If you’re leading software-intensive product development without a software background, you’ve likely experienced the frustration of teams missing commitments despite clear expectations. You’ve defended delayed projects to executives, scrambled to reallocate resources, or watched initiatives stall f…
Read moreIn high tech systems software development, there can be a significant gap between the expectations of leadership to “deliver”, and the software organization ability to meet these expectations. In response to sometimes unrealistic deadlines, software teams feel forced to offer ‘shortcut’ solutions. T…
Read moreAs we near the end of 2020, many CEO’s, CFO’s and business owners again will have experienced the impact of not delivering the planned innovations on time. In many companies, the software team is (perceived to be) the main bottleneck. Sometimes, leadership identifies “the team” as the problem. Maybe…
Read moreMy first experiences with Agile/Scrum development date from 2006. The agile manifesto resonated immediately and it was easy to get the software community ‘sold’. The agile / scrum practices such as working in fixed length iterations, frequent demo’s and feedback, fixed budget – variable scope fit ve…
Read moreImagine you just started your own gardening company. Your first customer, Mary, was very happy with your dedication, personal attention and praised the quality of your work. “Never have been happier with a gardener she said, great results for a reasonable price”. Soon the word gets out. A second hap…
Read more“Software is eating the world”. In his famous article written in 2011 Mark Andreessen wrote that “we are in the middle of a dramatic and broad technological and economic shift in which software companies are poised to take over large swathes of the economy”. He expected many more industries to be di…
Read moreDuring the developing of systems and software, a lot of problems have to be solved. The challenges can be technical in nature, but often the hardest problems arise between people. It not always clear, if people have similar goals and targets. And if people optimize for different goals, sometimes wha…
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