Thoughts on Software and Technology
Senior leadership did the analysis: The root of the problem at XYZ Corp was a lack of clearly defined value statements that underpin the company’s unique culture! Problems like this demand the corporate weapon of choice to jump into action: The Workgroup. The Workgroup started to flesh out a series of carefully crafted statements that... Continue Reading →
I am certainly not the only one observing that the workplace has a tendency to make any word that described an interesting or innovative concept almost meaningless over time. The word “Agile” is an often cited example of a concept that has taken on so many different meanings over time that it’s information content has... Continue Reading →
Most people perceive salary negotiation as an unpleasant activity. One particular issue with the salary negotiation process that has been observed is, that candidates unable to approach a negotiation from a position of strength are at a disadvantage. While I am not sure by how much this moves the needle against people already in a... Continue Reading →
The proponents of DevOps (myself included) usually bring forward arguments that evolve around breaking silos: “You build it, you run it”. This, according to the philosophy, leads to deliverables that take operational concerns into account, more automation and less finger-pointing. Many of these same arguments could also be applied to some of the other organisational... Continue Reading →
It is modern to be data-driven. Organizations brag: “We make decisions based on data.” Having spent a decent amount of time building data-crunching systems, I have a lot of sympathy for this attitude. In fact, I have suggested data-driven approaches in previous articles. But I also think that the tendency to measure and quantify everything... Continue Reading →
"Code is a liability, the functionality is an asset.” I remember finding this statement counterintuitive. Somewhere along the way it transitioned to feeling like an obvious truism. I think it’s worth spending some more words on this phrase, exploring why it is so important, and what it means for software projects. In a cognitive economy,... Continue Reading →
Cutting up large systems into smaller components is one typical task of software architecture. Many modern architectures follow a (micro-) service pattern which is one particular family of strategies to decompose a larger system into smaller parts. It would be short-sighted to apply any such method without consideration of its respective strengths and weaknesses and... Continue Reading →
A large part of the output in western economies is in immaterial or cognitive assets. Even material goods to a large part are no longer mainly valued through the physical resources that go into their production. This has created a peculiar economy in which some big players appear unbeatable. I would like to argue that... Continue Reading →
Office politics are one of these topics that no one wants to talk about. I’ve met people claiming that in their organization, politics do not exist. Others lament that politics are the root of all evil in their workplace. I think that politics are maybe sometimes unpleasant, especially when they negatively impact your work, but... Continue Reading →
I have hard people in big technology companies pitch their workplace as being “like a startup”. To me this always seemed like a strange pitch, your big company likely cannot offer the most positive aspects of a startup environment. It might have some of the negative ones, though, which is not a great selling point.... Continue Reading →
The Solution Space 