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One of my most and least favorite part of using a computer is picking my tools. I have developed a suite of tools that work well for me. Some tools fit you like a glove. Other tools you adapt to and learn to stop hating after a while. As a computer user I have spent years using a computer and learning my tools. The result is that a large number of things other people struggle with are solved problems for me.

Yesterday, like I do most days, I went running by the Charles. However it was no ordinary day. It was cold. The temperature was chilly and the wind arctic. I forged ahead. Hit the start sequence on my Apple Watch. My feet hit the pavement in sequence. My pace was fast. It felt good.

It happens in slow motion. Every week project leads pitch their project to the brigade members. This ritual gives everyone a chance to tell new members what is happening in their projects in their own words, and update their fellow brigade members. I listen to see what has changed. Every week I hear things change, except I notice one group is not. No worries, they’re just a little light this week. Another week passes. The slide is not updated. I hear the same pitch. I look over at the group after orientation. There is noise. Laughter. They must be doing something. I look at Slack and GitHub. There has not been a change since Columbus Day. I walk over to the project lead and we are about to have the conversation.

Last night I asked a friend about his organization’s approach to software documentation and he told me they follow the Agile Manifesto. I did not quite understand what he meant but then he reminded me to look at the beginning:

• Feature rabbit: a feature that initially appears to be one feature but after being worked on ends up having lots of other software features as a part of it. Feature rabbits breed when managers want to try and sneak extra work in their initial request, or often if a critical point was not articulated or recorded during the initial feature estimation.
• Rabbit hole: a feature or bug fix that takes way longer than the initial estimate because it turns out implementation has greater complexity than initially understood.
• Christmas tree: a software project that lots of stakeholders try and put their own features on. Christmas trees tend to lack product owners.
• Tool tax: the time you pay to learn and use an additional tool in relation to your software projects. If a new tool saves you time it becomes worth it, but often each tool increases the tuition a newcomer must pay to work on your project.
• Tuition: the one time cost you have to pay in order to work on a project because you need to learn a new technology.