Overcoming Resistance
It never ceases to amaze me how many different ways we can come up to fight change. Whether it is dropping a few pounds, kicking that nasty smoking habit, shutting off the lights as we leave a room or getting better at developing software, we are clearly at our most inventive in finding ways to just stay put. Read more
Core Change Principles
What we often call process improvement is actually change management. The fact that most process improvement initiatives fail or disappoint is primarily due to the lack of appreciation for what matters when attempting to drive change in an organization. It has nothing to do with suggesting new practices or telling people what to do. Read more
Shirking Responsibility
It is all too predictable. Whenever my son and daughter are playing together, it is only a matter of time before I hear raised voices and one of them, if not both, will come to me complaining about something the other one did (this could potentially be a long spring break). I’ve settled into a response that usually works quite well: to ask them to consider their contribution to the situation. What is most fascinating about this is how often a similar dance occurs in the business world. Read more
Trust Proxies
I recently sat down for a discussion with a prospect about why they should use our services. I have faith that we are the right people to develop the application they are looking for from the technical perspective. From the purchaser’s perspective, though, everyone they talk to will have that same spin. How do we engender a measure of trust when we’re an unknown? Read more
Evolving Our System
After working with a group on requirements issues over the past couple of days, one person queried me on a particular challenge they were having. It seems they build their products in phases, and in doing so they generate a separate requirements document for each phase. Three phases would generate three separate documents, each with the information from the last phase, plus any new feature for the latest one. This generates quite a bit of duplication, a lot of copy and pasting from the first to the successor documents. What to do? Read more
