Watch Out For That First Step

It’s a doozy. Agile bewildered the industry. Simple statements, borne from first principles shattered misconceptions about software development. Agile Frameworks consistently fail their stated purpose: deliver software faster. I realized the mismatch: Agile Frameworks do not employ agile. Agile Frameworks employ the failed management processes that have crippled software development projects since the 1960s. The […]

Janie Harris and Your Fun Per Unit Time

I had the best manager ever at SAIC. Her name was Janie Harris. She had little technical background and didn’t want any more. But she was the department head over three divisions worth of more than 400 scientists, engineers, and lawyers (odd collection) at the apex of her department. Janie didn’t want to impress you […]

What!? No resume?

I bought a Kaypro II in 1983 and used it in college. It ran on CP/M. That’s an operating system that isn’t DOS or Windows. In fact, there were no graphical interfaces in computers in 1983. The Kaypro II personal computer was a marvel and a miracle. It is how I started programming. My available […]

The Interview

Technical interviews fail because technical interviewers insist on turning them into challenges. The appointment is for 10:30. Tom, the VP of Something Very Important, Dick, the CIO, and Harry, Software Engineer III sit at the other side of the table when you arrive. They arranged a single chair opposite their side of the conference table. […]

Leadership

Everyone prattles on about software leadership. Everyone wants to find the leaders. Seminars promise to build leaders. This drivel mainly appeals to the MBA and the white-shirt crowd because it speaks to their outdated, counterproductive, absolutely attractive nonsense to “the management way” of doing things they learned by running production floors when managers prowled the […]