Don't Be Too Quick, Start Thinking!

• Mariusz Sieraczkiewicz
• Productivity , Software development

Don’t Be Too Quick, Start Thinking!

Sometimes I feel like the world has become too fast. Everything happens so quickly that we switch to autopilot and stop thinking about why and for what purpose we are doing a task. Are we doing it in the way we imagined, or the way someone else suggested?

The Big Lie About Clean Code and Unit Testing

• Mariusz Sieraczkiewicz
• Software development , Personal growth

Introduction

Many people are convinced that waking up early, say at 5:00 AM, is an unrealistic fantasy for them. They believe that their nature and their body are constructed in such a way that it’s impossible. I used to belong to this group of people.

So How’s It with Architecture - Up-Front Design or Evolutionary Architecture?

• Mariusz Sieraczkiewicz
• Software development , Project management

So How’s It with Architecture - Up-Front Design or Evolutionary Architecture?

Where does architecture currently stand? We can say that there are two classic approaches:

The Property of Complex Systems

• Mariusz Sieraczkiewicz
• Project management , Software development

The Property of Complex Systems

This morning, while driving to work, I encountered a much longer traffic jam than usual. “Well, with such cold weather, everyone is probably driving more cautiously,” I thought, as I slowly crawled along the Łazienkowska Route. After several minutes, I noticed from a distance that there was an accident on the opposite lane, with police and paramedics doing their work. On my side, nothing particular was happening. But still… Drivers were simply slowing down to see what was happening on the other side. No one was stopping, they were just looking. And as a result, the stretch that usually took me 5 minutes this time took 20 minutes. After passing this point, the traffic sped up significantly and flowed normally.

Why Agile Fails

• Mariusz Sieraczkiewicz
• Agile practices , Project management

Introduction

Implementing a methodology from the Agile family is not at all easy. The problem usually lies in management, who upon superficially understanding what it’s all about, perceive the new method as a promise that from now on, everything will magically work better. It doesn’t matter if we have subpar team members and adhere to the principle that “any specialist can be replaced by a finite number of students.” It doesn’t matter if there’s complete disregard for knowledge management and skill development in the team because there’s never time for that. It doesn’t matter if people working on projects are shuffled between projects—after all, it’s about interdisciplinarity, and everyone should know everything.

Effective Understanding of a Topic

• Mariusz Sieraczkiewicz
• Knowledge development , Research techniques

This time, the topic slightly ventures beyond IT projects. Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of research work where I need to construct a coherent extract of practical information from a multitude of knowledge sources. After extensive work in this area, I’d like to share a few tips that I’ve had the chance to apply multiple times.

Make Room for Progress...

• Mariusz Sieraczkiewicz
• Poetry , Project management

From the collection Poetry for Project Enthusiasts

Make Room for Progress

There is never a good time for the first child,
There is never a good time for the second child,
There is never a good time to build a house,
There is never a good time for renovations,
There is never a good time for a wedding,
There is never a good time to introduce refactoring,
And there is never a good time to start writing unit tests.
In each of these cases, you simply need to make a decision,
Start doing it, and time and resources will appear,
Because they will have to…

Clients Want to Be Agile...

• Mariusz Sieraczkiewicz
• Agile practices , Client collaboration

Clients Want to Be Agile…

One of the recent meetings involved establishing (by me, MS) a way to collaborate with a client (details intentionally slightly modified or omitted, though based on a real case). The client (K) said:

Time for Assertiveness Training!

• Mariusz Sieraczkiewicz
• Personal development , Project management

The Importance of Assertiveness

In my previous post, I discussed assertiveness in the context of time management. Upon reviewing various situations I’ve encountered, I can confidently assert that a lack of assertiveness (including appropriate communication) is the root cause of many other project issues.

The Key to Time Management

• Mariusz Sieraczkiewicz
• Time management , Productivity

There are several topics that constantly come to my mind and, with each new discovery, I reach a new level of understanding. One such topic is “time management.”