2020 will be a year we all remember for so many reasons. It has been a year full of uncertainty and confusion, and also one in which misconceptions abound. In the world of software engineering, we feel this acutely as all eyes are on the engineering team to continue building innovative new products and solutions—maintaining […]
CTOs Should Embrace, Stick to a No-Meeting Day
You know the feeling: You open your calendar in the morning to find a completely booked day, back-to-back meetings and not even 15 minutes of time to complete any of the items on your to-do list. In fact, your day tomorrow and the day after look just as booked. An HBR study conducted last year […]
How to Become a Great Engineering Manager
I wrote recently about the attributes of a 10x software engineer and a 20x one. Consequently, I received a few comments suggesting I create a similar list for engineering managers. I checked online and found a few articles, but none conveyed a full list in my mind. If you consider that software development efficiency has […]
Preventing the DevOps Dilemma
Clayton Christensen, in his bestseller, “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” first outlines how innovation occurs, and then why large incumbents often fail to recognize, leverage and invest in new innovations in their industries. What is interesting about his view is that failure isn’t directly correlated to simply not recognizing, or even adopting, new innovations, but rather that […]
Meet the Citizen Developer
Much has been written on the rise of citizen developers, but little about who they are and why they choose to do what they do The enterprise is always thirsty for new applications. More than ever, this thirst seems unquenchable. Consider a recent market analysis from Global Market Insights, which expects the enterprise application market […]
The Impact of Automation: Considering 3 Facts
I’ve been interested in the ramification of automation on human employment for a while now. My profession, IT, is bringing more automation to the planet every day. I would be irresponsible to not understand the ramifications of my work. Recently in my research I came across three facts that gave me pause. The facts are: […]
Increasing Your ‘Bionic Footprint’ with DevOps
“The Six Million Dollar Man” was a 1970s TV series. In the show, NASA astronaut Colonel Steve Austin is severely injured in a crash and is “rebuilt” with bionic features that enhance his strength, speed and vision beyond normal human capabilities. The main tagline was, “We can rebuild him, we have the technology.” I recently […]
Foster Creative Workers, not Assembly Lines
Why do we keep building assembly lines of creative people? Why do tech companies still structure their developer workforces around ideas invented during the industrial revolution over a century ago? It’s ignorant, lazy and, worst of all, it pisses everyone off. Most of these archaic ideas must die if we are to take fully enlightened advantage of the […]
5 Ways to Ensure IT Service Desk Agility
The agile approach is everywhere. Born in the software development world, agility means adaptive planning, ongoing development and continuous improvement. Rapid and flexible response to change is critical. It is not surprising that the best practices of agile software development penetrated into other areas, and IT service management (ITSM) is no exception. The Service Desk […]
Last-Mile DevOps: How to Keep Employees Happy
Chances are that your company is embracing DevOps to make sure you can get fresh, new digital capabilities to your customers ASAP. That’s because in today’s market, you either have to be first—or quickly close any gaps between you and your more digitally innovative competitors. But when it comes to getting new capabilities into the […]