À la Carte
It is common in many French restaurants to highlight a table d’hôte on the menu, which literally means ‘host’s table’. Most will simply go with this option, but my preference is usually to pick and choose to find the meal that suits me best, to order à la carte. My experience with development processes and software companies is quite similar. Read more
Feet to the Fire
In recent years, there have been several movements in software development that would suggest that we wait until the latest possible moment to make decisions, so as to avoid or delay the associated costs of change that would seem inevitable if we decide too early. Read more
Decisions Not Made
When you get right down to it, we spend a lot of time every day making decisions. From the clear decisions of how we are going to spend our time, whether we are going to do this or that, to decisions that are not as consciously performed, like how we’ll make that first coffee in the morning or choosing our route home in the evening. Read more
No Apparent Problem to No Actual Problem
However we would like to frame it: an approach to problem solving, a progression of learning, or simply how we grow over time, there are stages that we pass through along the way. Read more
How Do I Know?
We are all consumers of software in our daily lives. While we may not even be aware of the software that runs in our refrigerators, there is a greater awareness of the software behind the keyboards that we use, the cel phones plastered to our ears, and the systems we use to drive our businesses. For those of us that are in the software community, the ubiquitous nature of software is apparent. For those that are strictly consumers, software can be interesting, mysterious, or downright frightening. Read more
Taking Inefficiency to New Heights
Quite often in the industry, we talk about rework and administrative overhead causing huge inefficiencies for development teams. Bugs get injected early and aren’t caught until much later – more people get involved in the fix, and work that was based on flawed assumptions has been for naught. Communication breaks down as the team grows or as the project wears on, and e-mail and useless meetings consume way too much precious time. Read more
