"I have a mind like a steel... uh... thingy." Patrick Logan's weblog.

Search This Blog

Saturday, February 19, 2005

Slowing Down

Ron Jeffries on the pace and stress of software development...

If you're feeling under the gun, it might be time to slow down.
Amazingly counter-intuitive advice is found throughout Extreme Programming practices. I have *never* seen continued pressure and stress succeed in software development. On the other hand more than once I have seen big improvements when teams are able to step back, breath, make a couple of observations, and move forward gradually. Before long the team is working better than ever.

2 comments:

Carl said...

Two of my favorite sayings, attributed respectively to the Amish and the Chinese, are as follows:

The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get.

When you are most in a hurry, slow down.

Anonymous said...

I once called a buddy and asked him if he wanted to go out for lunch. He said that he had a bug and had to work through lunch.

The next day I called him and he said he still had the bug and couldn't go out to lunch. I asked him if he'd fixed the bug by working through lunch the previous day. After a long silence I asked him when I should pick him up for lunch.

He fixed the bug half an hour after he got back from lunch.

Blog Archive

About Me

Portland, Oregon, United States
I'm usually writing from my favorite location on the planet, the pacific northwest of the u.s. I write for myself only and unless otherwise specified my posts here should not be taken as representing an official position of my employer. Contact me at my gee mail account, username patrickdlogan.