The Mikado Method - process for surfacing hard-to-see dependencies in a codebase

This month's SB on Rails talk will be delivered by agile coach Ola Ellnestam (http://ellnestam.wordpress.com/about), who will be presenting 'The Mikado Method' - a process for surfacing hard-to-see dependencies in a codebase.

Ola has recently co-authored a book about the Mikado Method. Here is a short description of the method:

Technical debt is best understood as the work remaining before job can be considered complete or, put more colorfully, the cost of kicking the can down the road. The Mikado Method is a process for surfacing the dependencies in a codebase, so that you can systematically eliminate technical debt and get things done.

It gets its name from a simple game commonly known as "pick-up sticks." You start with a jumbled pile of sticks. The goal is to remove the Mikado, or Emperor, stick without disturbing the others. Players carefully remove sticks one at a time, leaving the rest of the heap intact, slowly exposing the Mikado. The game is a great metaphor for eliminating technical debt—carefully extracting each intertwined dependency until you're able to successfully resolve the central issue and move on.

See http://mikadomethod.org for further details.

Please join us at the AppFolio office. Pizza will be provided. Hope to see you all there!