Tag Archives: programming

Learn to Code to Help Your Career

Posted on February 22, 2012 by John Hunter

I believe there are big benefits to knowing how to code (programing, software development). What is possible for your organization is often significantly impacted by understanding how to properly use software (and create it, coding, when needed). The lack of understanding of software is a significant problem not just for those wanting a job coding (that are available for those with the right skills) but also for those making decisions about what the organization should do. The profound ignorance (meant … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Creativity, IT, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Avoiding Tragedy of the Commons for Software Development

Posted on June 15, 2011 by John Hunter

Kanban and Tragedy of the Commons The “Tragedy of the Commons” archetype often manifests itself through “Shared Services”, when a small number of people with specific skills, work across different teams. Each team in isolation gets benefit from the Shared Service, but when demand for the service exceeds its capacity, then nobody benefits. At a smaller scale, a team with a low “bus factor”, or a hero, can also suffer from a tragedy of the commons, when too much work … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Assigning Story Points to Bug Fixes

Posted on January 27, 2011 by John Hunter

Agile software development has teams estimate the effort to deliver requests from the product owner. The estimates are done in points (in order to abstract away from hours – as estimates have plenty of variation in how long they will really take). Then the teams capacity (velocity) is determined based on looking at how many points they complete in a “sprint” (a set length, often 2 weeks). Then the product owner can prioritize all of the requests with an understanding … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Quality tools, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Managing to Test Result Instead of Customer Value

Posted on October 19, 2009 by John Hunter

Computer hardware and software creators use benchmarks as one tool to compare the performance of alternative products. At times this can be very useful. You can learn what software of hardware is faster and that may be a very valuable factor. However, any measure is determined by the operational definitions used in collecting the measure. And if people have incentives to improve the measured number they often will do just that (improving the measure) rather than improving the system (the … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, IT, Management, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Understanding How to Manage Geeks

Posted on September 12, 2009 by John Hunter

The unspoken truth about managing geeks [the broken link was removed] by Jeff Ello IT pros are sensitive to logic — that’s what you pay them for. When things don’t add up, they are prone to express their opinions on the matter, and the level of response will be proportional to the absurdity of the event. The more things that occur that make no sense, the more cynical IT pros will become… Presuming this is a trait that must be … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Psychology, Respect, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Three Years of Real-World IT Projects In Ruby

Posted on July 16, 2009 by John Hunter

Nice webcast by Martin Fowler, Three Years of Real-World Ruby. This talk is probably only of interest to those of you in software development, but for them I think it is an excellent presentation. At work we have been use Ruby for the last 3 years and have found it to be a powerful language that helps make writing software applications fun. And that is important. By providing a powerful language and a rails framework that takes away much of … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Software Development, webcast | Tagged , , , , , ,

The Importance of Making Problems Visible

Posted on April 2, 2009 by John Hunter

Great, short, presentation webcast by Jason Yip showing the importance of making problems visible. Anyone interested in software development should watch this, and it is valuable for everyone else, also. Great visuals. Related: Future Directions for Agile Management – Agile Software Development Slideshow – Leading Lean: Missed Opportunity – Information Technology and Management – Curious Cat Micro-financiers – posts on project management – Toyota Institute for Managers

Posted in IT, Lean thinking, Management, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

What to Wear to an Interview

Posted on January 3, 2009 by John Hunter

Response to What to Wear for an IT Job Interview?. Is this just a huge bit stereotypical? Who can blame them for not wanting to bother with their wardrobes? Fashion is fickle. Fashion is expensive. Fashion requires imagination and inspiration, and let’s face it, after a long day spent debugging code or trouble-shooting computer problems, there’s not a lot of creativity left for clothing. But if there’s one professional occasion when a tech worker should think fashion first, it’s the … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, IT, Psychology, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

A Programmer’s View of the Universe

Posted on December 29, 2008 by John Hunter

A few weeks ago I wrote about integrating information technology and business process management. This post from Steve Yegge is interesting and discusses one reason I find that a good strategy. Programmers, by and large, are good, practical systems thinkers (this is in the management context, thinking of inter-related systems, whatever those systems are – not to be confused with a computer system). A programmer’s view of the Universe, part 1: The fish The first thing you notice as a … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Management, Respect, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

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 within the last 0 days * may not be one of 3 previously used access codes * must not repeat the same character more than 0 times * must not contain 0 characters from previous access code * must contain … Continue reading →

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

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 of individual contributions and good teamwork is key to the project. Most individual compensation schemes, according to the presentation, absorb vast amounts of management time and resources and leave nobody happy, but team compensation strategies are not easy to implement. … Continue reading →

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

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 like and don’t like to do. I’ve learn what pieces of business I’m interested in and the pieces I don’t care much for. I’ve developed some really good working relationships. I’ve tackled some hard problems. I’ve learned to respond and … Continue reading →

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

10x Productivity Difference in Software Development

Posted on April 2, 2008 by John Hunter

10x Software Development The original study that found huge variations in individual programming productivity was conducted in the late 1960s by Sackman, Erikson, and Grant (1968). They studied professional programmers with an average of 7 years’ experience and found that the ratio of initial coding time between the best and worst programmers was about 20 to 1; the ratio of debugging times over 25 to 1; of program size 5 to 1; and of program execution speed about 10 to … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Performance Appraisal, Software Development | Tagged | 5 Comments

Lean, Toyota and Deming for Software Development

Posted on December 2, 2007 by John Hunter

Mary Poppendieck on The Role of Leadership in Software Development, very nice 90 minute webcast: In this 90-minute talk from the Agile2007 conference, Lean software thought leader Mary Poppendieck reviewed 20th century management theories, including Toyota and Deming, and went on to talk about “the matrix problem”, alignment, waste cutting, planning and standards. She closed by addressing the role of measurement: “cash flow thinking” over “balance sheet thinking”. via, Leadership is not Obsolete for Self-Organizing Teams! Once again Mary provides … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, IT, Lean thinking, Management, Software Development, Toyota Production System (TPS), webcast | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Joy in Work – Software Development

Posted on November 25, 2007 by John Hunter

The wonderful cartoon in this link illustrates the all too common despair in work. Software programmers are more likely to really enjoy what they do. There are many reasons for this not the least of which is that they have a fair amount of control over their careers. If they don’t like what they are asked to do, the tools they are asked to work with… they will (more than others) leave for another job. Some managers get frustrated that … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, IT, Management, Psychology, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , | 11 Comments

IT Operations as a Competitive Advantage

Posted on October 26, 2007 by John Hunter

Operations is a competitive advantage… (Secret Sauce for Startups!) The example above is the tale of two Web 2.0 startups scaling to 20 systems during their first three months. The first team starts writing software and installing systems as they go, waiting to deal with the “ops stuff” until they have an “ops person”. The second team dedicates someone to infrastructure for the first few weeks and ramps up from there. They won’t need to hire an “ops person” for … Continue reading →

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