So what issues do I typically find?

Dear reader,

It is not difficult to find challenges to work with in most companies, often you think that it is quite normal in small start-up, however even multinational companies can get you flabbergasted looking into the truth below the nice development process charts.

In my opinion the number one issues is always requirements. How do you make sure you have the right requirements or even have them written down somewhere? How do you impose change control of you requirements? How do you priorities requirements? How do you get the right input for the requirements from all important stake holders? I will write a lot about these issues in my coming posts. However, just to give you a preview, here are some of the issues I typically find:

• Requirements in all forms...


• Lack of quality control and good quality code measures (software Metrics)


• Lack of quality control and good quality code measures (software Metrics)


• Lack of 100% working development process or even no process


• Bad architecture


• Poor understanding of project management, project estimation and software complexity


• Lack of good steering for all development projects i.e. no steering committee on the right level of the company, or only obligations and not the right authority for people who drive projects


• Lack of commitment due to poor understanding of people management skills


• Lack of drive and commitment due to poorly connected company goals with individual goals


• Political games


• Line and projects not clearly separated


• Poor visibility or transparency on the status on ongoing development projects


• Lack of good customer support and handling sw bugs

This I s just the short list :-). However if you solve many of the above issues you are on your way to a much better future.
But remember in the end it does NOT help you if you can write fancy process or buy nice tools. The number one thing is to get everyone in you team onboard and actually implement and work according to the new ways of working and that is the most difficult task to achieve IMO.

Over and out for this time…

Step 1. Find out what is actually wrong!

Dear Reader,

If you are new or have had the CTO/VP engineering position for 10 years, it does not matter. You must start from square one. Of course it might be a bit easier if you are new at the job to do this, but do not fall into the trap that you know your organization, especially if you been on the job for sometime. You must get out from you room and start talking to all people in you organization. Start with your own organization and next inline is the organization who orders the products from development (for example product management or product planning). If you have product management or product planning in your organization, you have already found one problem right here :-), more about this in future posts (link).
Why talk to your people yourself? (NOTE: Do not fall into the trap getting a management consultant doing the job for you). Talking to your people yourself will give you at least three things.

1. You will hear and understand the feedback first hand (hence no whispering game, i.e. loss of data) and you can ask follow-up questions directly to fully understand what he/she says.


2. All employees want to be seen even more so if they have been seen by the boss or bosses boss etc. Even better if they also feel they have been heard. Do not underestimate the power of this…
   


3. And most importantly in 99% of the cases, they do not only know what is wrong, they will also know how to fix the problems in most cases

Do not fall into the trap of to many questions. Two simple questions is usually enough (you should of course not forget the “social part” of the meeting as well).

1. What things can we improve?


2. How would you go about to solve these issues?

If you do this simple first step you will have plenty to work with for the coming years…I once meet a manager that did this with more than 150 employees, he was a true inspiration and a fantastic leader.

Next post I will talk about what to do with the stuff you find…

Kind regards
Anders

Why?

Dear Reader,

You should always ask yourself why you do something? In my case it is simple. I have worked for many different companies big and small over the last 15 years and I have yet to see any company that uses its full potential. On the contrary many times I have been surprised how badly they have been run. I now feel I have found at least parts of the holy grail of software development and I want to share my findings and also get feedback from others in the same situation. There is of course not ONE solution for all companies. But I will show you in this blog a structured way of finding your challenges and most of the solutions/answers to them both soft and hard.

All feedback are welcome!

Happy Reading

Anders Storm