Engagement Beats Handoff and Jargon
Quite often when we talk about challenges in this industry, we lament that our customers don’t get it, or that those hardware guys seem to live in their own little world (that is, if we’re in software – for those in that hardware world, the shoe is often on the other foot). If we dive into the majority of those communication issues, one of the problems is that we have not really engaged with ‘the other side’ – we have been busy confusing them with our jargon. Read more
A Consistent Approach, Where Needed
There is great value in having a standard way of doing things we need to do more than once. My wife has a way of dealing with the laundry as it goes from the hamper to washer to dryer to drawers, and she knows where the dirty clothes are and where the clean ones are. I’ve got my system for loading the dishwasher, to make sure I can pack it as completely as possible but still making sure they come out clean. We each have our own distinct way of getting the kids ready for school in the morning, and it is best to let one person take the reins if we are both around. Read more
Industry Evolution
I spent a few days last week down in Portland, at the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference. It’s a local conference run by a group of volunteers, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at it. The conference is well attended, drawing many people from the West Coast and worldwide, there are a number of significant local companies (Intel, ADP, HP in Corvallis, among others) that continue to promote it, and it draws many of the A-list speakers. Read more
Focus On the Interfaces
Recall a while back where I wrote about a couple of training sessions in one company where there was a simulation involved, the teams building a device after spending some time working out the network of activities required to get the job done. Back then, one class managed to develop a well-conceived network but failed to accomplish the construction task, while the other managed to build the device, despite not having an end-to-end schedule. Read more
