The Mindset

This is far from being an original idea. I saw it in a couple of blogs I read recently, and thought it was cool.
Here’s the thing:
If you have any question about optimizing software development, software quality, management, or anything related, send it to me. My answers will appear here, in my blog.
I can’t promise […]

I love the Web.
There are times when I cannot understand how we were able to work and interact without it. Since I started publishing articles and blogging I’ve met so many people, been part of so many discussions, and been exposed to so many ideas. I have no doubt in my mind that without the Web […]

For decades software development practitioners try to find the ultimate software development metaphor. This is not merely an academic discussion. If we can find a good metaphor for software development we might actually learn something from it. We can make analogies and try to apply things we already know about our world to software development […]

The entire software development scene seems to be occupied with the issue of communication. And with a good reason. We in the software industry really do have a communication problem.
Many of the problems we encounter in software development projects can be traced back to communication problems. Software development is a people-oriented activity. Almost none of […]

Imagine five bright people sitting around one table, speaking what seems to be the same language, using common words, which could be found in any dictionary, and correct grammar. And yet no one really understands the others.
No this is not one of those riddles that make your head hurt when you try to solve it. I believe […]

Here’s the deal. You find yourself in a city you do not know. How did you get there? You don’t know. It is just as if you were dropped in the middle of this foreign city by aliens. No one around seems to speak your language. Everywhere you look you see roads, buildings, cars – […]

In Organizational Under Currents and More On Underwater Currents I wrote about how the people who are actually doing most of the work express the real organizational culture – the subtext of organizational culture. The written procedures, the metrics, and the things which are being said publicly are only the tip of the iceberg. In many, […]

Michael Webb wrote a great article about the barriers to effective listening. No matter what your job is, if it involves communicating with people (customers, employees, managers, etc.) you must read this article!
One issue needs to be emphasized, though: listener and speaker are not separate roles.
When you act as a speaker, you should also be […]