All last week I was out of the office on a business trip. Now usually when I travel like this, I basically write off the week as not really getting anything done. Instead I focus on what I’m traveling for, then just plan on catching up when I return to my desk. But this week […]
Let’s face it, if you’re in any sort of business today, you’re in the technology business. Whether you think it or not, technology is critical to your business. Information technology, software, social media marketing, business to business integration, it’s all technology. If that’s true, then we are all faced with a dilemma. Tech is an […]
What are some things that I’ve learned that really made my brain stretch? I’ve seen plenty of articles or essays written talking about what the basics are that every programmer should know. I’m not just talking about kernel authors, device drivers, or embedded microcontroller developers. I’m also talking about JavaScript or Python developers doing typical […]
Something I occasionally get asked is, “How do I promote up? I want to be a technical leader or manager so what do I need to do to get there?” There are lots of things that spring immediately to mind: be a mentor, help others succeed, be a problem-solver instead of a complainer. I also […]
There’s two trains of thought in the business world: that the manager needs to be technical and understand what’s happening on the team, or that the manager doesn’t need to be technical and it’s really just about process and metrics and general management skills. I can see the validity to both sides, but I think […]
There is a strategic problem I’ve been wrestling with lately. It’s really just a question, albeit a complicated one. But I have really looked far and wide and been unable to find any good answers to the question, or even many people addressing it or even thinking about it. So to understand the question, let’s […]
Security Doesn’t Have to be Hard Security. Even just hearing the word can make any IT engineer wince. In most big enterprise environments, when you think “security” you think about that compliance engineer who every month brings you a list of vulnerabilities they found that you need to fix by next month. Inevitably, some portion […]
A lot of people think that the best developer is the brilliant person who can crank out tons of bug free code. That person who can sit by themselves, come up with amazing algorithms and solutions to problems, and then get all that code deployed and working. In a lot of cases this is correct, […]
Who really likes meetings? I mean, I’m sure some people do, somewhere. But it seems like a lot of people don’t. So many don’t, in fact, that Scrum and Sprints are designed to minimize meetings. But let’s look at the Agile Manifesto. It says, “We favor…” Individuals and interactions Customer collaboration Responding to change In […]
You can have fixed time and variable scope, or variable time and fixed scope, but a product owner can’t pick both. Lately, I’ve heard this quote several times. At first, it makes sense. A product owner/stakeholder can either tell the team the requirements, and the team can then define the schedule. Or the product owner […]
Knuggets of Knowledge 