For quite some time, I’ve been a fan and proponent of a .NET web framework called Nancy. She describes herself as a “a lightweight, low-ceremony, framework for building HTTP based services on .Net and Mono,” and she looks like the picture on the side.

There’s much to admire about Nancy (a working web app in a tweet is really cool) and the code and features are pure quality from start to finish, much to the work that @theCodeJunkie (Andreas Håkansson) and Grumpy Dev (Steven Robbins) is putting in, with the help of a growing and engaged community.

The thing that really blew me away when I first saw it was the testing abilities of Nancy. She’s built for testing from the word Go, and that gives us some nice features to play with.

I thought I’d devote a couple of posts to...

On a Sunday night a got a mail that asked me to do a presentation tomorrow. New client. Want to put best foot forward. :) So I threw one together and here’s the run down of it. Thinking of recording it and put it up somewhere too.

Lean Coffee is a way to hold meetings and gathering that allows for free discussions while still keeping some structure to it. It resembles Open Space Technology but is much easier to set up and run, and often run in small groups. Even though the concept is called Lean Coffee is suitable for discussing most any subject and topics.

Lean Coffee started in Seattle in 2009. Jim Benson and Jeremy Lightsmith first Lean Coffee group has inspired a lot of others around the globe. I’ve taken part in the one in Stockholm LeanKaffeSump quite a few times, but have also run...

I have a new coaching assignment at Tradera, which is the Swedish branch of Ebay. I’ve been there about 30 hours during the last three years, mostly doing presentations and courses. In a way it feels like I’ve been part of what they have done, but only as a bystander. This gig looks like a lot of fun, and I’ve always been impressed by the technical excellence there and the willingness to adopt new things and change.

I was thrown right in at the deep end as they were about to reorganize their big team (30-40 people) into 5 smaller teams with particular features to look after. The first thing they wanted help with was some input around HOW to go about organizing this. And make no mistake - they were well on their way doing this in an excellent way already. I merely supplied some confirmation and...

As always it’s hard to boot up all processes in a new year. The blogging process apparently was down prioritized by my internal product owner. Well - he’ll have to stand back: I’m on it again.

For quite some time I have pondered constraints. They fascinate me quite a lot. Especially the ones that we take upon ourselves. In fact: I would go so far as to say that nothing good comes from having no constraints. Let’s go back a bit in my thoughts and see if I can clarify why.

In reality, this post is just a couple of examples of self-imposed constraints and what good they can have.

Toyota and TPS

First let’s stop, again, at Toyota. Why did they invent TPS (Toyota Production System)? What drove them there? It’s a quest that they’ve been on since the 50s and never will be done with.

Put...

I have a couple of slow weeks before my next assignment starts for real, so as an early Christmas gift Aptitud and I thought that we could give away some presentations for free.

Please contact me on marcusoftnet at gmail or @marcusoftnet if you are interested in hearing any of the presentations below. No charge (saved any travel costs outside Stockholm… and the obligatory cup of strong, black coffee) and no strings attached.

[UPDATED] I have now booked my calendar to a suitable level (almost full). The response on this post was just overwhelming and I got 7 different gigs including a whole day at one company and a contact in Brasil (!). Might do this again. Longing to be bored again.

These are the presentations that I can give with an hours notice: