Leadership

1 month, 10 days ago

Management, Simple and Wrong – Semantics, Systems, and Self-Correction

Simple responses to complex situations are both seductive and dangerous. The difficulty in juggling lots of variables tempts us to employ abstraction so as to avoid being overwhelmed. Abraham Maslow’s observation, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail”, applies. […]

4 months, 19 days ago

You can’t always get what you want…

You can’t always get what you want But if you try sometimes well you just might find You get what you need When it comes to systems, you can’t always get what you want, but you do get what you design (intentionally or not), whether it’s what you need or not. In other words, the […]

5 months, 4 days ago

When One System Fails Another

Ten days ago, when I wrote the post “Uber and the Cost of a Culture of Corruption”, I said that assuming there will be negative consequences (both legal and financial) from the incidents in the news, then it is in Uber’s best interests to fix the problem that led to them in the first place. […]

5 months, 14 days ago

Uber and the Cost of a Culture of Corruption

Even before I hit the “Publish” button on Monday’s post, “Regulating Software Development”, I had already started composing this post in my head. In that post I had used the words “corrupt culture” in passing. I needed to expand on that, because I believe that’s what lies at the heart of Uber’s cascading collection of […]

5 months, 23 days ago

Fear of Failure, Fear and Failure

Some things seem so logically inconsistent that you just have to check them out. Such was the title of a post on LinkedIn that I saw the other day: “Innovation In Fear-Based Cultures? Or, why hire lions to be dogs?”. In it, Michael Graber noted that “…top-down organizations have the most trouble innovating.”: In particular, […]

6 months, 11 days ago

Form Follows Function on SPaMCast 430

It’s time for another appearance on Tom Cagley’s Software Process and Measurement (SPaMCast) podcast. This week’s episode, number 430, features Tom’s essay on product owners, Steve Tendon with more on TameFlow (in this episode, constraints), and a Form Follows Function installment based on my post “Leadership Anti-Patterns – The Thinker” (the third in a series […]

7 months, 15 days ago

Form Follows Function on SPaMCast 425

I’m ringing in 2017 with another appearance on Tom Cagley’s Software Process and Measurement (SPaMCast) podcast. This week’s episode number 425, features Tom talking about annual tune-up ideas, Steve Tendon with more on TameFlow (re: kanban, flow, and throughput), and a Form Follows Function installment based on my post “Leadership Anti-Patterns – The Great Pretender”. […]

8 months, 10 days ago

Situational Awareness – Where does it begin? Where does it end?

Situational awareness, according to Wikipedia, is defined as “…the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status after some variable has changed, such as time, or some other variable, such as a predetermined event”. In other words, it’s having a […]

8 months, 12 days ago

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 […]

10 months, 3 days ago

EAdirections Tenth Anniversary Observations

Through ten years of working with dozens of companies, we have seen a lot of good and some not so good developments related to Enterprise Architecture. In recognition of those 10 years, those dozens of companies, and continued success, we would like t…

10 months, 24 days ago

Babies, Bathwater, and Software Architects

I try to be disciplined about my writing (picking themes, creating a backlog, collecting notes and links on those topics, etc.), but it seems like serendipity won’t be denied, no matter what I do. On the same day that XKCD published this cartoon, Erik Dietrich published “Software Architect as a Developer Pension Plan”. While I […]

11 months, 6 days ago

Leadership Anti-Patterns – The Thinker

My interest in leadership, how it works and how it fails, goes back a long way. Almost as soon as I learned how to read, history, particularly military history, has been a favorite of mine. Captains and kings, their triumphs and their downfalls, fascinated me. The eleven years I served with the Henrico Sheriff’s Office […]