tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85526272011-04-21T21:05:28.579-07:00Thoughts on software and high tech leadership <br><br> by Jeffrey Paul AndersonJeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.comBlogger651100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-13294350437184496292008-11-27T15:37:00.000-08:002008-11-27T16:31:53.472-08:00

I spent quite a bit of time trying to "mavenize" our woodstock based project. I am sure someone will point out how to do this easier, but I was unable to find a reference. This magic works for me and I haven't been able to find something simpler. At the high level, what I did was create a standard webapp project with the option to create a dedicated library. I used the .jars in that

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-84415614037015881002008-07-05T11:15:00.000-07:002008-07-05T11:45:16.873-07:00

Another tech posting, nothing about leadership today.I confess: have a lot of computers. Two of them are on full time - one hosts a web site and one hosts a development repository using SVN over an SSH tunnel. After two years of the SVN machine being on 24x7, I wondered if I could put it to sleep and just wake it up when needed. This led me to the Wake-On-LAN feature which was a little

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-68791812216072483872008-05-10T10:25:00.000-07:002008-11-12T17:41:07.125-08:00

A little different post today - not about leadership, process, or some great new technology. It's about fixing something yourself; fixing things sometimes pleases me almost as much as creating things. After you read this, go get a copy of Sam Martin's How to Mow The Lawn.I love my Macbook Pro. I like the idea of the Magsafe adapter, but I'm not happy with the fact that it's single sourced.

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-62835838482270536072008-03-30T20:27:00.000-07:002008-03-30T21:08:44.616-07:00

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has a podcast series called "queuecast". It's a fairly quiet feed since many of them are "premium". But I very much enjoyed the recent queuecast featuring Jason Hoffman, CTO of Joyent. In the first segment, he talks about how he "isn't interested in evolution", in response to his developers saying they want to iterate and evolve the product. His

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-24631725362621326982008-01-21T08:12:00.000-08:002008-01-21T08:37:33.058-08:00

ACM's Queue magazine features a regular Q&A column by someone with the pseudonym Kode Vicious. This month he talks about measurement, in a humorous and short story entitled "Take a Freakin' Measurement". He makes the case that you should measure as much as it takes to reach your desired level of confidence, but that anything less isn't science. His style is different than mine, but I think

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-24436655096949717692008-01-09T19:56:00.000-08:002008-01-09T20:22:14.164-08:00

I'm often embarrassed when I discover a method that has been around for decades, makes perfectly good sense, but I haven't seen it practiced and didn't know about it. Active Design Reviews (ADR) are such a method. First described in 1985 by Parnas and Weiss, they devised a system which mitigates non-participation in design reviews. ADR changes yes/no questions asked in a design review (e.g. "do

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-35821492926006761372007-12-16T12:56:00.001-08:002007-12-16T13:00:26.705-08:00

This really shows the difference between business and government. In this story in the San Diego Union-Tribune, Schwarzenegger is getting ready to declare an emergency. But we don't want to rush this emergency or anything:Schwarzenegger will not declare an emergency until early next month, when the Legislature is scheduled to return from its annual fall recess that began in September.

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-50745566904295577882007-12-09T16:01:00.000-08:002007-12-09T16:19:13.282-08:00

SEI has a certificate program in SPL, and I decided I'd take the leap all the way across the country to check it out. If SPL works, it addresses a problem we've wanted to solve for decades: reuse of working code. The first course is basically a high speed tour through the book, Software Product Lines, by Paul Clements and Linda Norththrup. The book is excellent, covering all 29 practice areas

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-88329500487986291532007-11-18T08:00:00.001-08:002007-11-18T08:10:45.646-08:00

The Nov 15 issue of CIO magazine interviews Gary Hamel about innovation management. He says that our management skills are mostly tuned for efficiency, and that isn't what we need to focus on any more. Efficiency is about conformity, whereas innovation is about diversity. He also says that what management needs to do now is model the Internet: amplify and aggregate human capabilities.

