Product development
Septic code: why some large IT projects never go into production
A common pattern in the failure of large IT software projects is “the Never-Ending Story”, which I described back in 2000 (PDF) as follows: The client contracts with the manufacturer to develop and install a system. The project starts. The completion date slips. It keeps slipping. Each time the adjusted delivery date approaches, the project slips […]
Active risk management: doing IT projects wrong
IT projects are typically full of risks. There can be many human factors, many external factors, and many unknown factors, all of which can interact in unexpected ways. Because of that, it is critical that you actively identify, track and manage those risks. But to do that means that you have to be willing to […]
Do not defer the difficult in IT projects
When an IT project starts, those involved — both managers and developers — want to feel that they’re making progress. They also want to demonstrate that progress to those above them in the organization. So there is a very natural, very human tendency to concentrate on the easiest tasks, the “low-hanging fruit” that can be […]
The Gartner Hype Cycle, 2013
Barry Ritholtz, over at the always-worth-reading The Big Picture, posts the latest “hype cycle” from Gartner and where current proposed/emerging/developing technologies stand. I wasn’t familiar with Gartner’s stages of hype (as shown along the bottom of the chart), but they’re very useful. The overall concept meshes well with an article I wrote back in 2009 for […]
Distributed Development (Part II)
In Part I, I talked about all the challenges that surface when you attempt distributed software development, that is, having an IT project team being spread out over a wide geographical area. Simply put, it’s tough to do well, if at all, for a variety of reasons, including problems with communications among developers, maintaining conceptual […]