Category: business
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OpenRain's First Commercial Product In Production
I feel like I’ve come to know you quite well over the last few years. It was a rocky relationship at first, what with you not paying attention to me and hanging out with your friends too much and all. But ever since you started taking better care of yourself and dressing up a bit…
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Preston's Business Razor: A Stakeholder Perspective On Pair Programming
Pair programming is an activity of eXtreme Programming (XP) wherein two developers work in conjunction–often physically seated next to each other with a single keyboard and mouse–to solve the same development tasks as a single mind. Having developer pairs tackle complex tasks can go a long way towards… Increasing personal productivity. Reducing defects. Minimizing misinterpretation…
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My FonWallet Story: Making It All Public
Update: April 26th, 2009. I’ve had a few brief conversations with Todd over telephone and IM, and have offered to cease pursuing both judgments and remove this post from this website provided a prompt, reasonable payment schedule for the personal judgement against Todd. He has committed to proposing me a payment settlement plan by the end of…
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Handling Fuzzy Requirements
I had a great conversation with remi Taylor of OpenRain Software today on how to handle fuzzy requirements when the customer isn’t available. You’ve been there… you get an issue tracking ticket like “Add Foozle Support” only to find no explanation of what this means other than the issue title. The customer/decision maker decided to…
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10 Joys Of Small Business Ownership
Don’t fret about those woes! For on a daily basis… You are building something greater than the sum of its parts. You set the mission, vision and values. You define the right people, right roles, and right rules. You will push constantly to explore and learn to think outside your comfort zone. You will often…
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The Financial State of Arizona
The Arizona Joint Legistlative Budget Committee (JLBC) released two documents yesterday quantifying the effects of U.S. economic fear, uncertainty and doubt as it applies to Arizona’s 2009 budget, and proposals for 2010. The big question on U.S. minds is, “How will all this affect my business?” By most accounts the answer is not positive. The…
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Offering Developers Startup Equity, A Dialog
I have this conversation about once a month, generally by a well-intentioned dreamer new to the software space who doesn’t understand why I can’t accept projects for equity. I may be exaggerating slightly, but it sure feels this way… 🙂 Preston: Hi Bill, nice to meet you. How can we help you develop your online venture?…
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On Brooks
I’ve written this same basic argument for small teams three or four times now, so to comply with the Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle I though I’d post it. In short, this argument repeats Brooks’ Mythical Man-Month concept 🙂 , and asserts that you must restructure the communications dynamics of a team when it changes…