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Anyone read "Getting Real" by 37Signals?

 
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https://gettingreal.37signals.com/

I just finished it, enjoyed it a lot and found some really useful advice. It's an excellent read, even if you don't agree with it 100%.

What they say about feature creep and saying no to some clients' wishes was helpful just last week for me. And not in such a way that the client is put off and frustrated (maybe because they are involved very much in the development anyway, another thing we were doing already that they advise).
 
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Originally posted by Pauline McNamara:
[QB]https://gettingreal.37signals.com/

I just finished it, enjoyed it a lot and found some really useful advice. It's an excellent read, even if you don't agree with it 100%.



Certainly looks interesting.


What they say about feature creep and saying no to some clients' wishes was helpful just last week for me.



I don't yet know what they say about saying no, but I typically prefer to have the customers make the business decisions. That is, it's ok to say "no, we can't do all this in a month", but instead of "no, we can't put that into the schedule, too" I prefer to say "sure, we'd love to do that. We estimate that it will take a person week. What features worth a person week would you like us to defer for it?"
[ August 30, 2006: Message edited by: Ilja Preuss ]
 
Ilja Preuss
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I just read "Meetings are toxic" (which is available online and quite short), and I don't like it at all.

Not only that I don't agree at all - it shouldn't be about minimizing meetings, but about optimizing them - I also got the feeling that the authors confused being controversial with being dismissive.

The arguments certainly are tempting - they are simple and intuitive - especially to those burnt by the problems they discuss.

But if you take a second look, you might notice that they are also shallow and in fact quite simplistic.

Anyway, that's my impression from reading the table of contents and a small chapter. I might be well missing the point of the book.

I suspect, though, that it is more our value systems that are in conflict.
 
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Hmm, I agree with the UI chapter. But it was more of a "well, yea, duh" kind of agreement. Same with Scaling. And are all the chapters 2-3 pages?
 
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Originally posted by Ilja Preuss:
I just read "Meetings are toxic" (which is available online and quite short), and I don't like it at all.

Not only that I don't agree at all - it shouldn't be about minimizing meetings, but about optimizing them - I also got the feeling that the authors confused being controversial with being dismissive.

The arguments certainly are tempting - they are simple and intuitive - especially to those burnt by the problems they discuss.

But if you take a second look, you might notice that they are also shallow and in fact quite simplistic.

Anyway, that's my impression from reading the table of contents and a small chapter. I might be well missing the point of the book.

I suspect, though, that it is more our value systems that are in conflict.



I'd agree mostly. I thought it was funny/interesting how they plugged their product in that chapter too:


Instead of resorting to a meeting, try
to simplify the concept so you can discuss it quickly via email
or im or Campfire.

 
Pauline McNamara
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Originally posted by Gregg Bolinger:
Hmm, I agree with the UI chapter. But it was more of a "well, yea, duh" kind of agreement. Same with Scaling. And are all the chapters 2-3 pages?



Yes, all chapters are pleasantly slim.

Well, yea, duh, maybe, but I can think of a lot of projects where people don't start talking about the user's work flow until they've hashed through all the DB relationships and XML schemes. Even around here... The question of which end do to start with still gets asked in this forum, so it's not always so well, yea, duh for everyone.
 
Ilja Preuss
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Originally posted by Gregg Bolinger:
Hmm, I agree with the UI chapter. But it was more of a "well, yea, duh" kind of agreement.



Well, I'm not sure I agree with that chapter. I don't see how having working code makes it hard to change the UI - unless you have horribly coupled your UI code to the business logic.

I'd think it's quite possible to first develop the business logic and later plug on a good UI. Or doing it concurrently.

Actually, I'm privately using Basecamp for some while now, and it definitely has its shortcomings in the UI...
 
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