Innovation on Tap

Two articles from the same site (CIO.com), both dealing with planned innovations, but with dramatically different results: “Report: Twitter’s algorithmic timeline may arrive next week” reports that rumors (or “rumors”) of Twitter switching from a chronological timeline to one curated algorithmically has led to an uprising under the hashtag #RIPTwitter. Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, has […]

Ignorance Isn’t Bliss, Just Good Tactics

There’s an old saying about what happens when you assume. The fast lane to asininity seems to run through the land of hubris. Anshu Sharma’s Tech Crunch article, “Why Big Companies Keep Failing: The Stack Fallacy”, illustrates this: Stack fallacy has caused many companies to attempt to capture new markets and fail spectacularly. When you […]

The Business of IT – Customers, Clients, and Fit for Purpose

Over the past few months, I have touched on a variety of what might seem to be disparate topics: the need for architects (or at least architectural design), estimates, organizations as systems/enterprise architecture, customer-centricity, and IT management and governance. I suspect the trend will continue for a while, so it’s time for a post to […]

If You Had a Choice, Would You Buy Your Brand of IT?

People of a certain age might remember the Road Runner cartoons from their childhood. In each episode, Wile E. Coyote suffered numerous accidents attempting to snare the bird using products from Acme, Inc. Aside from the opportunities for a product liability lawsuit, I always wondered why he didn’t just quit buying from them. Sometimes I […]

Form Follows Function on SPaMCast 369

This week’s episode of Tom Cagley’s Software Process and Measurement (SPaMCast) podcast, number 369, features Tom’s essay on stand-up meetings, Kim Pries on mastery, and a Form Follows Function installment on #NoEstimates. Tom and I discuss my post “#NoEstimates – Questions, Answers, and Credibility” and take on whether it’s realistic to eliminate estimates given their […]

Fixing IT – Too Big to Succeed?

Continuing our discussion that I mentioned in my last post, Greger Wikstrand tweeted the following: I encourage you to watch the video, it’s short (7:39) and makes some important points, which I’ll touch on below. Serendipity, when it occurs, is a beautiful thing. Serendipity can occur when heads-down order taking is replaced with collaboration. Awareness […]

Hearts and Stars and Prison Riots (User Experience Matters)

So Twitter decided to make a change, and people have been reacting (and reacting to the reaction): As Jeff Sussna noted, there’s a reason for the reaction: In my old, pre-IT life, I’ve seen that same cavalier attitude toward change cause a real-life riot (for the record, it was a jail riot rather than a […]

Form Follows Function on SPaMCast 365

This week’s episode of Tom Cagley’s Software Process and Measurement (SPaMCast) podcast, number 365, features Tom’s essay on Agile Project Charters, Kim Pries on improvisation in software development, and a Form Follows Function installment on customer-driven development. Customer-driven development refers to my post “Maybe It’s Time for Customer Driven Development”, where I discussed the need […]