All posts by Nick Korbel
Escalators, Software Projects, and the Science of Queues
I recently started a new job. New jobs always bring new challenges like building relationships with colleagues, learning about the business domain, or getting up to speed on the tech stack. This job has all of those challenges, but also a challenge that I wasn’t expecting – getting into the office. Let me explain. The…
SimCity BuildIt – A Lean Software Training Ground
Confession time. I’m addicted to SimCity BuildIt. Ok, with that out of the way I want to talk about how this game is making me more conscious of lean software development principles. The gameplay is pretty simple – you construct roads and buildings, then produce raw materials and manufacture goods to complete missions and upgrade…
What I Should Have Said
Mike Birbiglia is one of my favorite comedians. His effortless mix of storytelling and comedy is something I haven’t seen anyone else be able to pull off. Throughout his jokes he has a recurring theme where he finds himself in a high-stakes conversation. He builds up the audience with the statement “What I should have…
Look Mom, No Hands! Test Driving Code Without A Mocking Framework
I love TDD. I haven’t found a more effective way to incrementally design and build software in the 15+ years that I’ve been doing this. I have formed and evolved a lot of opinions about how I approach TDD, though. Recently, I wrote a post for EuroStar Software Testing titled Look Mom, No Hands! Test…
Booked 2.7 is out in beta!
I’m thrilled to announce that Booked 2.7 has been released in beta. This version is packed full of long-requested features. I don’t care about the details – how do I get it? Eager to try it out? I don’t blame you 🙂 [button text=”Download the beta from SourceForge” url=”https://sourceforge.net/projects/phpscheduleit/files/Booked/2.7/booked-2.7.1%20beta.zip/download”] [button text=”Give feedback and ask questions”…
We Built the Wrong Thing – From Ambiguity to Stability
Let’s set the scene. You’re out to lunch with your team celebrating a successful launch of a new feature. Your product owner interruptions the conversation to relay an email from a disappointed stakeholder. From: Stakeholder, Mary (mary.stakeholder@nickkorbel.com) Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2018 11:51 AM To: Owner, Product (product.owner@nickkorbel.com) Subject: Can we talk? Thank you for…
How Transaction Costs Influence Story Size
Of all the aspects of the INVEST principle, I think the attribute that software developers have the most influence over is S. Small Small stories have huge benefits. We can control what gets built with much more granularity. Less scope means fewer requirements for the team to understand. Less for the end user to understand….
Test Quality in CI/CD – Expert Roundup
I recently contributed some thoughts on test automation in this Test Quality in CI/CD – Expert Roundup There is a lot of great guidance from all the contributors. Check out the full article! [ad name=”Footer”]
What Do DevOps, Test Automation, and Test Metrics Have in Common?
This is a guest post by Limor Wainstein Agile testing is a method of testing software that follows the twelve principles of Agile software development. An important objective in Agile is frequently releasing high-quality software regularly, and automating tests is one of the main practices that achieves this aim through faster testing efforts. DevOps is…
I Don’t Hire Rockstars
[ad name=”Leaderboard”] Wow, it’s been a really long time since I’ve posted anything. Booked has been keeping me very busy, but I’m going to make an attempt to publish more posts this year. I was out to dinner with some friends the other night. These are guys that I worked with in a past life…