Author Archive: bfwebster
Webster is Principal and Founder at at Bruce F. Webster & Associates, as well as an Adjunct Professor for the BYU Computer Science Department. He works with organizations to help them with troubled or failed information technology (IT) projects. He has also worked in several dozen legal cases as a consultant and as a testifying expert, both in the United States and Japan. He can be reached at 303.502.4141 or at bwebster@bfwa.com.
The Wetware Crisis: the Dead Sea effect
[Updated (09/12/13): Fixed or removed some broken links; updated some others.] [Updated (06/16/08): Here’s a real-world project review memo, written several years ago, that described (among many other things) the Dead Sea effect.] [Note: some of you have asked about the Cutter IT Journal article that Ruby Raley and I wrote. It’s now online here […]
The Art of ‘Ware (V 2.0, maxim 2:6): managing resources and talent
[From The Art of ‘Ware (Version 2.0) by Bruce F. Webster (forthcoming), Chapter 2, “Supporting Development”] When funds are exhausted, then money is raised under pressure. Control is lost and equity surrendered to supply the needed resources. One of life’s great ironies is that the worst time to raise money is when you really need […]
The Art of ‘Ware (V 2.0, maxim 2:5): scarce talent in key technologies
[Welcome to all the folks coming in from Reddit! You can download for free a complete (and earlier) draft copy of The Art of ‘Ware (Version 2.0) [PDF] if you’re interested. Also, comments and criticisms are actively solicited for this and the other maxim-by-maxim postings.] ============================================= [From The Art of ‘Ware (Version 2.0) by Bruce […]
The Art of ‘Ware (V 2.0, maxim 2:4): prolonged development
[From The Art of ‘Ware (Version 2.0) by Bruce F. Webster (forthcoming), Chapter 2, “Supporting Development”] When a company is drained by competition, it is because product development and marketing have taken too long. Prolonged development cripples the company. Developers can typically sustain a high level of energy for 18 to 36 months, depending on […]
The Art of ‘Ware (V 2.0, maxim 2:3): financing and hiring
[From The Art of ‘Ware (Version 2.0) by Bruce F. Webster (forthcoming), Chapter 2, “Supporting Development”] Those who handle product development skillfully don’t build engineering teams twice, nor raise capital three times. Building product development teams twice means having to replace the original engineers with new ones in the order to complete the product. There […]