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-56783138360429012762007-11-16T07:36:00.000-08:002007-11-16T08:56:37.096-08:00

I attended a presentation yesterday which was intended to help people understand how to do Design for Manufacturing when offshore manufacturing is the objective. Unfortunately the presentation fell way short of its target, and the crowd even got a little annoyed. The presenter was talking about models that have worked before:Document wellFollow the process exactlyManufacturing team has

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-63114999555121494762007-11-04T13:28:00.000-08:002007-11-04T13:48:08.422-08:00

The August 2007 Communications of the ACM has an article called Offshore Outsourcing: The Risk of Keeping Mum. In it they discuss factors that contribute to information hiding. They reference a model developed by G. Hofstede, which breaks down cultural differences into 5 factors, and then combine it with work done by Keil and Robey [ACM 44 Apr 2001] which identified fear of being punished as

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-40388726447259981582007-10-28T12:36:00.000-07:002007-10-28T13:06:34.005-07:00

Many people have asked "What's your exit strategy?" when discussing my startup. Initially, I found this offensive, because in my mind if you build a viable business, you will have exit possibilities, should you desire one. Moreover once you are successful, you'll have a better idea of exactly how it should be done. Isn't building a business that has long term value what starting a business

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-10026134098211726852007-10-21T11:36:00.001-07:002007-10-21T12:22:21.510-07:00

At High Regard Software, we're trying to make it easier to "onboard" new developers for our startup, RideGrid. We are using some open source, notably pieces of Apache Commons. Even if you are not using any open source, there is a lot that can be learned from Open Source to make it easier to do development. The argument for this is straightforward: if the tool set works for collaborators

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-64548501901242358352007-10-14T14:55:00.001-07:002007-10-15T11:13:57.929-07:00

What can software leaders do to help improve the environment? Reduce the footprint we leave in the process of doing our work. Each of you may have unique ways you can do this, but there are some that could be nearly universal and I'll cover those here. The areas I've actually been involved with are listed below, followed by more details about each in terms of what to expect and the challenges

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-40435889958606510212007-10-10T10:02:00.000-07:002007-10-10T10:24:54.614-07:00

When you see a schedule challenge, followed by words like "but we'll make it up", you should be seriously suspicious. When the plan isn't working, the idea that things will magically get better in the future simply strains credibility. My inspiration for this post is Boeing's announcement today of a six month slip of their new airliner, the 787. The kicker here is that they've known about

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-40254170194682448922007-10-08T06:50:00.000-07:002007-10-08T07:02:18.176-07:00

I saw this story this morning, about Columbus Day protests in Colorado. At the risk of being insensitive, this seems like a complete waste of energy. You can argue the relevance of the federal holiday I suppose. It was 500 years ago, and Columbus didn't really discover America, he simply introduced Europe to it. But what's the point of the protest? Draw attention to behavior we no longer

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-49639624717699296092007-09-30T10:23:00.001-07:002007-09-30T10:35:44.285-07:00

What do we want our Universities to teach computer science and computer engineering students? I've lamented that teachings are sort of bipolar: flip-flopping between minutiae associated with implementation (and attendant lack of attention to design), and interesting but in the long run nearly useless theory. This week's New York Times Magazine describes a new university, Olin, which

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-41362107541276147612007-09-27T08:05:00.000-07:002007-09-27T08:26:47.465-07:00

It's fascinating to me to read about whether lower fed discount rates cause inflation, and even whether it's good for the stock market. I wish I'd blogged on it last week, because there was great article that basically said we have no idea how the economy really works. We understand some things, for example, a smaller discount rate immediately increases the value of stocks. When the

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-50284640989893751102007-09-26T16:57:00.000-07:002007-09-26T17:10:51.548-07:00

You may have heard WIFM in the context of managing others. WIFM stands for "Whats In it For Me?". Sometimes you'll hear it as "WIFM radio". (Ironically, there is at least one real WIFM radio station). WIFM doesn't mean look out for yourself - rather it's a reminder that others will be looking out for themselves. So put yourself in the other's perspective, and then answer the question of

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-44049251933978816322007-09-24T14:50:00.000-07:002007-09-24T15:17:03.676-07:00

I'm currently doing a little negotiating, so it was timely that this month's HBR has an article in it about negotiation. Entitled Investigative Negotiation, it resonates with me because it is loaded with examples and techniques about understanding the motives of the people you are negotiating with, rather than trying to "win". It somewhat reminds me of advice on selling by Jeffrey Gitomer, and

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-45862554644393884842007-09-17T15:41:00.000-07:002007-09-17T15:53:25.015-07:00

I've been learning about the methods used by the PSM group, which is detailed in their reference book here. One of the concepts is what they term a Measurement Construct. It's a graphical structure that shows how you go from an Attribute to an Information Product. At first the whole thing seemed very intuitive, but the structure helps you consider all the aspects of metrics. What are we

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-33664605608551738292007-09-12T12:38:00.000-07:002007-09-12T12:54:44.149-07:00

