By bfwebster on Apr 16, 2008 in Books, Business, Development, Hiring, Main, Management, Marketing, Product development, Software engineering, Surviving Complexity | 1 Comment
[Copyright 2008 by Bruce F. Webster. All rights reserved. Adapted from Surviving Complexity (forthcoming).] Two disappointed believers, Two people playing the game. Negotiations and love songs Are often mistaken for one and the same. – “Train in the Distance”, Paul Simon I used to have arguments with Carol Teasley, one of my mentors, regarding software [...]
By bfwebster on Apr 15, 2008 in Development, Main, Management, Product development, Project Failure, Software engineering, Surviving Complexity | 15 Comments
[Copyright 2008 by Bruce F. Webster. All rights reserved. Adapted from Surviving Complexity (forthcoming).] A thermocline is a distinct temperature barrier between a surface layer of warmer water and the colder, deeper water underneath. It can exist in both lakes and oceans. A thermocline can prevent dissolved oxygen from getting to the lower layer and [...]
By bfwebster on Apr 11, 2008 in Hiring, Main, Management, Surviving Complexity | 83 Comments
[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.] [UPDATED (06/06/08): Ziff Davis has asked me to write a weekly "Surviving Complexity" column at their online Baseline website. My first column is here.] [Note: some of you have asked about the Cutter [...]
By bfwebster on Jan 10, 2008 in Books, Main, Surviving Complexity | 10 Comments
[Copyright 2008 by Bruce F. Webster. All rights reserved. Adapted from Surviving Complexity (forthcoming).] In my forthcoming book, Surviving Complexity, the very first section is called “The Wetware Crisis”. This is a greatly expanded look at a problem that I first discussed in print twelve years ago in the late, great BYTE Magazine, namely that [...]