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Writing Books on Time and on Budget
One of the questions I get asked is how did we execute our patterns & practices Application Architecture Guide 2.0 project , on time and on budget ?  It was a six month project, during which we .... Created a language and model for application Read More...
Agile Architecture Method Pocket Guide
We posted our Agile Architecture Method Pocket Guide to our Application Architecture Guidance KB .  This is in response to customers who expressed interest in more modular guides as a supplement to our Application Architecture Guide 2.0 . Chapters Read More...
Agile Guidance
When I ramp new folks on the team, I find it helpful to whiteboard how I build prescriptive guidance.  Here's a rough picture of the process: Examples I've used the same process for Performance Testing Guidance , Team Development with Visual Studio Read More...
Software Guidance Share
I'm testing another version of the home page on Software Guidance Share . Software Guidance Share is a perpetual work in progress. I think of it as my quick-and-dirty guidance KB for developers and solution architects. I continuously refactor information Read More...
Patterns and Practices for Visual Studio Team System
I thought it might be helpful to walk through a deliverable so you can see my current approach for building prescriptive guidance in patterns & practices. Stage 1: Knowledge Base We start by building the knowledge base: VSTS Guidance KB (Knowledge Read More...
Guidance Share Sweep
One of the most important things I did while I was on vacation was sweeping Guidance Share . Guidance Share is where I consolidate my body of software engineering guidance and test user experiences. I redesigned the home page for simpler browsing and Read More...
Building Books in patterns and practices
Book building is art and science. I've built a few books over the years at patterns & practices. In this post, I'll share a behind the scenes look at what it takes to do so. I'll save the project management piece for another day, and focus on the Read More...
CodePlex, GE, and MSDN
One of the questions I get is how we build and publish our guides and what's the relationship of CodePlex , GE and MSDN . At a high-level, we build reusable guidance nuggets for customer questions and tasks. We then build a larger guide to bring the nuggets Read More...
Scenarios in Practice
Scenarios are a practical way to organize and focus your product design, development and release. (We use scenario-driven engineering in patterns & practices) Key Benefits Business value . You can use scenarios to evaluate business value. What pain Read More...
How To Research Efficiently
Building guidance takes a lot of research. Over the years, I've learned how to do this faster and easier. One of the most important things I do is setup my folders (whether file system or Groove) Initial Folders /Project X /Drafts /Research /Reference Read More...
Driver's Guide vs. Owner's Manual
One of the metaphors I use to explain the distinction between documentation and guidance is Driver's guide vs. Owner's Manual. While I could go into the finer details, it's a good starting point. From an owner's manual, I expect to see how things work Read More...
Guidance 2.0
Imagine what a Guidance 2.0 world might be like ... browse tag clouds of reusable "architecture nuggets" subscribe to "guidance feeds" that give you the latest practices and recommendations share your "guidance" playlists with friends (share your favorite Read More...
Scenario Frames for Guidance
When I tackle a problem domain, I first frame out the space. To do this, I list out scenarios and sub-scenarios. I group the scenarios under categories. Sometimes categories come first, sometimes scenarios do. I call the result, a Scenario Frame. I use Read More...
Context is Key
I was browsing Rico's blog and I came across his post Do Performance Analysis in Context . I couldn't agree more. When it comes to evaluation, context is key. If you don't know the scenarios and context, you can't trust the merits of your data or solutions. Read More...
Analyzing a Problem Space
How do you learn a problem space? I've had to chunk up problem spaces to give advice for the last several years, so I've refined my approach over time. In fact, When I find myself churning or don't have the best answers, I usually find that I've missed Read More...
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