My excuse for not blogging recently is that I have been totally geeking out on the technical details of my startup. We're using windows, mac and ubuntu, NetBeans 5.5.1 with the visual webpack and the mobility pack, Sun's Java Application Server, asterisk (via asterisk-java), a third party routing library and SAS, mySQL, some Apache Commons stuff, svn and a bunch of free tools. We share our

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-28233444782532321852007-08-27T17:20:00.000-07:002008-11-12T17:41:07.789-08:00

I found this excellent reference from O'Reilly, which compares various licensing mechanisms including GPL, LGPL, Apache, etc. The entire book is online in PDF format, and it walks you through the important legal language of each type and then explains it to you in english. You don't have to read the entire book to get to a good understanding of how they differ. I recommend this for any

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-51599776537711680472007-08-27T17:04:00.000-07:002007-08-27T17:18:28.048-07:00

On October 15, blog action day, thousands of bloggers will blog normally, but include something regarding the environment. If you blog, check them out and register! If you read blogs, October 15 should be interesting. The promo video is here:

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-16626922118386292732007-08-19T14:39:00.000-07:002007-08-19T14:55:18.949-07:00

In the September 2005 issue of the Communications of the ACM, Philip Armour touches on a method to keep two plans: the work-to plan, and the commit-to plan. He says that if an organization chooses not to intentionally manage the risk due to uncertainty, that either the customer (through lack of quality) or the development team (through overtime) ultimately pays for the risk as it materializes

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-20451108719315991982007-08-08T15:47:00.000-07:002007-08-08T16:18:48.113-07:00

In a 1997 article entitled, How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight, Eisenhardt, Kahwajy and Bourgeois make the case that the absence of conflict is not harmony, it's apathy. They talk about healthy conflict versus interpersonal conflict. Healthy conflict explores options and leads to better understanding. Interpersonal conflict involves emotions which block efficient and effective

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-37470079402458227262007-07-30T11:12:00.000-07:002007-07-30T11:37:20.584-07:00

Karl E. Wiegers, who wrote a great book I've used called "Peer Reviews In Software", published these ten traps to avoid when implementing a metrics program. Anyone who has implemented a metrics program likely has experienced every one of these. It's a handy reference to put on your wall. Most are self explanatory and intuitive, once you see them. The one I'm not quite sure I'm on board with

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-6112552469565582682007-07-23T09:55:00.000-07:002007-07-23T10:04:00.769-07:00

That's the conclusion of Terry Coatta's writeup on the demise of CORBA:http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=491We think of SOA as being a paradigm shift; it's actually an improvement which provides greater flexibility than CORBA and others, but the old rules still apply. Distributed computing is still hard, in general.

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-30280484191959427982007-07-15T17:35:00.000-07:002007-07-15T17:55:00.035-07:00

If you Google those two words, you'll find the term ascribed to Dr. K Anders Ericson. His research indicates that expert competence in an area is learned, not gifted, and that it requires special attention to what a person doesn't yet do well. He quotes Sam Snead:It is only human nature to practice what you can already do well, since it's a hell of a lots less work and a hell of a lot more

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-55517958368140893922007-07-09T13:00:00.000-07:002007-07-09T13:14:42.957-07:00

Clayton M. Christensen, author of The Innovator's Dilemma, along with Michael Overdorf, wrote a paper in 2000 about why companies succeed or fail at disruptive innovation. They argue that established companies by definition can't do disruption - the processes and values of the organization keep them on a track of evolutionary changes, which Christensen calls sustaining innovation. The idea is

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-68432057216530930432007-07-01T15:13:00.000-07:002007-07-01T15:24:45.120-07:00

Morten T Hansen and Julian Birkinshaw describe yet another method of analyzing and improving a company's ability to innovate. They describe an "Innovation Value Chain" which gets evaluated in its ability to Create, Convert and Diffuse innovation. In other words we often just think about the ideas, but many great ideas go un-monetized because they get lost in the shuffle, are not properly funded

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-43126512524119228242007-06-17T18:51:00.001-07:002007-06-17T18:58:22.534-07:00

I'm reading a book that software executives can use to understand Design Patterns. After going through this book you'll be able to ask better questions about the architecture of your OO software. So far I've only gone through the Strategy, Observer, and Decorator patterns... but suddenly I understand them and can talk at a much higher level of design than ever before. The book is well

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-32035316590020214392007-06-17T17:48:00.000-07:002007-06-17T18:26:07.827-07:00

