Articles
CS 428 – Winter 2019 – Webster #02 readings
In-class lecture (02/04/19) on the Webster #02 set of readings for CS 428: How to Retain IT Talent with Goal Alignment Remember Conway’s Law Controlling IT Costs: Using a Maintenance Architect Negotiations and Lovesongs Class slides are here.
CS 428 – Winter 2019 – Webster #01 readings
In-class lecture on three of my blog posts on software engineering: The Real Software Crisis — an article published in BYTE (January, 1996) The Wetware Crisis: TEPES — A follow-up post written in 2008 The Wetware Crisis: The Dead Sea Effect — How IT organizations can go bad
Displacing entrenched technology
Successful technology — and I’m using the term broadly here, not just limiting myself to digital tech — has a propensity to entrench itself and then become very hard to displace, at least directly. A classic example is the internal combustion automobile (which I’ll call the “gas auto” for shorthand). Commercial production started over 130 […]
Overdoing the perks in IT
Rachel Feintzeig at the New York Times has an interesting piece on how the perk-rich environment of Silicon Valley is causing problems for non-SV companies: Years ago, it was just Silicon Valley firms that vied to outdo one other on perks, but as more companies go on the hunt for skilled workers to power their technology, […]
Keeping a strong IT staff despite layoffs
Two previous posts have talked about conducting triage on your IT projects and what you should do in shutting down those projects that don’t make the cut.. Now, what about your IT staff? Having been on both sides of employee layoffs, I can tell you that they are not any fun for anyone involved. This […]