Rich – Page 6 – In Search Of

Decision Rights

Posted on February 4, 2014Leave a comment

Spinning. Wheels are spinning. We go around in circles. Progress is illusory. Just when we think we are “getting somewhere”, we realize we are right back where we started. Its frustrating. I bet you’ve been there. I bet you’ve experienced this feeling in many different ways.

I have heard it called many things: “Paralysis by analysis”, “Chasing our tail”, “Go fetch”, “The circular imperative” to name a few.

The symptom is that no matter how we try, we can’t convince “them” to sign up and move forward. The team won’t adopt the recommended pattern. The boss won’t sponsor the proposal. The customer won’t sign the contract.Continue Reading

Customer as Boss

Posted on January 28, 2014Leave a comment

Periodically I have observed people complain about their employees or co-workers, and occasionally I have complained myself. Sometimes people at work act as if they are either ignorant of who their customer is, or as if they don’t care about their customer, it sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.Continue Reading

One Neck to Ring

Posted on January 21, 2014Leave a comment

This post is an extension of What Did The Boss Say. In that post, we explored why executives and managers tend to want a single point of control or responsibility, as well as some of the things that must be delegated to that single point. But there are disadvantages to the single point strategy.Continue Reading

Don’t BS Yourself During Your Job Search

Posted on January 20, 2014

Read this great line from Johanna Rothman’s Hiring Technical People blog:

When you are unemployed, your job is to get a job. If you do other work, you better have a great reason.

It so correlates with the book I just finished on Friday “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield which completely expands the topic to how we tend to find ways to not do what we are really called to do.Continue Reading

What Did The Boss Say?

Posted on January 14, 2014Leave a comment

Last year, two goofballs from Norway released a song they thought would be funny, called “What does the fox say?” that turned into a viral hit. The concept for the song is that we know all the sounds the animals make, but not the fox.

Today, I want to talk about things our bosses say. Especially when things are not going well.

How did this happen? Who is responsible? Questions of disappointment.Continue Reading

Connecting the Boxes

Posted on January 7, 2014Leave a comment

2013 was the year that I finally decided to replace my ancient two channel sound system with a 5.1 channel home theater capable system. My old setup was very simple. A pair of ADS speakers that I had bought when I was in college (1981) and a Nakamichi receiver that I had bought shortly after I was married (1989 or so). I had other components, but most had been replaced with a cheap Blu-ray player that I “won” at a silent auction a few years back that played most of my CD’s. I still have a B&O turntable that is serviceable, but I rarely play my vinyl these days.Continue Reading

Vacations and Holidays

Posted on December 24, 2013Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I posted on this blog. It has been a nice time off for me, as I have taken a break from writing for about 6 weeks. In this time I have taken a vacation from work, and changed some of my technology around.

Now I am away from work spending time with my family for the holidays.

It is good to take a break from things and refresh your perspective.

Today is Christmas Eve, so I am taking this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and an enjoyable time with family and friends. See you back in January.

Project vs. Product

Posted on November 20, 2013Leave a comment

Continuing down the path of understanding the differences between contemplation of project vs product as the center of our software universe.

Here are a few pithy aphorisms:

The resources expended during a project are the cost of the product created, not its value.Continue Reading

Product Centered Worldview

Posted on November 12, 2013Leave a comment

Agile thinkers focus on the product – and how we are intentionally adding value to a “software asset” and potentially how we manage our “portfolio” of software assets. Phase-Gated Delivery (some people call it waterfall) patterns allow us to “optimize” the work against the constraints – but do not allow us to optimize the value delivery in time. In fact, they push ALL the value delivery to the very end of the cycle. But in theory, because we can optimize the projects by minimizing the schedule and cost against a constant value output – the value can be had for less investment. Problems arise when – the actual value is realized over time (meaning the sooner the customer has access to a software capability, the sooner his actual costs go down or his profits go up).Continue Reading

Sprint Rationale

Posted on November 5, 2013Leave a comment

People tend to use the terms Sprint, Iteration, and Time box interchangeably. For the most part this is true, but there is some nuance:

Sprint is a term popularized by Mike Beedle and Ken Schwaber in creating the Scrum methodology. They chose the word because it implied a desire for fast pace. It’s not a death march (Yourdon), its a sprint.Continue Reading