Anti-Pattern Checklist

In a rare cynical moment back in 2005 I put together a one page Anti-Pattern Checklist. I like to think of it as an educational tool; others may see it as tongue-in-cheek humor or even appropriate for actual use during design and/or planning meetings. The interactive scoring feature of this checklist gives the instant quantitative feedback that is sorely missing in the touchy-feely subjective world of software development.

Even agile practitioners can make use of this checklist as a supplement to computing their project velocity. Personally, I think it is more fun that planning poker, but that's just me. A preview for your enjoyment:

As a component of continuous process improvement, every agile organization requires synergies between constituent stakeholders in order to deliver on vision, on time and on budget. Of course, we all know that such flights of fancy, are, well, just that. But not to be deterred, the general apathy of groupthink, coupled with inspiration from ``thought leaders'' on both the business and technology fronts leads to rapid adoption of well-known, industry standard anti-patterns. The first step in converging on a set of anti-pattern best practices is to print out multiple copies of this checklist and bring to each meeting attended throughout the day. Take note of each anti-pattern observed. Scoring is discussed below.

[checkboxes for 50 anti-patterns here]

Each checkbox marked counts as one point, except for Reinventing the Square Wheel, which most experts agree is worth at least two points. Leading anti-pattern practitioners can easily score twenty points or higher in a single sitting. Organizations that score between ten and fifteen points require further improvement; less than ten points requires immediate management intervention. Ask and ask often: ``What anti-pattern are you using today?''

Download anti-patterns.pdf

Comments

[Dilapidus]

I'm going to admit that I personally kind of like the "deliver on Vision.." part of that, although I get the tongue in cheekyness.

I never even get close to the vision of the product, even though we make the customers happy. I wouldn't mind some slight synergy between the original vision and the finished product :-)