Professionalism
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.
Teaching CS 428 (Software Engineering) at BYU

This (Winter 2017) semester, I am teaching Computer Science 428 — “Software Engineering” — for the Brigham Young University Computer Science department. I am actually taking over this class from Dr. Charles “Chuck” Knutson, who was one of my students 30 years ago when I previously taught for BYU. I’m going to do a bit […]
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 […]
The 5 books every IT manager should read right now

In a prior post I talked about setting up a reading program for your IT department. However, whether or not you can get your IT engineers to read, you yourself need to be aware of the fundamental realities of IT project management and software engineer that have been discovered again and again. In other words, […]