I was discussing Arrogance last week with a colleague; we noted some really smart people who have changed professions, who think they know so much more than those who have studied the profession for decades.Peter Drucker wrote, in an article entitled "Managing Oneself":Far too many people—especially people with great expertise in one area—are contemptuous of knowledge in other areas or believe

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-36546412090455181142007-06-05T08:27:00.000-07:002007-06-05T08:50:33.238-07:00

Dr. Arthur D. Levinson, CEO of Genentech, is quoted in the Wall Street Journal today:I have a philosophy -- I invite criticism. But don't ever come to me with a complaint without saying, here is what we might do to make it better. I am happy to hear Part A if I hear Part B.I have tremendous respect for the man; he's built a successful business in an industry he describes as the "biggest money

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-89287658857943861432007-05-28T10:12:00.000-07:002007-05-28T10:42:36.580-07:00

I found a reference for developing innovation metrics that I find useful. It breaks down factors that one needs to be innovative and gives suggestions for measuring those factors. Specifically, how to measure the resources, capability and leadership factors that might collectively be predictors of innovation. Is innovation easier to measure than quality? Typically we measure what quality is

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-73306990408627513622007-05-20T13:52:00.000-07:002007-05-20T14:10:55.147-07:00

I had a new experience this week. One I hope not to repeat. The simple version of the story is that I needed $200 in cash, and ended up at one of those non-bank ATM machines. I asked for $200, it only dispensed $100, and I managed to pull another $20 out that was stuck in the output slot. This isn't what we've come to expect from these machines... at least not after we've used them hundreds

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-81479170009498995442007-05-13T12:19:00.000-07:002007-05-13T13:10:45.932-07:00

Maybe I'm a consultant because I say things when I shouldn't. Frankly, that's what you want in a consultant - you pay them to tell you the truth. There are surely engagements where you get paid to tell someone something they want to hear - probably mostly as a subject matter expert in a legal proceeding (I'm sure I have offended a lot of experts now). But really, wouldn't the world be a

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-52301321342472656902007-05-06T20:38:00.000-07:002007-05-07T17:08:36.402-07:00

In high tech, we can hope that through corporate reputation, good fortune, persistence, and good choices, we get to have people on our team that are really smart. Ideally, smarter than we are. Consider the alternative: a team of people who are not as smart as their leader? The challenge with really smart people is they do not really want to be led. I have seen this. According to an article

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-45190535733763015722007-04-29T18:04:00.000-07:002007-04-29T18:59:42.877-07:00

I was going to title this post "ISO 15939", but then many of you would not be reading this. However, this last week I was introduced to a measurement world I am still trying to figure out. It looks compelling, and it is related to this standard. One of our challenges is convincing people that they should expend the effort to measure something. One of the books on this subject I like is

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-60692301285034936022007-04-21T12:54:00.000-07:002007-04-21T14:28:24.112-07:00

The Wall Street Journal yesterday did an article on younger workers' need for praise. (You'll need an online subscription to read the article). The article claims that popular self-esteem-building parenting and coaching techniques have created a generation for whom a lack of continuous feedback feels like rebuke. The abundance of praise may have led to the formation of a cadre of narcissists.

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-15120853566944814002007-04-15T20:35:00.000-07:002007-04-15T21:12:40.527-07:00

As a leader, having identified an individual's lack of skill in a particular area, how do you decide whether to try to develop the skill, simply provide support from someone else in the weak area, or move the person out of the role or team? After all, it's the leader's job to remove roadblocks and provide support, right? When does support stop being a good thing and start being a problem?I

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-47706075438759482822007-04-09T07:18:00.000-07:002007-04-09T07:27:00.292-07:00

This twelve minute video talks about how some large companies have made environmental progress and money at the same time. Not only is this a fabulous trend for business and the planet, but it shows that if you look for win-win strategies, you might find them. Conversely, if your model of the world believes that something can't be done, your bias may inhibit or prevent it.

