Josh's Modest Proposals

I've started a new side project at work, which I'm calling "Josh's Modest Proposals." The purpose is to periodically write down a ideas about our development process that are a) completely different from what we are currently doing, b) takes a current process to an outrageous extreme, c) counter to our business goals, or d) a little bit of all of those.

Once enshrined on a wiki page with a comment system, I mail a link out to the entire tech department (developers, sys admins, DBAs, product owners, management). Anyone is allowed to comment on any aspect of the idea. I will try to comment back, asking clarifying questions or playing devil's advocate to spur discussion.

My goal is not really to act on the ideas, or even defend them. It's to stimulate discussion about our processes, and hopefully get some of the lunch-table and water-cooler discussions out to a more general audience. If anything about our processes change as a result, that's a by-product, but not an objective.

If there are any interesting discussions, I will post the modest proposal and some choice comments here.

Update 2010-08-18 - Project put on hold for now. Other avenues of driving these sorts of discussions are being explored.