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Why You Should Preorder “The Unicorn Project”

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The Unicorn Project cover
Image from Amazon.com

UPDATE: Gene Kim’s reaction added at the bottom…

Why you should preorder The Unicorn Project in four tweets. 🙂

As someone who frequently speaks publicly, I know how powerful answering “How does this apply to me?” is. If you are in IT dev or ops, you will have that answer from @RealGeneKim’s upcoming to-be classic, “The Unicorn Project.” I’d preorder it now 🙂 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QT9QR41/

@RealGeneKim Basically, in “The Phoenix Project,” Gene made Goldratt’s seminal work, “The Goal,” real 4 IT, especially on the ops side. In “The Phoenix Project,” Gene drives it home on the dev side (but not by ignoring ops). This book will be a must read for all levels, indiv contrib to exec.

@RealGeneKim Why all levels? If u r an indiv contrib u’ll see all the symptoms of the dysfunctional dev & ops illness called out, & know THERE IS A CURE!

If u r a leader (right up through exec), u’ll finally c why placebos do so little, & have a chance to prescribe the true cure as a team!

@RealGeneKim How do I know? I’ve read The Goal. I’ve read The Phoenix Project. & I was blessed 2 read an unproofed, prepub copy of The Unicorn Project. I’m already torturing my boss 2 get its ideas piloted in our dev org. 🙂

Buy the book. Torture your boss. Improve lives & the bottom line.

[Read more…] about Why You Should Preorder “The Unicorn Project”

Origin of Waterfall? (With Study Questions)

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Over the weekend I ran into this tweet by Charles Betz, whose Twittter bio describes him as “Digital management analyst, author, and instructor. DevOps lead @ Forrester. Adjunct @ U of St Thomas – MN. Occasional jazz riffs.”:

Study questions to the original waterfall paper by Royce. Great work by @Morendil. This is what we mean by “critical reading” in the liberal arts, and which we need more of in digital/Agile/DevOps. https://morendil.github.io/programming-history/royce-worksheet.html

I’ll admit I’d never seen “the original waterfall paper”…wasn’t even aware of it. However, I read it before work this morning. Great stuff…as is the study sheet. [Read more…] about Origin of Waterfall? (With Study Questions)

Galton Board Video

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This awesome mathematics teaching tool came in yesterday from Amazon:

Okay, it was a bit hard to hold my Note9 and flip it…but you get the idea!

The Bell curve and standard distribution are obvious, but it also…

Both the Galton Board and the superimposed Pascal’s Triangle incorporate many related mathematical, statistical and probability concepts. Can you spot them all?

In the Galton Board you may see: the Gaussian curve of the normal distribution, or bell-shaped curve; the central limit theorem (the de Moivre-Laplace theorem); the binomial distribution (Bernoulli distribution); regression to the mean; probabilities such as coin flipping and stock market returns; the law of frequency of errors; and what Sir Francis Galton referred to as the “law of unreason.”

With Pascal’s triangle, mathematical properties and patterns are evident. Those include prime numbers; powers of two; Magic 11’s, Hockey Stick Pattern, triangular numbers; square numbers; binary numbers; Fibonacci’s sequence, Catalan numbers; binomial expansion; fractals, Golden Ratio, and Sierpinkski’s Triangle.

More info available at galtonboard.com.

Sure, maybe I get too excited by stuff like this…but…come on…it’s pretty cool! 🙂

Review: This Is Now Your Company

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This Is Now Your Company book coverA week and a half ago, I attended a 90 minute talk by Mike Rognlien in Denver thanks to VitalSmarts. A bonus was getting a free copy of Mike’s 2018 book, This Is Now Your Company. That unexpected gift was quite serendipitous given I’ll be presenting “Counterintuitive IT™: How Do We Change Culture?” at my company’s April 1st Agile Community of Interest meeting. As he did during his talk, Mike shares plenty of unexpected, consummate insights in Now This Is Your Company.

Why am I giving his work five stars? Because it is the right mix of focusing on what needs to change in companies, those you interact with, and (most importantly) in you. (Well, let’s be painfully honest and admit that it helped me focus on what needs to change in me. And there is plenty.)

This physically striking book (it is truly a beautiful thing to hold and look at) is broken into three sections: [Read more…] about Review: This Is Now Your Company

“Can’t Wait” Future Excel Feature: Dynamic Arrays

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If you use Excel as a tool, this video about its future dynamic arrays functions is worth a view (it’s pretty exciting):

I was hoping the trick she showed at 3:30 in would already work:

Dynamic arrays and data validation

But, alas, it didn’t on my Macbook Pro nor my Surface Go…

Seeing Leila be able to access the upcoming features makes me want to get access to Microsoft’s early review program…but…if you are like me…what you put together is really only valuable if others can also take advantage of it.

Either way, something to look forward to!