Maggie++

A recent addition to my feed list is Managing Product Development  written by Johanna Rothman  founder of a software management consulting and author of Manage It!: Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management which is published by the The Pragmatic Programmers .

If you are not subscribed to her blog you are missing out she has great insight into managing software projects.  In her blog I came across an interview she did with Jurgen Appelo posted on his blog here: 5 Easy Questions for Johanna Rothman. 

The first question was on the toughest challenge in her past.  Se says "Making myself slow down to think through a problem fully." She describes beginning to write a book recently - she started with an outline and began writing then found that her flow was awkward and needed re-work.

When I realized I'd written enough to redesign it, I could see the emergent design. If I'd tried to define the full design for the book at the beginning, it would have been wrong (it was wrong!). Now, I have enough to see how it could work, and my new design is working for now. Who knows, I might have to redesign again. But I know the pieces I have to fit in now

To me this describes a process like code refactoring and helps illustrate why refactoring is so important for software projects. It is difficult to get the design right the first time.  It takes iterations and rework to get it right.  I had never thought that the process of writing a book was was so similar to software development.

maggie++