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Five for Friday – December 15

I’ve enjoyed my string of FfF posts as an easy way to share stuff I like with little need to elaborate. It *will* continue, but I’m going to take a break for the last two weeks of the year. FfF will be back on January 5, 2018.

  • I recently read Ray Dalio’s, Principles. In the preface, he has a line that rings true (I think) to all of us who suffer from impostor’s syndrome.
    Before I begin telling you what I think, I want to establish that I’m a “dumb shit” who doesn’t know much relative to what I need to know.” That give me reason enough to keep on reading and learning more about what makes Ray tick.
  • On my last team at Microsoft, the team started using Git, and became over-excited about Gitflow – which I often describe as source control for those who like to add extra layers of confusion to their source control and release. We eventually treated ‘master’ as a release tag, and were (I think) close to working out of a single trunk. Now, Trunk-Based Development is a thing, and I think it’s a good thing.
  • I’m a huge believer in 20% time (invented by GM, and popularized by google as a way to give people a chance to self-direct and learn). I recently discovered that schools are using the concept to give students alternate opportunities to learn and grow.
  • A rare shot at cross-promotion. The year-ending episode of AB Testing will be out Monday. I’m really happy with how the podcast has developed and matured over the last few years.
  • Brent Jensen and I often discuss Modern Testing – but I recently discovered that Modern Agile is also a thing.

See you in 2018.

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