Management buy-in, in the form of an executive sponsor, is a critical success factor for every software project. An executive sponsor is a business person with the authority to get the project done. According to Wikipedia, “The project sponsor will be a senior executive in a corporation (often at or just below board level) who […]
Month: July 2013
Stop Dawdling and Make a Decision
There are many decisions that have to be made during the course of every project. No matter how much planning takes place at the outset, many details will have to be worked out along the way. Also, don’t forget the unplanned work items and change requests that inevitably happen along the way. Not a day […]
One Size Fits All. No Project Too Big or Too Small.
So your company wants to adopt a new approach for software development projects. The selection committee wants to pick an approach that can be used across the board — on all projects. The committee naturally focuses on big (i.e. expensive) projects because they offer the biggest bang and the biggest risk. The development approach they […]
Roadmaps Help Software Teams Know When They’re Done
Does your software development team know where it’s going? Sadly, many don’t. Sure, they start out with a set of goals such as develop a Windows software application to retrieve some business data, format it, present it, and allow users to search and sort. Great, let’s write some code! But wait, not so fast! Where […]
I’ll Know What I Want When I See It
“I’ll know it when I see it!” Many software specifications should simply make that statement and call it a day. Spending a lot of time at the beginning of a software project trying to precisely define software behavior and appearance is often a waste. Let me tell you a story. I once reported to the […]
6 Ways to Pour Money Down the Drain on Software
Over half of major information technology projects fail. Corporate America spends tens of billions, yes BILLIONS, of dollars on these projects resulting in huge losses. These results span all industries, crossing geographic boundaries and applying to all corporate operations from the front office to the back office. Technology gets the blame but it’s not a […]
Does Planning Make Perfect? No, But It Helps!
Priority Matters and What the Business Needs Matters More
There’s a lot of discussion around the issue of priorities for business requirements. For agile development teams, the priorities of user epics and stories are a hot topic. Most experts will tell us that user stories must be prioritized and delivered in priority order. Sadly, that doesn’t always work out as intended and here’s why. […]
7 Prerequisites for Building Great Software Systems
When I and other bloggers write about agile software development, we almost always focus on process areas and Scrum, in particular. That’s fine, but I’m making the argument in this post that your team simply cannot be agile unless some basic elements of software development are in place. Without them, the best agile process on […]
The Difference Between Incremental and Continuous Improvement
Most large enterprises claim to engage in continuous improvement but they are really improving incrementally. Their efforts often include annual reorganizations whereby vice presidents are shuffled around and new procedures are put in place. In my experience, little if any value derives from such organizational tinkering. Another form of incremental improvement results from conducting “project […]