I presented introductory material on Elasticsearch for the South Shore .NET Users Group. Here are the slides: This talk covers an overview of Elasticsearch data mining. Elasticsearch is a Big Data solution to document storage and search. It is a NoSQL-backed search engine using a HDFS-based filesystem. Elasticsearch basics Setting up a development environment Loading data Searching data using REST Searching data using NEST, the …
Top 5 Traits of Great Agile Managers
I’ve worked with several great companies, and even more not-so-great. I see agile managers and agile implementations fail quite a bit. I’ve done some analysis and come up with the top 5 traits of great agile managers. There are others traits to consider as well. However, the great agile shops and managers all have these same characteristics. 1) Be on time …
What is a technology company?
I’ve worked with many different types of companies. They can be separated by market; healthcare, medical research, insurance, financial services, etc. However, it’s more important for me to determine if they are a technology company or a services company. I use a simple matrix to determine what type of company I’m working with. Services Companies A services company has a …
Big Data : Overview (Part 1)
Please join me for a series of talk on Big Data with the South Shore .NET Users Group. I hope you can make it. Big Data has become the new buzzword like “Agile” and “Cloud”. Like those two others, it’s a transformative technology. We’ll be discussing: What is it? Technology key words HDFS Hadoop MapReduce ElasticSearch This will be part …
Project a mess? Send in the clean up crew!
We love patterns in software development. Codifying patterns is an attempt to acknowledge good principals for designing and delivering software. We have so many types, for example: Design Patterns Enterprise Architecture Patterns Database Design Patterns UI Patterns Development Process Patterns Development Process Patterns typically include the following: Continuous Integration Agile Test Driven Development And so on…. There are also so …
Don’t know your velocity? You’re not Agile. You’re Fragile!
Many organizations claim to be running Agile shops. I get two responses when I ask about their Agile practice They (try to) run iterations. They hold daily standups. These are two of several practices which contribute to being Agile. However, alone, they will never realize the true value of the practice. The normal follow up questions I have for these …
Introduction to Agile
I recently gave a coaching presentation to 20Mile Interactive on Agile Management. Here are the slides I used. For the first hour, we covered basics. We spent the next few hours going through typical workflow scenarios teams usually encounter. Introduction to Agile from wbsimms
Developers and Technical Minefields
Technology changes quickly. Every week there are new tools, frameworks, and paradigms. Choosing the right technology for a new project in a constantly changing landscape can be daunting. Popular developer websites (and blogs!) are filled with articles on “the next big thing” which every developer “must” know. In my experience, most of these technologies will be short lived. Some will prove …