Housekeeping: New Street Address, Sept. 2008

We're movin' on up! After almost 25 years in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, Dorset House is Broadway bound.

Effective Sept. 4, 2008, our new office will be located just north of Columbia University:

Dorset House Publishing
3143 Broadway, Suite 2B
New York, NY 10027

This move only changes our street address. Our phone, fax, e-mail, and Web contacts will remain the same -- so keep those orders and inquiries coming in!

Tel: (212) 620-4053 / (800) DH-BOOKS
Fax: (212) 727-1044
E-mail: info AT dorsethouse DOT com / dorsethouse AT gmail DOT com
Web: http://www.dorsethouse.com

Please don't hesitate to contact us with questions -- or tips about our new neighborhood, Morningside Heights. In the meantime, maybe we'll see you at Tom's Restaurant, the diner featured in Seinfeld.

Rothman on Agile Hiring, at Agile 2008 [Shiell]

James Shiell recently blogged about Johanna Rothman's presentation "Hiring for an Agile Team" at Agile 2008, August 5:

"She differentiated hiring for a traditional team by stating that differences between people are more pronounced in agile teams, as successful teams tend to be more collaborative, cross-functional and indulge in intense focus while blurring traditional team roles. . . .

"She therefore focuses on the people side of hiring - as she said, the technical side has been done to death. However, unlike the titans of the industry such as Google and Microsoft she actively discouraged riddles and other abstract approaches. Instead, she proposed the use of two primary methods: auditions and behaviour description questions. "

Read the full article on Infernus.org:
http://infernus.org/node/264

Read more about Johanna's Dorset House title Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds:
http://www.dorsethouse.com/books/hire.html

DeMarco on the Fourth Pillar [Computerworld]

Building on his new book Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies, Tom DeMarco published a piece in Computerworld:

"Consider the assertion that the performance of your organization stands on four pillars: proficiency, velocity, agility and corporate culture. ...

"All of these are important, but the great body of management literature, standards and training materials is focused only on the first. ... So a great tome about proficiency might end with the observation, 'All the stuff I've been writing about has to be done quickly, of course, and you may need to switch gears along the way. Oh, and by the way, if your corporate culture won't allow change, you're screwed.'"

Read the full article on Computerworld.com:
June 23, 2008: "Does your corporate culture reward adrenaline junkies and template zombies? A new book looks at the effects of projects' hidden rules."

Download sample chapters from Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies:
http://www.dorsethouse.com/books/ajtz.html

Computing Reviews: Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies

Andrew R. Huber reviewed the new book by Tom DeMarco and his partners -- Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies -- in Computing Reviews, a publication of the ACM:

". . . a quick and entertaining read, with the underlying purpose of improving projects. Anyone who has worked or will work on just about any kind of project will find it useful and insightful. If you can’t always emulate the good patterns and avoid the bad, at least you can see if you are in good -- or bad -- company."

Read the full review on the ACM's computingreviews.com:
http://www.computingreviews.com/review/review_review.cfm?review_id=135631&listname=highlight

Read more about Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies:
http://www.dorsethouse.com/books/ajtz.html

Jerry Weinberg on Perfect Software [AgileThinkers.com]

Clark Ching of AgileThinkers.com recently interviewed Jerry Weinberg about the concepts behind his new book, Perfect Software: And Other Illusions About Testing. Jerry comments,

"Perfect software is indeed impossible, and even if we had it, we'd have no way of knowing. The Laws of Thermodynamics tell us why it's impossible, but that doesn't prevent lots of people from believing it's possible -- just like many people believe perpetual motion machines are possible.

"The book elaborates on this and many other illusions about testing -- why people continue to believe them, what kinds of trouble they cause, and what can be done to mitigate that trouble."

Read the interview, two posts on AgileThinkers.com:
http://www.agilethinkers.com/2008/07/jerry-weinberg.html
and http://www.agilethinkers.com/2008/07/jerry-weinber-1.html

Read more about Perfect Software: And Other Illusions About Testing:
http://www.dorsethouse.com/books/perf.html