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I don’t like process waste.
Who does? But how many of us really try to change processes to eliminate or reduce waste? In my experience this is a tough topic, and I dare say an unwelcome one, most of the time. The problem is that in an organization processes are tied to job existence and security. So the people in charge of setting the processes and administering them really don’t see the incentive to make adjustments.
I’m nearing my 20th year of software development experience, so I’ve observed and talked to many practitioners about software development process philosophies and techniques. Process waste starts to build when the people within the …Continue reading >>
This is about IT and Business alignment. I’m fortunate enough to have worked in two different functional areas of a business: IT and Marketing. I can say with 100% confidence that business owners and stakeholders of software releases should be more concerned and involved in the IT release management process. The typical release process covers areas such as requirements specification, feature prioritization, business case modeling, and go-live deployment communication. It’s a set of tasks intended to oversee the requirements, development, testing, and deployment of software releases. Sounds very IT, but it should be a shared business process.
Release management is about adding value. Release Management is also about how IT …Continue reading >>
What’s the goal of your organization? Do this. Ask executives in your business what the goal of the business is. Is it to make market leading products and services? Is it to make and serve customers? Or is it really to make money?
Eliyahu M. Goldratt writes in his book “The Goal” that the goal of the organization “is to increase net profit, while simultaneously increasing both ROI and cash flow, and that’s the equivalent of saying the goal is to make money.”
The business may be about making a particular product or service. But the root goal is to supply money to its stakeholders and employees.
Is there an …Continue reading >>
In my reading this week I came across a blog post from Tom Peters entitled Strategy: War on Systems. Tom talks about “systems” within an organization and while they are developed with good intentions, they often become inhibitors to achieving the organizational mission. I talk about this very subject quite a bit on my blog also. In fact while reviewing my notes for blog post ideas I found this entry:
“Software Development lessons learned (process is both friend and foe) – Software development friend and foe”.
This thought matches exactly with Tom’s thought about war on systems. Your software development process has steps that exist to produce output and serve …Continue reading >>
We’ve all been there. Something goes wrong and as a follow-up we look for the root cause and how to prevent it from happening again. More times than not, we solve this procedure by adding another step to an existing process. It’s almost automatic and we don’t think twice about amending a process because we are doing this in the name of quality.
STOP.
Let’s take a minute to think a little about this.
Adding process steps can have lasting consequences. Sometimes it ends up for the good and sometimes for the worse. Process designers, stakeholders, and managers should consider the full costs before taking action.
Potential Benefits of Adding …Continue reading >>
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