Talk Notes

8 November 2009

presentation technique

I give a lot of talks, and like any speaker I'm always asked for a copy of my slides. Also like many speakers, particularly those who put some thought into their slides, I hate giving out copies of slides as handouts. When I use slides, I design them to be a VisualChannel: an accompaniment to my words, not as a stand-alone “Slideument“. Such slideuments are very distracting when talking, as reading the bullet points takes the audience's attention away from the words being spoken. As a result my slides are graphic, minimal, and often involve animation that's cued into my talking. Such slides are meaningless without me speaking.

A written piece is a much more effective stand-alone document. I can write this to make sense without audio, and use an approach designed for reading rather projecting on a screen.

So here's some suggested items to read that go with recent topics I've been talking about. I think most people will find them much more useful than slideuments.

NoSQL and Consistency

This material is a summary of Chapter 5 of our book NoSQL Distilled

Agile Essence and Fluency

The first half of this talk is based on my essay The New Methodology. In the second part I move into discussing Larsen and Shore's Agile Fluency model.

The Value of Software Design

The starting point of this talk is the TradableQualityHypothesis. I then explain the DesignStaminaHypothesis leading into the metaphor of TechnicalDebt. The last part of the talk is the description of the forms of technical debt using the TechnicalDebtQuadrant.

Domain-Specific Languages

I have a guide page that acts as a central point for material I post on DSLs. In particular the state machine example I use in the talk comes from the first chapter of my book, which is available as a free download.

Continuous Integration and Delivery

The best starting for more on this is my guide page on software delivery. The first part of the talk contrasts feature branching and continuous integration. The second part looks at deployment pipelines and continuous delivery, for which the best resource is the book by Humble and Farley.

Richardson Maturity Model

This talk is based on my article.

Two Kinds of Software Projects

This talk looks at the contrast between what I call strategic and utility software projects. I've written about this in a bliki entry.

Schemaless Data Structures

This talk is based on my infodeck.

Ten years since the Agile Manifesto

This is still very much an extemporary talk, and I haven't put together any writing that mirrors it yet. For more background you can read:

Non-Deterministic Tests

This is based on my article on Eradicating Non-Determinism in Tests

Event Sourcing

I described the basic idea of event sourcing as a pattern a few years ago. During the talk I mention the LMAX architecture as an example of using a MemoryImage and also mention CQRS.

Introduction to NoSQL

For more of my writings on NoSQL, take a look at this list. In particular our infodeck on NoSQL and Polyglot Persistance is a good overview of why we think this topic is important. For more depth on this, take a look at our book.

NoSQL Models

The best resource for more information on NoSQL models is our book. Beyond that I also talk about aggregate-orientation on my bliki.

Multitudes of Mobiles

This talk has a good online representation in the form of my infodeck on Developing Software for Multiple Mobile Devices.

The Essence of Agile

This talk is mostly based on my essay The New Methodology. During the talk I also talk about the necessity of practices for evolutionary design to avoid the danger of FlaccidScrum.