Are We a Software Company?
Particularly for small, startup organizations, it is important to come to grips with who you really are. From my perspective, too many startups see themselves as software companies, or end up accidentally becoming software companies, and this can get them into serious trouble. Read more
Two Analysis Schools
Over the years, I have seen two distinct analysis schools of thought. There is the ‘let’s get this over with so we can start doing the real work’ school and the ‘let’s work through the tough problems now so that our implementation is straightforward’ school. There appears to be a gradual migration from the first to the second in the industry, but the first continues to be fueled by a lack of appreciation for the value of effective analysis in the educational system. Read more
Trust Retention
When I let one of my kids know they’ve got 10 minutes before we need to be out the door for one of their activities, it’s a safe bet that the response I will get is an “OK Dad.” Unfortunately, it is also a pretty safe bet that we’ll be getting out the door more than a few minutes late. It’s a dance we have fallen into that happens all too often with technical teams as well. I can’t trust them to be good to their word, and I have fallen into the trap of just letting that happen. Read more
Local Maximum
Recall back to your college days, there was likely a time when you needed to calculate the maximum value for a given 3-dimensional function. There are a number of algorithms available, but many fall into the trap of only finding a local peak, rather than the absolute maximum. I’m sure that most of you asked yourselves whether you would ever use this in the real world. I’m sure I did, even the second time I took that infernal course. It turns out that the problem of reaching local maxima seems to occur in a team environment all the time, where it is not as rigorously understood that it is even a problem. While there is far less math involved, the solution can end up being just as difficult to implement. Read more
Quality Spike
I was working through a requirements session with an IT team from a large global company this week, and several times the topic of agility came up. There are as many perceptions of where analysis practices fit within the ill-defined boundaries of agile practices, which always makes for interesting discussion. One of the areas where this occurred is the analysis of the quality requirements for a system, which led me to consider the notion of a quality spike. Read more