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-40534564739759289502007-04-01T16:56:00.000-07:002007-04-01T17:43:18.137-07:00

I love this quote attributed to Jack Welch (and I've probably got it wrong, sorry Jack):If we are going to make this decision based on opinion, I prefer mine.I like it because it is straight up - facts and analysis are credible scientific truth-seeking mechanisms. Opinions are based on all kinds of human biases. I attended a meeting recently regarding a paper to be published soon, about

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-50624946917833725502007-03-26T14:20:00.000-07:002007-03-26T14:55:03.711-07:00

In my experience, a major impediment to innovation is lack of focus. If your organization isn't clear on what it is trying to accomplish and why, you are likely to consume your resources on a myriad of time consuming projects that contribute little to the effectiveness of the current product, and leave no room for innovation. So if you want to innovate, get control of your portfolio. It will

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-65065151984938600032007-03-11T18:23:00.000-07:002007-03-11T18:39:23.124-07:00

The March 1, 2007 issue of CIO magazine lays out questions for customers to ask you about your software development environment, and how to evaluate the answers. The first 5 questions are in print:Do you review security at each phase of the software development life cycle?What methodologies do you use for security testing your products?Do third parties conduct security assessments on your

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-33071039824314193822007-03-06T09:32:00.000-08:002007-03-06T09:45:20.454-08:00

I'm not sure if this is ridiculous or interesting, but I stumbled over a tool, put together by IBM Global Services, which portends to assess your organization's innovation strategy and benchmark it against 750 other companies. I rated a former employer and ... surprise... we didn't score really well. The assessment tool raises more questions than it answers, in my mind; and no doubt this is a

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-79253045760828886142007-02-24T12:00:00.000-08:002007-02-24T12:03:24.792-08:00

The October 2005 issue of HBR has an article called "the hard side of change management". They introduce a new metric called DICE, which stands for "Duration", "Integrity of Performance, "Commitment", and "Effort". In their study they found that by applying simple subjective scores to each of these areas, and then a simple formula to roll up a total score, they have a number which can be used

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-83610417581813729232007-02-23T07:40:00.000-08:002007-02-23T11:19:10.968-08:00

An article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday reminded me of how easy it is to fire people up to solve the wrong problem. For those of you with an online WSJ account, you can view the story here. There is also this article in Information Week which anyone can read. The articles talk about a bill that republican Michael A Costello is sponsoring, Massachusetts House Bill 213, which would

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-86024441878697480432007-02-18T17:02:00.000-08:002007-02-18T17:16:05.012-08:00

I was considering a potential assignment and rummaging through my toolbox, when I recalled an acronym: ADKAR. I don't recall where I originally learned it. It is a diagnostic tool to help you figure out how far along a change an organization is, and what remains to be done. (A)wareness is present if people are aware that a change needs to be made. (D)esire is present if people want to change

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-65156685549193036652007-02-11T08:39:00.000-08:002007-02-08T22:46:32.643-08:00

I was speaking to some offshore development managers last week, where we were discussing what a challenge it is to get good requirements. This is not a new phenomenon, it has just gotten so much harder with increasing levels of technical complexity and the cultural and distance diversity of our current development landscape.The May 1995 issue of Communications of the ACM included several

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-54191919507754853802007-02-06T18:18:00.000-08:002007-02-07T06:08:10.093-08:00

I was part of an effort where we had a tremendous impact on quality in just a couple of years. We principally did it by turning the organization around from its earlier behaviors, and simply making it clear that quality is the developer's job, not the QA department's. QA's job is to measure and prove that the developers did what they were supposed to (or that they didn't). Development's job

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-88600035354024350882007-02-05T10:29:00.000-08:002007-02-05T10:50:36.777-08:00

I found this on Ronny DeWinter's Software Quality blog:Communication levels:Not everything that is said is heard.Not everything that is heard is understood.Not everything that is understood is agreed.Not everything that is agreed is applied.Not everything that is applied is retained.That is a fantastic short synopsis of why communication is so difficult. It shows that just getting someone to

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-77737755903445252972007-01-30T17:19:00.000-08:002007-01-31T20:13:47.558-08:00

Delivering new products on schedule is always difficult. At a recent Agile Software seminar, someone asked the crowd if they had ever had any home remodeling done. A lot of people raised their hands. Then she asked if it went according to plan; very few people raised their hands. The point she was making was: if something as well understood as remodeling can't go according to plan, what

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-54032389526875115772007-01-21T13:45:00.000-08:002007-01-21T14:15:13.450-08:00

I decided to cover this subject since the December issue of Communications of the ACM is dedicated to the subject matter. I first got introduced to the terminology last year when I was talking to a San Diego employer, who was looking for management talent with this skill set. I didn't find much information on it then, but bought a (largely boring) book on it. If you haven't heard of it, it's

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-77203103988816828312007-01-14T11:17:00.000-08:002007-01-14T12:24:05.734-08:00

