Better Software East 2017 Tutorial: Project Patterns: From Adrenaline Junkies to Template Zombies

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Tuesday, November 7, 2017 - 1:00pm to 4:30pm

Project Patterns: From Adrenaline Junkies to Template Zombies

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Tim Lister, along with five of his partners at the Atlantic Systems Guild, have compiled project patterns from their combined 150 years of consulting, and have described them in their Jolt Award winning book, Adrenalin Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project Behavior. We all talk about best practices but only a tiny minority of organizations actually practice them all. Not to worry, think of “best practices” for human health. We know all about them, but very few of us actually practice them all. Maybe if someone did arduously practice all health practices, they would forget to have an enjoyable life. Tim believes that project patterns are stronger than best practices. They are the habits, the decision practices, the corporate culture, and the unstated rules, which dominate office life. The first key is to identify your own organization’s patterns. If they are positive, how can you execute them across all projects? If they are negative, how can you break the habit? Tim begins with some examples from the book. Then you can share some of your own patterns. Join Tim to discuss ways you can move from negative to positive patterns.

Tim Lister
Atlantic Systems Guild, Inc.

Tim Lister is a software consultant at the Atlantic Systems Guild, Inc. where he divides his time between consulting, teaching, and writing. Tim is a coauthor with his Guild partners of Adrenalin Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project Behavior. With Tom DeMarco he coauthored Waltzing With Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects. Both books won Software Development magazine’s Jolt Award as General Computing Book of the Year. Tim and Tom also coauthored the classic Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, 3rd Edition. A member of the Cutter IT Trends Council, Tim is a Cutter Fellow, member of the ACM, and a Lifetime member of the IEEE. A panelist for the American Arbitration Association, he arbitrates disputes involving software and software services, and occasionally serves as an expert witness.