Category: Software Engineering

Effective requirements engineering

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A traditional view of requirements from systems engineering.

Everyone should have effective requirements engineering. Everyone should have efficient requirements management. It would be nice to have a way to know that your work with requirements is well spent. The question is more easily asked than answered.

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Tech debt and duct tape

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Tech debt cannot be fixed with duct tape. Fixing your technical debt with duct tape only makes it worse. I’ve written earlier that tech debt needs to be managed carefully or it will overwhelm you. Below, you will find a video where I and Joakim Lindbom discuss tech debt with Casimir Artmann.
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Black hat innovation

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A black keyboard, the favourite tool for black hat innovation

Sometimes, it might seem as if black hat innovation out paces white hat innovation. Whenever there is innovation or invention there is also misuse. As a colleague once put it: “where there is encryption, there is also decryption”.

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Legacy systems, a definition

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Legacy systems come in many forms, here a Data I/O Model 29B

When we want to replace software systems, we often start calling them legacy systems. Sometimes we call legacy after we have made the decision to switch. Sometimes legacy is used as a pejorative to precipitate change. Keep reading for a discussion on a definition of legacy systems.

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Switcher’s curse and legacy decisions

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These dolls have been cursed with switcher's curse maybe.

Switcher’s curse is about conservatism in a world of constant change. There are many fallacies and biases which cause us to stick to legacy decisions. Switcher’s curse is a a fallacy that causes us to switch when we should stay. Keep reading about the challenges of legacy and how to…

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18 top agile practices

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Haitian vodou altar - embodying top practices

Big ideas are dangerous. Something worked somewhere some when but it will not work everywhere and always. Teams and companies are likely to pick some agile practices while they disregard others. Keep reading for a list of the most agile sectors and the most common agile practices.

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Worthless ideas and valuable innovation

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Ideas as lightbulbs. How much are they worth?

Information is so durable that not even a black hole can destroy it. So what happens with a ubiquitous commodity that is more durable than even space itself? It quickly becomes worthless, even worse than worthless. Consider ideas: no sooner do people come up with ideas than they try to…

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I need help with home automation IoT

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Today, I am starting on a new project. I am going to automate my hen-house and I need your help to do it. I have never really been a gadget person. I have used the same personal computer at home since I built it from spare parts in 2003. I don’t own a tablet or a smart watch. I chop my wood with an axe, not a machine. It’s not that I don’t like gadgets, I just don’t see the business case. Continue reading

Start managing your risks

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Golden Stairway - Cathedral of Burgos

We all want to be better at what we do, so we climb the stairs of maturity, but sometimes the steps don’t need to new levels of quality and productivity. What are the factors that hold us back from gaining higher and higher levels of success?

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Mob programming – with Woody Zuill

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Whenever we have urgent, complex work we sit down and do it together. In our every day work, we make do with occasional meetings. Why do daily scrums when you can do day long scrums? That is how I understand mob programming, but that is not why Woody Zuill and his team started with it. Continue reading