Beware of Methodologies. They are a great way to bring everyone up to a dismal, but passable, level of performance, but at the same time, they are aggravating to more talented people who chafe at the restrictions that are placed on them.

Listen to your customers, not your competitors.

Software development takes immense intellectual effort. Even the best programmers can rarely sustain that level of effort for more than a few hours a day. Beyond that, they need to rest their brains a bit, which is why they always seem to be surfing the Internet or playing games when you barge in on them.

Writing code is not production, it's not always craftsmanship though it can be, it's design.

The secret of Big Macs is that they're not very good, but every one is not very good in exactly the same way.

Indeed one of the best ways to deflect attacks is to make it look like they're succeeding. It's the software equivalent of playing dead.

If your goals is to produce something of permanent value, you start to think differently about you want on the site.