Software Process and Measurement Cast

The Software Process and Measurement Cast Crew are off for an adventure. We will be back on December 8th with new content. In the interim, we share four gems from our back catalog of over 800 interviews, essays, and conversations. You can check out the entire catalog at . Today we return to  December 2021 to remember an interview with Mauricio Aguiar and Christine Green, We discussed their vision of the state and future of Software Measurement. Mauricio, Christine, and I are all Past Presidents of the International Function Point Users Group (the largest international software measurement association). The conversation is both provocative and enlightening.  The original version of this interview was published in SPaMCAST 680. Master Work Intake! Join one of two upcoming Mastering Work Intake Workshops to help you learn to address IT’s nastiest, dirtiest little secret…poor work intake. The next workshop is taking a compressed approach to help kickstart 2025!  Seats are available on: December 6th 9 AM EST   Noon EST More information and registration at  Simply put if you don’t control work intake IT CONTROLS YOU!   No workshops for you?  Buy a copy of Mastering Work Intake and begin to take control of the flow of work for your team and organization.  Order a copy of the book from JRoss Publishing -  or via Amazon -     Next SPaMCAST  SPaMCAST 837 through 840 will be reruns of some of my favorite shows from the early 2000’s. I am off on a vacation.  We will be back with new content with SPaMCAST 841.

The Software Process and Measurement Cast Crew are off for an adventure. We will be back on December 8th with new content. In the interim, we share four gems from our back catalog of over 800 interviews, essays, and conversations. You can check out the entire catalog at . We return to August 2019 for a two-parter, with Al Shalloway. This was a long interview. We originally spread over SPaMCAST 559 and SPaMCAST 560. Today both parts are united.  The conversation with Al was full of huge ideas, concepts, and calls to action. Al and I talked about the troubles dogging classic agile, the Agile Industrial Complex, using a scientific approach to change, and FLEX.   Master Work Intake! Join one of two upcoming Mastering Work Intake Workshops to help you learn to address IT’s nastiest, dirtiest little secret…poor work intake. The next two workshops are taking a compressed approach to help kickstart 2025!  Seats are available on: November 9th 9 AM EST - Noon EST  December 6th 9 AM EST   Noon EST More information and registration at  Simply put if you don’t control work intake IT CONTROLS YOU!   No workshops for you?  Buy a copy of Mastering Work Intake and begin to take control of the flow of work for your team and organization.  Order a copy of the book from JRoss Publishing -  or via Amazon -   Next SPaMCAST  SPaMCAST 837 through 840 will be reruns of some of my favorite shows from the early 2000’s. I am off on a vacation.  We will be back with new content with SPaMCAST 841

SPaMCAST 836 celebrates Halloween. Over the years instead of just one night, people decorate their houses and celebrate for at least a month - we love a party. In celebration of what has become the seventh-largest retail holiday in the United States, let's take a spooky look at the outcome of poor work intake and celebrate that we can banish the spooks and shades of poor work intake. We also hear from  in his Evolutionary Agilist column. In this episode, we discuss the impact of adding new team members to a long-lived, high-performing team when the new person wants to strike out in a new direction.  Master Work Intake! Join one of two upcoming Mastering Work Intake Workshops to help you learn to address IT’s nastiest, dirtiest little secret…poor work intake. The next two workshops are taking a compressed approach to help kickstart 2025!  Seats are available on: November 9th 9 AM EST - Noon EST  December 6th 9 AM EST   Noon EST More information and registration at  Simply put if you don’t control work intake IT CONTROLS YOU!   No workshops for you?  Buy a copy of Mastering Work Intake and begin to take control of the flow of work for your team and organization.  Order a copy of the book from JRoss Publishing -  or via Amazon -   Re-read Saturday News Chapter 10 of (buy a copy and read along) is titled Disability And Mental Illness. Sounds like a downer?  It isn’t. The author begins this chapter by reminding us that Stoicism’s goal is to help people live the best life possible.  He uses the stories of three people to illustrate how Stoicism can help people deal with difficult problems. I see this chapter as related to chapter 9’s discussion of role models.   Catch on all of the entries in the re-read of  (buy a copy and read along) Week 1:  Week 2:    Week 3: Week 4: Week 5: Week 6: Week 7: Week 8: Week 9: Week 10: Week 11: Next SPaMCAST  SPaMCAST 837 through 840 will be reruns of some of my favorite shows from the early 2000’s. I am off on a vacation.  We will be back with new content with SPaMCAST 841.

