation, you must frame the problems you want to solve first. Once you know the goal, look for innovation technology infrastructure that helps you manage contacts, relationships, projects, knowledge, ideas, and insights. We live in a world that is increasingly interconnected and disrupted, and O’Connor says that organizations are naturally becoming more networked, human-centered, and improvisational. She encouraged attendees to “use what you have; we must connect, coach, mentor, share, and experiment.” To ensure that citizens can interact with the knowledge that city employees have, the City of Austin created online public spaces. These spaces, created on Bloomfire, offer the opportunity for citizens to participate in a conversation with employees around innovation, data, and city orientation. I was inspired by O’Connor’s presentation, and proud to live in a city that is so forward thinking about how information is shared. It made me want to get more involved in finding ways to solve some of problems Austin is facing as a result of our rapid growth. As a result of her talk, I’m going to try to make it to this weekend’s ATX Hack for Change. If you would like to watch O’Connor’s entire presentation, you can access it on the Bloomfire Community. Like this post? Click here to subscribe to our blog and receive the latest content on social learning, customer support, sales enablement, or all three.
