Managers get a bad rap when conversation turns to context switching. Johanna Rothman indicates they may have forgotten what development is like. Tom DeMarco in Why Does Software Cost So Much (If We Did Only One Thing to Improve …) states “I’ve come to believe that fragmentation is due mostly to managerial sloppiness.” (pg 90). How do the environment and corporate culture impact managerial decisions? In what context does development context switching make sense? Here are three situations that make sense to me. (And I’m

I met George Dinwiddie so long ago, CompuServe ruled the online world. We participated in the Software Development Forum. He recently added to the context switching discussion.

I usually have 3 or more things going on at any time. Right now I’m doing exploratory work for one client (lots of try this, try that, well, how about trying something else?), upgrading a system for another client (I’ve already done three of their systems), and preparing for a class.

We recently pruned the fruit trees in the backyard. I did it by myself the previous time, and the results were, well, interesting.

As Pogo said, “We have met the enemy, and they are us.” I started writing this entry as a rant about losing a blog entry. And here I am going, “Yeah, I’ve done it too.”

I saw the forest, and all the work that needed to be done. Ed saw the trees, and noticed that our task would be easier if we could find a way to let the computer do the dull, error prone, highly repetitive tasks.

I found the following in some notes from October 2000. I don’t remember why I made the observations.

We stopped and looked at the first rapid on the first river from the bridge. I distinctly remember saying, “It looks good from here.” And it did. What I didn’t see …

The take home lesson we learned, “Don’t accept a single example for requirements that cover a class.” We even referred to ensuing similar requests (from them and other clients) as “Oh yeah, it’s the simple case of A500.”

In my experience the developers have the verification mindset, “Does it do the job?” Most everyone who uses the software has the mindset, “Does it allow me to do my job?” And that is the essential difference.