Mostly about people and software development
Recently I ve been thinking again about how we divide up work, and the choices between tackling it in horizontal or vertical slices. To recap, delivering in vertical slices is when Continue reading Horizontal vs vertical slicing
The other day I found myself reading about Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus, two UK infosec standards, and was struck by the clearly stated difference between them. Cyber Essentials Continue reading Aligning policy with reality
As individuals and as teams, we sometimes say we want autonomy. But all things are on a spectrum, and autonomy is no exception. So it s not a question of whether Continue reading Autonomy, context and capability
An old friend and former colleague and I were recently talking about SAFe, the scaled agile framework, and he asked me about a big project we d both worked on many Continue reading The success of a simple process
Last week I talked about a time when the Facilities team in an organisation where I worked blocked the use of wheelie whiteboards to allow our tech teams to see Continue reading Joining up functions for success
I often work with teams that know that some particular thing should happen in or around their work, which needs the support of others, and they can t get traction on Continue reading Knowing versus convincing
A short time ago I attended a presentation in which Dennis Stevens was saying that an organisation s strategy should be self-revealing . That is, the strategy should be designed to provide Continue reading Strategies with steering mechanisms
One of the challenges with software development is that the code tends to grow beyond the initial capacity of the team. The team builds more and more code over time, Continue reading Measuring team-product cohesion
Every so often we need to make a technology choice. This might be a database or a development framework or a design pattern or something else. Sometimes people think we Continue reading Choose technology in context
Digital product people are used to the concept of technical debt. These are (typically conscious) decisions to take a technical shortcut, knowing it s incredibly helpful now but will be increasingly Continue reading Small organisational decisions that last