Category Archives: Software Development

Top Blogs for Software Development Managers

Posted on September 14, 2008 by John Hunter

I am happy to say our blog has been included in the Top 100 Blogs for Development Managers. The list of blogs is quite impressive, including blogs referenced here previously: Joel on Software (ranked 1st), Coding Horror (2nd), Seth Godin’s Blog (3rd), Paul Graham’s essays (4), Signal vs. Noise (40)… Continue reading →

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Future Directions for Agile Management

Posted on August 25, 2008 by John Hunter

Agile management (agile software development specifically) is something that makes a big difference in my work life. David Anderson consistently provides great ideas on agile management and he does so again in this 90 minute presentation on the future directions … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Innovation, IT, Lean thinking, Management, quote, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Gobbledygook

Posted on August 21, 2008 by John Hunter

How is this for Gobbledygook? Your home banking access code is expired! You must change your access code at this time. Your access code: * may be between 4 and 20 characters in length * must not have been changed … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management, Software Development | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Don’t Do What Your Users Say

Posted on August 11, 2008 by John Hunter

In, Don’t do what your users say [the broken link was removed], Hanford Lemoore, provides a nice illustration of why customer focus is important but must be done with care. in UI design it’s important to understand that what a … Continue reading →

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Individual Bonuses Are Bad Management

Posted on August 7, 2008 by John Hunter

Gojko Adzic provides a nice post on Mary Poppendieck’s presentation at Agile 2008 on bonus, compensation and motivation: Paying programmers: are bonuses bad and what to do about it? In software development, it is very hard to establish the effects … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, IT, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Respect, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Amazon S3 Failure Analysis

Posted on July 26, 2008 by John Hunter

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is a service providing web hosting. The cloud computing solution has been used by many organizations successfully. However the solution has experienced some problems including failing for much of the day on July 20th. Amazon … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, IT, Management, Software Development | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Some Good IT Business Ideas

Posted on July 22, 2008 by John Hunter

Paul Graham has some excellent ideas. I have written about some of them previously: Innovation Strategy, What Business Can Learn from Open Source and Google and Paul Graham’s Latest Essay. Y Combinator, which he founded, provides seed funding. Here are … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, IT, Software Development | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Find Joy and Success in Business

Posted on April 21, 2008 by John Hunter

David Heinemeier Hansson Talk [the broken link has been removed] at Startup School 2008 (Paul Graham‘s Y-combinator school). It is helpful to appreciate the importance of some simple ideas. Working on web focused businesses people often get carried away with … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Fun, Innovation, IT, Management, Psychology, Respect, Software Development | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

The Defect Black Market

Posted on April 18, 2008 by John Hunter

The Defect Black Market It all started a week before, when the CTO of Damon’s midsize warehousing and transportation company in Northern California announced an innovative program to motivate employees and boost the quality of their logistics software. For every … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, IT, Management, quote, Respect, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

A Programmers Take on Agile Software Development

Posted on April 6, 2008 by John Hunter

A Case for Agile: Benefits for a Programmer’s Career by Theodore Nguyen-Cao Through agile development, I’ve been able to deliver working software time and time again. I’ve been exposed to all different aspects of the business. I’ve learn what I … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Lean thinking, Management, Process improvement, Software Development | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments