Cognitive load
Cognitive load is an indication of how hard the brain works to perform specific actions. Although often used as just a conceptual model, cognitive load can be measured by watching cerebral blood flow while performing different tasks, and many formal studies of programming tasks do exactly this.
Coaching to Logical Levels
In a previous article we discussed what the logical levels are. In this article, we’re going to show how we can assist someone at each level. If you haven’t read that article first then we suggest you do that now.
Technical debt and productivity
Technical debt is made up of all those things in our system (architecture, code, documentation, etc) that are working but are of sufficiently poor quality that they cause us to move slower when implementing new functionality. Perhaps we need to do additional testing before we can add something new or we need to refactor the code to make it cleaner or more extensible. Perhaps it’s just hard to read or understand and therefore difficult to know how to add the new functionality.
Who should look at what metrics?
When we talk about metrics, there is often an assumption that everyone in the company needs the same data to make decisions and this is dangerously incorrect. Different levels of the organization need different kinds of data to make effective decisions. Yet, all too often we use the wrong data at the wrong point.
Polyvagal Theory: Understanding safety
Polyvagal Theory is the work of Dr Stephen Porges and describes what we know today about how our nervous system, and entire body, responds to how safe or threatening the world feels to us. This has significant implications for the behaviours we see in ourselves and in others. It’s important to note that we react based on our perception of how safe the world is, and not how safe it actually is.
Test driving prime factors in Elixir / ESpec
Test driving prime factors in Ruby / RSpec
Test Driven Development (TDD): A design activity
Test Driven Development (TDD) is often though of as a testing activity but it really isn’t. It’s a design activity that leaves a bunch of automated tests behind in its wake. It may sound as if we’re spending a lot of time on “tests” but we’re really focusing on the behaviour we want and allowing that behaviour to drive the design of our system.
Quality vs Testing: Solving the wrong problem
In the agile space, we talk a lot about testing. How will we test things? What should we test? How can we automate our testing? Yet, testing isn’t actually the point. What’s important instead, is quality. If we had amazing quality then it wouldn’t matter if we’d tested or not.
World Hypnosis Day
Today, January 4, is World Hypnosis Day. If you’re like most people, all you know about hypnosis is what you’ve seen on TV or in movies, and while entertaining, that’s mostly wrong. You may have even seen a live hypnosis show, and while there will certainly be real hypnosis being done, most of what you’re going to notice is showmanship and entertainment.