Because I am such a fan of innovation, one of my former bosses once chided me, saying: "The only sustainable competitive advantage is execution". The context of the discussion was about Apple Computer's innovations, and whether they were innovating or simply producing ... well .. art. This quote from fastcompany.com inspired the conversation: If your cool new thing doesn't generate enough money

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-1168267385378330652007-01-08T06:06:00.000-08:002007-01-08T06:43:05.390-08:00

Rosabeth Moss Kanter wrote an article for Harvard Business Review in 1982 that was reprinted in 2004, entitled "The Middle Manager as Innovator". She points out that middle management drives changes that increase organization capacity. Among the many things she says that I agree with, she talks about how lack of power in these ranks can interfere with the innovative process, because it inhibits

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-1167246794702469182006-12-27T11:00:00.000-08:002006-12-27T11:37:49.303-08:00

Robert Nardelli is quoted as saying "there's only a fine line between entrepreneurship and insubordination". I found this gem in the Oct 2006 issue of Harvard Business Review, in an article by David Garvin and Lynne Levesque. I'll leave the details to your reading pleasure, but there were a few key points that resonate with me, regarding how to innovate within a corporation. First, quite a bit

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-1158529486379039532006-09-17T14:18:00.000-07:002006-09-17T15:23:46.466-07:00

I consider myself an early adopter; I am usually the first to try new things. When it comes to Agile software development, however, I have pretty much waited until it entered the mainstream. We are there now. Large, respectable companies are moving to some form of Agile. They had to. It is clear that what we have been doing hasn't led, in general, to higher quality, predictability,

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-1105466351164830682005-01-11T09:45:00.000-08:002005-01-11T10:15:45.306-08:00

I'm inspired by a very simple metric I've seen in a presentation from the lean software institute, which they refer to as "Staff Productivity". It is a deceptively simple equation: Value Added Effort ---------------- Total Hours This number cannot exceed 1.0. Value Added is defined in the sense found in "Re-Engineering the Corporation"; it is that value that is tangible to the

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-1101164044448357812004-11-22T14:25:00.000-08:002004-11-22T14:54:04.450-08:00

We all know that what gets measured gets done. So why is it that so many software organizations don't have data on their performance? My theory is that people are afraid to be measured. I have personally seen aversion to ascribing defect rates to individuals. The argument against it was that managers are not capable of interpreting the subtlety in the data, afraid that if one takes on harder

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-1099595458938746652004-11-04T10:52:00.000-08:002004-11-04T17:24:21.646-08:00

Much has been written on strategy. It can be a fuzzy and cosmic subject. I advocate a very simple approach to setting and communicating a strategy, and it can be done at all levels of the organization where choices are made. A simple strategy is one that is written specifically for the purpose of review by other parts of the organization. It should cover what could be done, what will and won't

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-1098627840606811872004-10-24T07:04:00.000-07:002004-10-28T12:28:05.306-07:00

I am a fan of Adizes' model for the corporate life cycle. In his book Corporate Lifecycles, he describes four categories of roles that each executive should have reporting to him or her, in order to bring good conflict to the table that can be used for good decision making. The four roles are PAEI: Performing. In software product development, this is most of what we think about the

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-1098316453219885902004-10-20T16:33:00.000-07:002004-10-20T16:54:13.220-07:00

One of the best ways you can get input on all aspects of your organization is to make sure people want to talk to you. This seems self evident, yet many leaders don't invite input except from superiors. You can't just say "give me your input" and expect it to happen, you have to demonstrate that you care. What I do is make others feel respected and important. Everyone. The janitor. The

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-1097020420645889412004-10-05T16:43:00.000-07:002004-10-05T21:10:41.020-07:00

You've all seen it: religious wars over technical solutions. emacs versus vi. C++ versus Java. VxWorks versus Embedded Linux. These are decisions you often can't make right because there is no right solution. And whichever you choose, you will alienate a percentage of your technical people. I've tried various ways to solve this dilemma with disappointing results. What should you do when faced

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552627.post-1097015964563295722004-10-05T15:30:00.001-07:002004-10-05T16:43:01.476-07:00

What I have noticed when technical people complain about bad leadership (as opposed to lack of leadership), is that there is really a lack of trust. This typically occurs because the leader has either exhibited repeated selfish behavior or is failing to communicate openly and honestly. I have seen some leaders holding back information in the interest of appearing dignified or more intelligent

Jeffrey Paul Andersonnoreply@blogger.com0