SPaMCAST 835 features our conversation with  Elizabeth Bieniek. Elizabeth and I will discuss her new book, , and explore the basics of innovation and leadership. The insights into innovation and intrapreneurship will help all enterprises compete and deliver value to their stakeholders.  Elizabeth Bieniek is an author, speaker, and consultant focused on “good peopling” as the secret to exceptional execution. As a founder and Fortune 100 innovation and engineering leadership veteran, her expertise lies in challenging assumptions, embracing diverse perspectives, and leading through ambiguity to build empowered, resilient teams that last. Named one of Toptal’s 10 most influential “Female Pioneers in Technology,” she has spoken on bridging the gap between human connection and innovation at EmTech NEXT, Chatham House, ITEXPO, AWE, and the Global AI Community. Her leadership and innovation philosophy have been featured in Forbes, Bloomberg, Inc., International Business Times, and Women in Business. Elizabeth’s Profile Website   Master Work Intake! Join one of two Upcoming Mastering Work Intake Workshops to help you learn to address IT’s nastiest, dirtiest little secret…poor work intake. The next two workshops are taking a compressed approach to help kickstart 2025!  Seats are available on: November 9th 9 AM EST - Noon EST  December 6th 9 AM EST   Noon EST More information and registration at  If you don’t control work intake IT CONTROLS YOU!  Buy a copy and begin to control the flow of work for your team and organization.  Order a copy of the book from JRoss Publishing -  or via Amazon -     Re-read Saturday News Chapter 9 of (buy a copy and read along) wrestles with the source of human virtue. The author, Massimo Pigliucci, is a professor of philosophy who holds Ph. Ds in philosophy, genetics, and evolutionary biology and has published extensively on nature versus nurture. In this chapter, he uses science as a lens to explore Stoic ideas focusing on role models as an area where nurture is effective.    Catch on all of the entries in the re-read of  (buy a copy and read along) Week 1: Week 2:    Week 3: Week 4: Week 5: Week 6: Week 7: Week 8: Week 9: Week 10: Next SPaMCAST  SPaMCAST 836 considers the outcome of poor work entry using the metaphor of road kill. Hum a few stanzas of Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road (), and let's determine how not to get hit by a truck! We will also hear from  who will bring his Evolutionary Agilist column to the podcast

SPaMCAST 834 features our essay titled Battling The Walls Of Denial. The essay begins: One of the problems change agents face is promoting change when individuals, teams, and even organizations fail to recognize how their behavior hurts them and therefore don’t see the need for change. In these circumstances, you often hear fatalistic rationalizations such as, “This is just how we always do it.” Or the equally problematic, “You just don’t understand; we are special.”  Just running away is not the only option.  We also have a visit from Jon M. Quigley (https://valuetransform.com/) and his Alpha and Omega of Product Development.  Master Work Intake! Mastering Work Intake by and myself is your path to addressing IT’s nasty, dirty little secret…poor work intake. Simply put if you don’t control work intake IT CONTROLS YOU!  Buy a copy and begin to control the flow of work for your team and organization.  Order a copy of the book from JRoss Publishing -  or via Amazon -     Re-read Saturday News The first concept that struck me while reading Chapter 8 of (buy a copy and read along) was the idea of the reification fallacy, also known as the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.  Catch on all of the entries in the re-read of  (buy a copy and read along)   Week 1: Week 2:    Week 3: Week 4: Week 5: Week 6: Week 7: Week 8: Week 9: Next SPaMCAST  SPaMCAST 835 features our conversation with Elizabeth Bieniek. We will discuss her new book, Cake on Tuesday, 25 Lessons to Unlock Corporate Innovation, and explore the basics of innovation and leadership.

SPaMCAST 833 features our interview with Brian Vallelunga, founder & CEO at Doppler. Brian and I discuss the importance of managing secrets. Brian states, “Secrets are the keys to the kingdom.” Today any organization that does not secure the data they manage is asking for trouble (with a capital T)..  Brian Vallelunga is the Founder and CEO of Doppler, the first secrets management platform for developers. Doppler empowers tens of thousands of engineering and DevOps teams to seamlessly orchestrate, govern, and manage their secrets across environments at scale. Brian has been featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 and worked at improving overall safety at Uber. Social: Website:    Master Work Intake! Mastering Work Intake by and myself is your path to addressing IT’s nasty, dirty little secret…poor work intake. Simply put if you don’t control work intake IT CONTROLS YOU!  Buy a copy and begin to control the flow of work for your team and organization.  Order a copy of the book from JRoss Publishing -  or via Amazon -     Re-read Saturday News Recently, I have watched (read in the paper) the indictment of Eric Adams, mayor of NY (he resigned after I wrote this essay). While I understand that incitement and guilt are not synonymous, the words he has used in the past to define his character and his actions do not seem to be congruent. His character as defined by his actions (alleged) to a Stoic is found wanting.  This week’s chapter is all the more powerful with these current events as a backdrop.   Chapter 7 begins the third section of  (buy a copy and read along). The section title is The Discipline Of Action: How To Behave In The World. Action is the second core discipline of Stoicism. Chapter 7 is titled It’s All About Character (and Virtue). A better title might be “Hello Mr. Adam’s. Catch on all of the entries in the re-read of  (buy a copy and read along) Week 1: Week 2:    Week 3: Week 4: Week 5: Week 6: Week 7: Week 8: Next SPaMCAST  SPaMCAST 834 will feature twenty questions you can use to create work intake cognitive dissonance. Creating cognitive dissonance is important because if you can’t get people to question the status quo, you will never generate change.   We will also have a visit from Jon M. Quigley. Jon brings his Alpha and Omega of Product Development to the podcast.

