Hewlett-Packard is in the news a lot lately. The company has made a few truly horrific moves in the last 2+ years. Here’s my 2 cents worth on what went wrong and how to fix it. [I’m not going to rehash the historical events at HP. If you want to read a good summary of […]
Month: November 2012
Forget About Value. Focus on Morale.
A lot of attention is given to the term value. We want to know how much value a software development team creates with each deliverable. Unfortunately, value is a difficult thing to measure so it may be better to view the problem differently. What has value? The simple answer is everything — everything is valuable […]
Change Happens, Whether You’re Comfortable Or Not
Where is your comfort zone? Everyone has (at least) one. It’s the place where you feel confident and comfortable. Once you’ve done something several times, you develop a comfort zone around it. That’s good — and bad. The good part is that your comfort zone helps you develop a specialty. You get good at something […]
10 Tips for Producing Documents That Are Lean and Agile
Some software development groups must document everything. This often results from legal, regulatory or compliance demands. Although, it can also be a cultural phenomenon — some managers simply won’t accept anything unless it’s in writing. Do everything you can to minimize the volume of written exchanges. Information overload is not just a cute phrase. It’s […]
Do Agile Development Teams Need Multiple Product Owners?
Enterprise agile development is different. Developing software using Scrum, Kanban, Lean or XP is just not the same on an enterprise scale. Consider the stressed-out, over-burdened, Product Owner. Is it reasonable to expect one Product Owner to provide all the answers to the software development team’s questions? You can argue that it’s the Product Owner’s […]
Avoid a Project Blamestorm. Agile Development Can Help.
Have you ever been asked to deliver a software solution only to discover that the requester doesn’t know what she wants? In addition, she gives you a deadline, yet when you question the relevance of the target date, it becomes apparent that the deadline was picked at random. It’s happened to me more times than […]
Motivation Doesn’t Just Happen. You Need to Work At It.
If you’re married or have a close friend, you know how much effort it takes to maintain a healthy and positive relationship. Frequent interactions are mandatory. Open communications are essential. Slack off — even for just a few weeks — and the relationship suffers. So why is it that many managers rarely interact with their […]
Building the Software Right Doesn’t Make It the Right Software
Information technologists and software developers do not know best. We are not the definitive experts on what software systems to build. Simply building the software right is not enough. It has to be the right software. I see too many projects dominated by IT or R&D. It often starts innocently enough. The technologists come up […]
Software Delivery Problems? Focus on Relationships Not Process.
Here’s how the situation unfolds. An enterprise company experiences problems with their software development efforts. Software systems are delivered late. They are poor in quality. They lack important features. Or in some cases, they are never delivered at all. What’s the solution? (This is not a quiz!) Tighten the process! Institute more controls, more metrics, […]
7 Tips for Improving Your Software Development Process
Can we agree that writing great software is hard to do? Not just any software, great software. Every corporate situation is unique and there are no simple solutions for building great software. That said, here are seven quick tips for improving your software development process. Pick one or two and get to work. 1. To […]
Enterprise Agile Development Takes Positioning, Preparation and Passion
Getting a big company to change the way it operates in any meaningful sense is always tough. They invest lots of time and money in establishing best practices and training people to follow them. Change happens but it’s never simple or quick when hundreds or even thousands of people are involved. This causes major issues […]