Author Archives: Ken Judy

About Ken Judy

I am an executive leader, software developer, father and husband trying to do more good than harm. I am an agile practitioner. I say this fully aware I say nothing. Sold as a tool to solve problems, agile is more a set of principles that encourage us to confront problems. Broad adoption of the jargon has not resulted in wide embrace of these principles. I strive to create material and human good by respecting co-workers, telling truth to employers, improving my skills, and caring for the people affected by the software I help build.

Addition Problem

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Addition ProblemI was helping my daughter with her homework.

She said her teacher didn’t want her carrying over tens the way I was showing her, “she hadn’t taught it to them yet.”

Stumped by that one, the best I could suggest was doing it anyway and erasing the evidence.

  1. 5+7 = 12,
  2. write 2 in the ones place,
  3. carry the ten into the tens place,
  4. 10+20+30 = 60,
  5. write the 6 in the tens place,
  6. ERASE the hell out of that damn ‘1’ so you don’t get a crying child who hates arithmetic…

Winning Hearts and Minds to Agile

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My colleague, Wendy, posted a quote from our former CEO describing the benefit she gained from collaborating in an Agile environment.

The way to win over an entrepreneur is to out-perform expectations set from painful, past experience.

Before Scrum/XP

…six months later, they deliver what the assignment was. And you look at it and say, “Oh no, that’s not what I wanted.”

With Scrum/XP

…you work on a two-week cycle… You agree on what the priorities are in the meeting. You review the priorities. You evaluate where you are, and you move to the next step…

—Interview with Geraldine Laybourne, Condé Nast Portfolio

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

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An excellent software developer’s creativity emerges from a passionately felt “higher need” to become their fullest self.

Maslow

“The specific form that these needs will take will of course vary greatly from person to person… It is not necessarily a creative urge although in people who have any capacities for creation it will take this form. The clear emergence of these needs rests upon prior satisfaction of the physiological, safety, love and esteem needs.”
— A Theory of Human Motivation, A. H. Maslow (1943)

When an employment situation does not ensure a person’s basic needs (family security, self-esteem), sustained invention goes out the door.

“The urge to write poetry, the desire to acquire an automobile, the interest in American history, the desire for a new pair of shoes are, in the extreme case, forgotten or become of secondary importance. For the man who is extremely and dangerously hungry, no other interests exist but food…”