Author Archives: John
Who’s in charge? Anyone?
Many things about software development are unique, and attempts to apply techniques or thinking from other endeavors lead down the wrong path. But there are quite a few things that are pretty universal, and I want to comment on a … Continue reading
Have You Failed Lately?
Since we all want to be successful, failure must be bad. At the very least, if you fail at something, you are obviously not being successful, and maybe it will make others feel that you are incompetent, not talented, or … Continue reading
Why this blog?
I started my career as a programmer at IBM and spent the subsequent 3 decades developing software and managing its development at 4 different companies in 3 different countries. During that time I have learned a lot and have had … Continue reading
Catalyst for Change
There’s turmoil in the financial markets and lots of uncertainty in the world right now. The world economy is in a major recession. The media is full of dire news. As a result, our customers are spending less. I don’t … Continue reading
Theme for the New Year
We’re starting a new calendar year, and with it come big new challenges. Much could be said about this. Over the holidays I came across a brief article from Time entitled “Myth of the Fearless Entrepreneur” that makes a great … Continue reading
Second Best, Tomorrow
That certainly doesn’t sound very appealing, does it? But it might depend on the context, and it actually might be a pretty good idea in software development. During WW II, when the British were under attack by German bombers, they … Continue reading
Cross-Functional Teams (CFTs)
We’ve had a lot of great discussion here recently on the very important topic of iterative development and I suspect we are far from exhausting the topic, but let’s shift gears for a moment. One of the topics I mentioned in my article … Continue reading
Can We Iterate?
In my last article I asserted that iterative development is one of the key practices that will improve development effectiveness. I speak from personal experience on this, and there is abundant literature that supports this claim. So why aren’t we … Continue reading
You Can’t Test Quality Into the Code
… yet it is surprising how much we still rely on testing as our primary defence against defects. To produce quality products consistently, the process must also have the objective of removing all defects before test entry. The objective of … Continue reading
What Makes a Great Team
Years ago, when the PC first came out and for some while thereafter, it was actually possible for a single programmer to create a meaningful software product. But those days are long gone now. I don’t know of any non-trivial … Continue reading