SPaMCAST 832 is a later summer-early fall rerun!  In July 2019, SPaMCAST 550 premiered.  The cast included an essay titled, Intertwining Conway’s Law And Agile and an episode of the QA Corner with Jeremy Berriault.  Jeremy discussed the differences between test engineers and testers. These topics are favorites of mine, so…while I am hiking and camping I would like to reshare the core content of SPaMCAST 550 with you.  Remember all 18 years of content are available at .  We will be back next week with new programming.  Master Work Intake! Mastering Work Intake by and myself is your path to addressing IT’s most nefarious dirty little secret…poor work intake. Simply put if you don’t control work intake IT CONTROLS YOU!  Buy a copy and begin to control the flow of work for your team and organization.  Order a copy of the book from JRoss Publishing -  or via Amazon -   Next SPaMCAST  SPaMCAST 833 will feature our interview with Brian Vallelunga. Brian and I will discuss the importance of managing secrets. This will not be an episode of true spies!

SPaMCAST 831 features our essay, Cracking Groupthink - Solutions When Balancing Urgency and Importance. Issues occur when groupthink affects the balance between urgency and importance in decision-making. This leads to inefficiencies, risk aversion, and misaligned priorities. The key challenge is that groups tend to perceive urgency and importance differently from individuals, often influenced by psychological and social dynamics such as the diffusion of responsibility, conformity, and shared information bias. There are solutions!   We also have a visit from Keis Kostaqi who brings her You Are Not Alone column to the podcast.  Master Work Intake! Mastering Work Intake by and myself is your path to addressing IT’s most nefarious dirty little secret…poor work intake. Simply put if you don’t control work intake IT CONTROLS YOU!  Buy a copy and begin to control the flow of work for your team and organization.  Order a copy of the book from JRoss Publishing -  or via Amazon -   Re-read Saturday News Chapter 6 of (buy a copy and read along) is titled God or Atoms? discusses the Stoic view of God. As I have discussed this chapter with friends it becomes very easy to conflate Stoism with religion. I remind myself in these scenarios that Stoicism is not a religion. At a high level, the difference is that philosophy seeks to understand and question while religion often provides answers and a framework for belief and practice. The difference and the interrelationship are stark.  Week 1:  Week 2:    Week 3: Week 4: Week 5: Week 6: Week 7: God or Atoms? Next SPaMCAST  SPaMCAST 832 is a rerun of SPaMCAST 550 (I will be hiking in the Appalachian Mountains). This cast features our essay titled, Intertwining Conway’s Law And Agile. Conway’s Law shines a spotlight on how an organization’s structure impacts its product. The “Law” states that the structure of a software product will mimic the structure of the organization that produces the software.  It can (and has) been said that you are shipping the “org structure.” How you are structured therefore will impact just how much agility you can achieve. We also visit the QA Corner with Jeremy Berriault.  Jeremy discusses the differences between test engineers and testers. We also tackle whether every person with the word test in their title should have the ability to code or script. Jeremy’s LinkedIn:

Jeremy and I will host a 4-session book club to discuss Mastering Work Intake (4 sections => 4 sessions!) beginning October 18th. We are looking forward to a great set of conversations!   Join us by registering on Maven.  Use the QR code below  at or follow the link - Note: We are charging a nominal $1 fee, which Maven requires.  Participation in the book club assumes you have (or have access to) a copy of the book and do the reading so you will be prepared.

SPaMCAST 830 features a conversation with Jeremy Berriault. Jeremy has a new book, “Beyond The Framework: Cultivating Agile Growth.” The back cover states, “Organizations that fail to embrace agility (small a-agiity) risk fading into obscurity.” we discussed the basic assumptions of agile and why business agility differs from adopting any specific agile framework.   Buy a copy of the book:  Check out Jeremy’s Company website:   Master Work Intake! This episode is brought to you by Mastering Work Intake by and myself. Buy a copy and begin to control the flow of work for your team and organization. Simply put if you don’t control work intake IT CONTROLS YOU! Order a copy of the book from the publisher -   or  via Amazon -   Re-read Saturday News Chapter 5 of (buy a copy and read along) is titled Playing Ball With Socrates. The author uses a sports analogy in the chapter to illustrate why we can be indifferent towards something and that something is still important. This chapter dives into the thorny concepts of preferred and dispreferred indifferences.  Week 1:  Week 2:    Week 3: Week 4: Week 5: Week 6: Next SPaMCAST  SPaMCAST 831 will feature our essay on how to improve prioritization and work intake when using consensus-groupthink techniques.  will return with his Evolutionary Agilist column to round out SPaMCAST 831.