My colleague Jim Shore has just released a transcript of a short talk he gave called Does It Work? Are We Done? Is It Right? (Keep It Light!). I share Jim’s thesis that there are three questions we need to answer in software development if we want to achieve any sort of success. In Jim’s words:
So I want to answer these quality questions, “does it work, are we done, is it right,” without incurring waste… and ideally, I’d like to do it in a way that makes me faster, not slower.
His talk specifically addressed testing, especially functional testing, but in working with him I’ve found that asking those questions of any part of a software development process is incredibly valuable.
I think he's leaving a lot to be explained from the video. The term "Examples" is thrown out and I now have to go watch the video to find out how this is different from User Stories, which are also an incredible conceptualization and validation tool.
Don't know about anyone else, but it reminded me of "development can be done good, cheap, or fast--pick two".