The game of Marco Polo comes back to me from my childhood. I remember being blindfolded and reliant on auditory cues to catch another player. I’d run around shouting “Marco” and then chase the obligatory “Polo”. Given enough time I’d catch someone and they would take their turn being Marco. The game is entertaining because everyone is constantly moving, by…
Features Don’t Need To Be Forever
I recently purchased a kitchen timer. I smirked as I read a description of the last feature: Calendar displays day and date to the year 2099 This has to be the boldest display of a limitation I’ve encountered. Immediately the following questions came to mind: Will I be alive in 2100? Probably not. Will the timer survive 85 years? Probably…
Why We Should Know Our Customer’s Customer
Customer interactions are often kept far away from IT staff. Demand for IT to deliver value directly to customers is changing that. As our staff begins to interact with our customers they’ll start building rapport. Over enough time this rapport can mature into a profound trust. Customers will open up to having staff interact directly with their customers. This new…
5 Steps To Effective Customer / IT Staff Interaction To Delight Customers
Organizational demand for IT departments to contribute value directly to customers is at an all time high. Many organizations are interfacing IT staff directly with customers. There’s tremendous opportunity in this synergy. But under the wrong circumstances this interaction will be nothing but a burden that decreases the organization’s ability to provide value. The following five steps are the foundation…
The Value of Consistently Formatted Code
Maintainable systems are crafted via many practices, one of which is readable code. In this video I connect the conceptual and technical aspects of effectively attaining consistenly formatted code to significantly boost readability and thus maintainability.
Empower Engineers To Decide
I kid you not this is how almost all software development plans are created. Watch the video… The Expert, A Hilarious Sketch About the Pain of Being the Only Engineer in a Business Meeting Ask yourself: Are you developing software this way? Then, ask yourself: What’s the desired impact on the organization and how will 7 red lines accomplish it?…
Secrets To Successful Software: Software Is Not The Point!
When an organization or individual engages in solving a problem or achieving a goal by investing in software development it can feel like a completely foreign endeavor. For some it’s scary, for others it’s unfathomable, but at the end of the day everyone wants results. I’m going to let you in on a little secret, the most successful development endeavors…
Ditch the flashy portfolio
A portfolio by definition is “a large, thin, flat case for loose sheets of paper such as drawings or maps.” I see lots of these when evaluting the merits of leveraging someone’s expertise, especially graphic design expertise. It seems like the goal is to cram in as many images as possible as some tribute of quantity to indicate expertise. Many…
Stop Wasting Money on Training
The pace of change in our technology driven world is astounding. There are so many opportunities to revolutionize the way we do business. But effectively adopting change is no trivial matter. It’s very easy to become overwhelmed and feel left behind. To combat this, organizations engage in training to further the skills of their employees. This training traditionally comes in…
Wallowing In Ideas
Anyone involved in software development is keenly aware there’s never a shortage of ideas. Sometimes ideas are on the scale of a multi month development endeavor. Often they’re just a small tweak to existing software. The trouble is, ideas are customarily acted upon without a second thought. The waste is debilitating. Ideas alone are merely a possible course of action.…