Management
The Longest Yard: Reorganizing IT for Success
[This is an article that Ruby Raley and I co-authored and that was printed in the September 2006 issue of the Cutter IT Journal. Space was limited, so we had to be rather terse throughout. Ruby and I may well expand this to significantly greater length later, but for now, here’s the original article as […]
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 2:2): delayed release
[From The Art of ‘Ware (Version 2.0) by Bruce F. Webster (forthcoming), Chapter 2, “Supporting Development”] When you release a product, if success is slow in coming, you’ll face diminishing returns on product development and exhaustion among your engineers and marketers. It is enough of a challenge to sustain energy and excitement through the process […]
The Art of ‘Ware (V 2.0, maxim 1:3): preparing a company for success
[From The Art of ‘Ware (Version 2.0) by Bruce F. Webster (forthcoming), Chapter 1, “Starting Out”] By answering these seven questions, you can judge ahead of time how well the company will succeed: Does the board of directors have Tao?1 The common image is that the directors are only interested in the bottom line. But […]