Transitions from traditional software development approaches to agile ones fail occasionally. None of us who try to faithfully practice agile development like to admit it, but it’s true. I’d like to explore one of the key contributors to those failures — process misalignment. Here’s an example of how this happens. Let’s say the business stakeholders […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Mention “risk management” and many software developers will cringe and sneak away. It’s understandable. I’ve observed some elaborate risk analyses covering everything from missed requirements to flash floods. I cringe just thinking about it! You could go to extremes in preparing an elaborate risk assessment matrix covering probabilities, impacts, mitigation steps, etc. If you’re going […]
Greatness is hard to achieve and even harder to maintain. Few agile software development teams ever achieve greatness and that’s probably a good thing — they wouldn’t be happy anyway. The best agile teams never get complacent; they never stop improving; they never get too comfortable; they are never happy with their performance. The good […]
Is your goal to preserve and protect or change and convert? Going from a traditional software development approach like waterfall to an agile approach like Scrum, Kanban, XP or Lean, will be stressful and risky. The dangers aren’t hidden in the agile approach you select. The dangers lie within the people you assign to the […]
Some software projects stay in “beta” status for what seems like forever — a kind of perpetual beta. It may seem odd but let’s think about this. Most businesses are effectively in perpetual beta, so the software they develop must be too. How can a mature business be in perpetual beta? How can it not! […]
There are many ways for software development teams to fail. That’s why retrospectives are so important. Learning from mistakes, your own or those of others, is one of the best ways to improve. Last year I posted “10 Reasons Why Projects Cascade Into Chaos”. This is such an important topic that I want to expand […]
Software development estimates are horribly inaccurate. The business people want to know how long it will take and what it will cost to build a software system — fair enough. Businesses routinely operate with schedules and budgets. However, because businesses have schedules and budgets, the business leaders already know how much time they’re willing to […]
Many software teams adopt the top-down approach to software development. Others prefer the bottom-up approach. They’re both high-risk techniques you should avoid. Here’s why. The Top-Down Approach Traditional waterfall teams like this approach. It starts with analysis and works its way down to implementation. The approach begins with high-level market or process analysis (depending upon […]
Companies create Project Management Offices (PMO) as a means of improving software project success rates and establishing best practices. Regrettably, many of these PMOs fail to offer anything constructive. They are often burdensome, costly and wasteful. PMOs are a good idea, in principle. They can be enormously beneficial when done right. When done poorly – […]