9/1/10 Upcoming Software Architecture Workshops

There are still seats open in the Software Architecture Workshop to be taught by Dana Bredemeyer (in English) in Düsseldorf, Germany, on September 13-16, 2010 (hosted by CodeCentric). The workshop in The Netherlands in early October is full and wait listed.

The next Software Architecture Workshop in the US will be held in Boston, MA on November 8-11, 2010 (enroll by September 10 to qualify for the early enrollment discount).

You can think of this as learning how to design architecture and in the process constructing a visually rich narrative for your system so that you fully empower the development team (throughout the evolution of the system) to create (and evolve) a system that meets business and customer needs -- a system that stands up to the push and pull of business demands and the need for design excellence (where it matters). Iterative. Incremental. Evolutionary. Participatory (without being overwhelmingly so) and concurrent. 

9/2/10 A Shout!

I looked in on the SATURN blog, and saw that Mary, bless her, linked to this journal yesterday. Four and a half years into journaling here, and it gets its first "full of great ideas" shout! 

This is early in the month, so if you want to validate Mary's assessment for yourself, these are the (surviving) posts from August. Naturally, all the good ideas are by reference, not mine at all. But if I am good at anything, it is finding the good in other people and their ideas.

:-)

And, while you wait for entries, perhaps this is a good time to read The Art of Change: Fractal and Emergent. Facing shrinking budgets, we have to be more vigorous and diligent about the goodness and rightness (value contribution) of what we do. We can be conservative and retrench. Or we can look energetically for the opportunities there are, and make them successful. This is exactly the time to to be sure that the technical work we lead is not just great, but focused on the right (in business impact terms) problems!

9/2/10 In Kind

Let me return the favor. New from the SEI:

• Relating Business Goals to Architecturally Significant Requirements for Software Systems, Paul Clements and Len Bass, May 2010

This, also from the SEI, looks very interesting:

• Hard Choices Board Game: "simulation of the software development cycle meant to communicate the concepts of uncertainty, risk, options, and technical debt"

9/2/10 Software Visualization

I just came across UbiGraph. I've looked at some of the demos, and it looks exciting.

9/3/10 Blogs

I updated my Trace In The Sand Blog site. It's only the first moments of its rebirth, but I think the direction is promising. I created a SmileServer blog which will mainly be a architecturally-relevant smile-teasing (charming/humor/quizzical/etc.) linksblog, though I don't rule out the possibility that I may on occasion be brash enough to post one of my own attempts at drawing a smile. And I may even get around to another post to my Trace in the Sand blog, now that I have reactivated it -- it required some tlc after being crippled by spam.

9/5/10 Design is Design

Sara pointed me to AdvancedFictionWriting.com. Hold on -- this is about architecture, by a software architect. Randy Ingermanson applies his software architecting process to writing fiction. What's more, it is fractal!

9/5/10 Collaboration

Jeff Atwood has noted that none of us is as stupid as all of us. Dilbert's PHB won't stand firm on whether some of us is smarter than one.  David Perkins, in King Arthur's Round Table: How Collaborative Conversations Create Smart Organizations, presents a balanced perspective. Here's a snippet from the book:

Collaboration isn't "decision making by committee." It is the effective use of team time and of individual time. Model out loud and in pairs/groups can produce breakthoughs in thinking (and motivation -- simply put, it is fun!) not achievable alone. New connections are made. Assumptions that would tend to lie dormant and implicit are questioned and drawn out. Etc. That said, concentrated individual work time is important too.

But the hurly burly of multiple perspectives can seem chaotic. Chaos and dragons are intimate. I know. I've been fighting off a few chaos dragons myself. So far, they're winning. Just kidding! Goodness, optimism/enthusiasm and persistence have some bearing.

9/5/10 The Paradox of Choice

I just heard Sara say: "This is 20-10 dude. We have water bottles."

Indeed. Themos stainless steel water bottles that fit in cup holders and which will keep water with ice icy for hours in blazing sun. Of course, these are superb for Hobie kayaks which have -- hold on to something -- cup/bottle holders! This is the age of choice explosion. We have so many choices, we can be paralyzed by them.

In the fuzzy front end of design, some people are just made antsy by the ambiguity and lack of direction that comes of searching the possibility space. On the other extreme, there's going too far with the search. Balance is key. We diverge and converge. Each time we converge, we're narrowing the options space. The thing is, we need to design to breach the pack, to create an identity space that makes the customer's choice, and then use model, easy.

Great design isn't generally, repeatedly something we simply stumble into right off, nor the result of a random walk, for tweak-tweaking on the base of what has been done, is constrained by a growing set of expectations and uses that embed the emerging design in quickly mounting inertial forces. Design is intentional, including the envisioning and scanning process that seeks out and clarifies the design concept.  

9/6/10 The Little Engine That Could

The first book that Ryan saved up for and bought was "The Little Engine that Could" that came with a little engine that climbed the pages.

The editor asked me if I could make the deadline they've set for Part Two. I replied "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..." and that memory flooded back!

The importance of positive thinking, and of the doing that is part of making it meaningful and self-reinforcing.

Of course, life also has its unwinnable battles. Our  cat of "handsome older gentleman" fame is dying, and it is very hard and sad. This was the cat that elicited Sara's first real word (by which I mean the first word that wasn't a variation on the babbling sounds babies make like mamamamama that more easily becomes mama) when she was 9 months old.