Category Archives: Process
Ability to Deliver
This is what software development is all about. So simple in concept, yet seemingly so hard to accomplish. A development organization that can’t deliver what’s needed is a wasteful expense, not to mention a generator of false hope for those … Continue reading
Quality Part 2: Cleaning Up as You Go
Years ago I had an epiphany that has stuck with me to this day. When I went away to grad school, I finally got an apartment of my own and thus had to cook my own meals (this was before … Continue reading
Quality Is Not The QA Group’s Responsibility
Whenever an angry customer complains about a product defect, someone is sure to ask “Why didn’t QA find it?” That’s a logical question based on the assumption that every product has a QA group whose job it is to create … Continue reading
Handoffs
The more handoffs that are required by a process or organization to do its business, the less effective that process or organization is. Said another way, there is an inverse correlation between handoffs and high performance. I think I first … 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