Clarke Ching
Member for
21 years 6 monthsAn independent consultant and regular columnist on StickyMinds.com, Clarke Ching is a passionate advocate of agile software development and a chairman of the AgileScotland special interest group. He is the author of the book Rolling Rocks Downhill, in which he demonstrates how to use lean, quality, and agile techniques to make your projects more productive and predictable. Read more about Clarke's work at www.clarkeching.com.
All Articles by Clarke Ching
All Stories by Clarke Ching
| Hoarding: How to Prioritize Features to Clean Up the ClutterHoarding is an incredibly common—but usually unnamed and invisible—phenomenon in corporate software development. If you’ve been doing agile for a while, you are no doubt aware of the cost of hoarding and you’ve probably removed much of it, but what happens when you aren't doing agile yet? Clarke Ching explains how to counter hoarding by prioritizing the right features. | |
| Measuring and Rewarding at the Magic FactoryT | |
| Repaying the Happiness Debt—with InterestThe pace of production depends on the capability of those at work. When an increase in profit is desired, production is sped up. Yet those forced to work faster aren't necessarily more productive. Unhappily experienced at being forced to work harder and faster resulting in less productivity, Clarke Ching found a way to slow down expectations and increase productivity. | |
| From Crabs to Crab MeatS | |
| Rocks into Gold: Part 4This short book by Clarke Ching is a "biztech" parable for software developers who want to survive—and then thrive—through the credit crunch. We have republished the book in a four-part-series. In part four, our characters pitch Bob's plan to MegaCorp. But will business politics get in the way of a good idea? Follow the story as our characters fight to keep their jobs by implementing creative business ideas and management skills taken from agile development. | |
|
Rocks into Gold: Part 3 This short book by Clarke Ching is a "biztech" parable for software developers who want to survive—and then thrive—through the credit crunch. We have republished the book in a four-part series. In part three, when things seem at their very worst, Bob has a "light bulb moment" that just might save the day. Follow the story as our characters fight to keep their jobs by implementing creative business ideas and management skills taken from agile development. |
| Rocks into Gold: Part 2This short book, written by Clarke Ching, is a "biztech" parable for software developers who want to survive—and then thrive—through a credit crunch. We have republished the book in a four-part series. In part two, Bob, Bill, and Sam discover how a rocky economy can flip project costs and return on investments and how much money could be lost by canning the FBU project. Can they use these projections to save the project and their jobs? | |
| Rocks into Gold: Part 1This short book, written by Clarke Ching, is a "biztech" parable for software developers who want to survive—and then thrive—through the credit crunch. We have republished the book in a four-part series. In part one, we meet the main characters who have just found out that their jobs are on the line after discovering their major client's business is failing. Follow the story as our characters fight to keep their jobs by implementing creative business ideas and management skills taken from agile development. | |
| What Software Developers Can Learn from Their CafeteriaDid you know that Starbucks sells a cup size called "short"? It's a small cup that is less expensive than the other cup sizes. They never mention it on their menu; you have to know it exists before you can order one. Why? By having a smaller, cheaper option, they give their budget-conscious customers an opportunity to pay for coffee rather than go without. This kind of thinking has important repercussions to software developers. | |
| Relearning to Program Twenty years ago, Clarke Ching fell in love with programming. Then he got a job doing just that and fell out of love within five years. Fifteen years later, Clarke sought the help of a well-known programmer for advice on how to rekindle his dormant passion for programming. The advice Clarke received led to a greater discovery. |
|
| Multitasking Is EvilMultitasking is often seen as a desirable skill—you can buy books or pay to attend courses that will teach you how to do it—but it is a surprisingly debilitating idea. | |
| Critical Chain Scheduling for Software Projects | |
| Applying the Inverted Pyramid to Agile DevelopmentModern day reporters tend to write their articles using what is known as the "inverted pyramid" style. They start with the most important information in the first sentence, followed by the next most important, and so on. This format not only gives the reader the biggest bang for his buck as he reads it also gives both the reporters and their editors huge flexibility in their uncertain and fast-changing environments. Clarke Ching shows how modern software development techniques use the same idea to give customers the best bang for their buck—in equally uncertain environments. | |
|
From Symptoms to Solid Solutions in Seven StepsH |
| Don't Let the Engine Run out of Fuel | |
| When Trust Goes AWOLTrust is invisible, but the symptoms of its absence are not. That is the theme of this column, in which Clarke Ching recounts the difficulty one of his clients went through to rebuild trust with a customer. The customer had long ago lost faith in the quality of the products provided by this client since every piece of software delivered seemed buggy. But both were determined to make the relationship work. That's when Clarke Ching stepped in and took an agile approach to relationship therapy. | |
| Preventative Medicine Is Hard to Sell | |
| Skiing, Heart Attacks, and Software Development When a man suffered a cardiac arrest on a ski slope, a medley of medical personnel from different countries and backgrounds mustered together to take charge of the man's health. Despite language barriers, they were successful in stabilizing the man. While this incident may seem to have little to do with software development, Clarke Ching sees that the makeshift emergency team shared specific characteristics found in all strong software development teams. In this column, he details these characteristics and how applying them can turn your team into a more successful team no matter how dissimilar individual teammates may be. |
|
| What Software Development Projects Can Learn from the Quality Revolution |