Form Follows Function on SPaMCast 421

This week’s episode of Tom Cagley’s Software Process and Measurement (SPaMCast) podcast, number 421, features Tom on vanity metrics (“feel good, less useful”), Steve Tendon discussing TameFlow, and a Form Follows Function installment based on my post “Leadership Patterns and Anti-Patterns – The Growler”. Ever deal with a “crusty” leader who used an “unwelcoming” attitude […]

Learning Organizations: When Wrens Take Down Wolfpacks

What does the World War II naval campaign known as the Battle of the Atlantic have to do with learning and innovation? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Early in the war, Britain found itself in a precarious position. While being an island nation provided defensive advantages, it also came with logistical challenges. Food, […]

Amazon’s ‘Old is New Again’ Innovation

Amazon’s unveiling Monday of its new brick and mortar venture, Amazon Go is, rightly so, generating a lot of interest: The full strategy, as reported on the Verge is for three types of stores in a range of sizes: Of the three varieties of stores Amazon is considering opening, the convenience store model is the […]

I fought the law (of unintended consequences) and the law won

Sometimes, what seemed to be a really good idea just doesn’t turn out that way in the end. In my opinion, a lack of a systems approach to problem solving makes that type of outcome much more likely. Simplistic responses to issues that fail to deal with problems holistically can backfire. Such ill-considered solutions not […]

What Customer-Centric Looks Like

My last post, “Defense Against the Dark Art of Disruption”, went into some detail about notable failures in customer-experience for 2016. This week, however, I ran across a counter-example (h/t to Tim Worstall) showing that a little social media awareness and a customer-centric culture can make magic: A baby products company is launching a special […]

Defense Against the Dark Art of Disruption

My first post for 2016 was titled “Is 2016 the Year for Customer-Focused IT?”. The closing line was “If 2016 isn’t the year for customer-focused IT, I wonder just what kind of year it will be for IT?”. I am so sorry for jinxing so many things for so many people.🙂 So far, the year […]

Capability Now, Capability Later

In my post “Strategic Tunnel Vision”, I touched on the concept of capability. I discussed how focusing on new capabilities can crowd out existing capabilities and the detrimental effects of that when those existing capabilities are still necessary. I also spoke to how choices about strategic capabilities can trickle down to effect tactical capabilities. What […]

Pragmatic Application Architecture

I saw a tweet on Friday about a SlideShare deck that looked interesting, so I bookmarked it to read later. As I was reading it this morning, I found myself agreeing with the points being made. When I got to the next to the last slide, I found myself (or at least, this blog) listed […]

Strategic Tunnel Vision

  Change and innovation are topics that have been prominent on this blog over the last year. In fact, Greger Wikstrand and I have traded a total of twenty-six posts (twenty-seven counting this one) on the subject. Greger’s last post, “Successful digitization requires focus on the entire customer experience – not just a neat app” […]

Monolithic Applications and Enterprise Gravel

It’s been almost a year since I’ve written anything about microservices, and while a lot has been said on that subject, it’s one I still monitor to see what new pops up. The opening of a blog post that I read last week caught my attention: Coined by Melvin Conway in 1968, Conway’s Law states: […]

Designing Communication, Communicating Design

We work in a communications industry. We create and maintain systems to move information around in order to get things done. That information moves between people and systems in combinations and configurations too numerous to count. In spite of that, we don’t do that great a job of communicating what should be, for us, extremely […]

Form Follows Function on SPaMCast 415

This week’s episode of Tom Cagley’s Software Process and Measurement (SPaMCast) podcast, number 415, features Tom’s essay on recognizing risk and risk tolerance, Kim Pries on change models, a Form Follows Function installment based on my post “All Aboard the Innovation Band Wagon?”, and Jon Quigley on requirements management. Innovation is the topic of our […]