Continuous Reading

By "Herding Cats":
1. Read to keep up: books on primary language, techniques and best practicies on daily basis. (.Net/C#, TDD, OOD)
2. Read to stay aware: forums, newsgroups and logs on things you may use in near future (see Expand Your Bandwidth)
3. Read to grow deeper: to gain a more thorough knowledge about technology and techniques that impact your daily job; (Agile Management, Code quality)
4. Read to grow wiser: other scientific and literary disciplines can offer you real insight into lateral thinking (Coaching, Phsychology, Success stories)

"Though success is measured in many ways, the one I find most helpful and operational is being able to enjoy your labor and not lose your passion for it. Passion may seem overrated, but it can put fire in your belly and help you overcome the unpredictable software development world around you. Passion is a fuel that can drive your leadership "engine". Tell your programmers to passionately pursue perfection. If they are seeking elegance and perfection, two goals that can extend coding time, remind them that elegance is obtainable perfection. [...] Work to preserve your passion - it is the only way you can grow, adapt, overcome, and succeed."
J. Hank Rainwater. Herding Cats: a Primer for Programmers Who Lead Programmers (2002)

The Core Protocols

Have looked through The Core Protocols V. 3.03 by Jim and Michele McCarthy. The protocol contains some behaviorial and communication patterns based on coaching techiques. Some of them:

Ask For Help

The Ask For Help protocol allows you to efficiently make use of the skills and knowledge of others. Ask For Help is the act that catalyzes connection and shared vision. Use it continuously, before and during the pursuit of any result.

Intention Check

Use Intention Check to clarify the purpose of your own or another’s behavior. Use it when you aren’t expecting a positive outcome resulting from the current behavior. Intention Check assesses the integrity of your own and another’s intention in a given case.

Resolution

The Resolution protocol promotes forward momentum by focusing on bringing outliers in at least cost.

Perfection Game

The Perfection Game protocol will support you in your desire to aggregate the best ideas. Use it whenever you desire to improve something you’ve created.

Personal Alignment

The Personal Alignment protocol helps you penetrate deeply into your desires and find what’s blocking you from getting what you want. Use it to discover, articulate, and achieve what you want. The quality of your alignment will be equal to the quality of your results.

Investigate

Investigate allows you to learn about a phenomenon that occurs in someone else. Use it when an idea or behavior someone is presenting seems poor, confusing, or simply interesting.

How perpetuum is the mobile development?

One of the messages from Microsoft Build I got is that the Mobile Development is not a separate branch in Microsoft world anymore. An app once written for Windows 8 (Metro style) is a mobile app by default.
And it is taking into account that mobile devs are of the most demanded currently according to the Panel Discussion on IT Jam.

The Fifth Element of The Discipline

It was a bit confised by evaluating people's performance using CAN×WILL² formula. That's because it's not always obvious what prevents one from the top performing - lack of skills or lack of motivation.
Discipline * Skill = Competence formula makes it more exact. And the (self-)discipline mainly consists just of the following elements:

1. Value
2. Time control
3. Focus
4. Motivation

Corresponding actions to keep the discipline are simple:

1. Help people understand the importance of things;
2. Help people to control time by teaching time management skills;
3. Help people in focusing by teaching them techniques so that they don't forget
4. Show people how to make their tasks more enjoyable, 'cause fun is a crusial part of motivation.

But that's not it. There is the 5th element. And it is you.

It is you who must lead by example. You must show self-discipline if you want people to follow with similar behaviour.

Rich project status

The status a colleague of mine prepared looks impressive with a lot of  information you can get fast. First of all blockers with red asterisks of being not removed and responsible persons in braces right there. And certainly comments to burndown.    

Software quality characteristics

ISO 9126 quality model for external and internal quality (characteristics and sub-characteristics).

Focusing on one external characteristic of software quality can affect other characteristics positively, adversely, or not at all (From "Code Complete 2")