A Soft Skills Business Case
A colleague of mine posted a question on LinkedIn a while back about how to develop a business case for improvement in soft skills for developers. I was too late to weigh in on the question there, so I’ll take a stab here.
Fire, Hire, Grow and Keep
In this neck of the woods, there appears to be a real shortage of tech labor. The local industry association is citing the demand for new talent to be around 15%, and job postings on local boards are soaring. I expect this situation is repeated almost anywhere these days, and we are in the midst of a heyday for recruiters. Are we doing everything we can? Read more
Lifecycle Selection vs. Effectiveness
The debate rages on about whether traditional approaches to software development are the best for a project, or whether the more recent agile approaches are better. I’ve always thought that the debate is the wrong one to have in the first place: pick your favorite lifecycle, and chances are good that the selection is moot anyways. Most projects, regardless of the lifecycle selection, are run in a way that the uncertainty and risk will overwhelm whether you have decided waterfall or scrum. At the risk of alienating zealots from all camps, here’s why. Read more
What To Do…
Once in a great while, I find myself in a position where I wonder what to do next. This is rare, of course, as usually there are more than enough things to keep me occupied. With technology companies, it is almost always the case that there is way too much to do, and even worse, it is almost always someone else that seems to be calling the shots. From what I have seen, there is a better way. Read more



