The Mindset

Dear CEO,
What do your people feel when they wake up in the morning and have to go to work? Is it something like “I wish I could just wake up when the weekend starts”, or is it more like “oh well, I guess I have no choice, do I”? Or is it something completely different?
You […]

A friend of mine sent me this article and asked me for my opinion.
The basic premise of the article is simple: if you want to know exactly how a certain tool, technology, or process, improve the productivity of your staff, you cannot just measure how much time it saves. If a certain tool saves […]

Well, it has been three days since my Hiring Great Developers? post. During this time an interesting discussion took place both on this blog as well as on others. I usually try to respond to most of the comments posted here, but this time I’ve decided to step back and let the discussion roll. Now […]

Stop whatever it is you’re doing. There’s a new buzz in town.
In our ultra-dynamic industry, yesterday’s Holy Grail is today’s old news. A couple of days ago I wrote about Googlism as the new emerging religion, and what do you know, I’ve just discovered the signs of a new one, already creeping into blogs, articles, […]

Here’s a pop-quiz: what do [take a long breath] Agile, Peer Reviews, JUnit, Pair Programming, SCRUM, velocity charts, burn-down charts, Bugzilla, Subversion, lint, ClearCase®, RequisitePro®, ClearQuest®, RUP, UML, MDA, TDD, BDD, XP, ISO, CMM, and (my personal all-time favorite) Refactoring have in common?
OK now, let’s see. If you found it easy to come up with […]

There’s a huge gap between how software development is discussed in books, articles, blogs, and forums, and the way software companies actually run their R&D operations. It’s as if we live in two parallel universes. In one universe most of us know exactly what we should do to develop better software – software that has […]

It’s August, and it’s vacation time. It’s also the hottest time of year. Maybe this is why the indoor playgrounds scene is blooming. Wherever you go, you see new fancy playgrounds with cool equipment, numerous activities for children, and don’t forget a quiet corner for parents to relax with a cup of coffee.
So today, after […]

Many companies face a motivation problem. Some of them are aware of the problem, which is, of course, a good start. But even these companies often tend to sweep the problem under the carpet. They don’t really ignore the problem. They just try to solve it using the easiest possible solution — a solution that never works. […]

Whenever I talk with managers about office politics I get this apologizing, yet sometimes accusing, look saying: “What can we do? If you’re not a politician around here you do not exist”. And this is probably the case. Managers have to be politicians to do their job well. Is that bad?
Politicians are generally not highly […]

Once upon a time, whenever people talked about quality they talked about process. They talked about documented, repeatable process. They talked about unified process. And they talked a lot about metrics. Quality management was a synonym for being obedient, and quality was all about discipline.
But something has changed. More and more people realize now that […]