Better ROI from Software Development

In this episode I wanted to continue the conversation on Learning.

In my last episode I talked about why Learning is so important to me personally.

In this episode, I want to move onto talking about Organisational Learning.

In this episode I wanted to start talking about learning. Learning is one of the singularly overlooked concepts in running a business. 

I believe every business is a technology business.  For a business to thrive in the modern world it must be able to adapt and change rapidly. 

That ability for a business to adapt and change quickly, comes down to how well the organisation learns

And when I say organisation, I actually mean every part of that organisation - be that an individual right the way through the organisation as a whole. 

So in this episode I'm going to talk abut why learning is so important to me.

Over the current few episodes I am introducing a number of technologies from modern Software Delivery.

These are:

There are "hot" technologies within Software Development at the moment.

They are helping Software Teams:

These are technologies that your Development Team may want to use or may even be using.

In episode 40, I explained Virtualisation; a technology that makes the other possible.

In episode 41, I introduced Containers and the Docker Container format - a technology that allow us to achieve greater ROI from our physical servers, improves our developer productivity and increase access to the tools they need.

In episode 42, I introduced Container Orchestrators and Kubernetes; a technology for running complex containers based solutions; helping us to:

In this episode I will move onto the Serverless technology.

I will also close out this little series on "hot" technologies, by talking about them in the Cloud and the future of these technologies as I foresee it.

Over the current few episodes I am introducing a number of technologies from modern Software Delivery.

These are:

There are "hot" technologies within Software Development at the moment.

They are helping Software Teams:

These are technologies that your Development Team may want to use or may even be using.

In episode 40, I explained Virtualisation; a technology that makes the other possible.

In episode 41, I introduced Containers and the Docker Container format - a technology that allow us to achieve greater ROI from our physical servers, improves our developer productivity and increase simplicity to access the tools they need,

Towards the end of that episode I talked about how containers and the Microservice architecture from episode 17 are logical bed fellows and are gaining huge industry adoption.

The downside to this however is a level of complexity brought by having so many small "parts" to manage.

While it is considerably easier to think about and develop at a small scale ... Linking them together correctly brings additional overheads to the big monolith on a single server setup.

To make this practical we need a Container Orchestrator - the subject of todays episode.

Over the next few episodes I want to introduce a number of technologies from modern Software Delivery.

These are:

There are "hot" technologies within Software Development at the moment.

They are helping Software Teams:

These are technologies that your Development Team may want to use or may even be using.

In the last episode I explained Virtualisation; a technology that makes the other possible.

In this episode I will introduce Containers and the Docker Container format - possibly one of the most useful advancements in recent years in providing repeatable and reliable software distribution.

Over the next few episodes I want to introduce a number of technologies from modern Software Delivery.

These are:

There are "hot" technologies with Software Development at the moment.

They are helping Software Teams:

These are technologies that your Development Team may want to use or may even be using.

Over the next few episodes I will be giving an overview of what the technology is, how they help with ROI and why your Development Team maybe trying to convince you that they are a good idea.

In this first episode, I want to explain Virtualisation.

A technology that makes those others possible.

I find that quite often business owners and leaders desire a level of predictability that isn't being achieved by their software development teams.

The want reliable costs and timelines for the delivery of software. But the software development teams fail to achieve them.

In this episode I will discuss that, to improve that predictability, you need to ask your teams to do less.

I will also question if that desire for predictability is even an appropriate goal when talking about getting better ROI from your software development.

I'm recording this on Tuesday the 21st May 2020.

At this point, in the UK, we have been under lock down for 4 weeks.

UK rules discourage person to person interactions as much as possible.

While we are able to leave our homes for work, shopping and daily exercise, we are encourage to minimise this as much as possible.

Where they can, businesses are being encouraged to work from home.

In this episode I wanted to talk about helping your staff with phycological safety and motivation.

This episode will mostly focus on supporting those that have suddenly found themselves unexpectedly working from home.

Most of the of the advice however is universally.

I find that many organisations have a myopic over focus on the immediate term.

This over focus drives poor return on investment over the longer term.

In this episode I revisit the analogy of technical debt and how this is related to an over focus on the immediate.

I will also pull from the three horizons example from the book The Alchemy of Growth on a way of avoiding that over focus.

Over the last 10 episodes I've been focused on recruitment.

I had originally planned to finish that mini-series two episodes back; but then I gave you a bonus episode last week on the best hire you can make.

I recently came across a question online, and it fitted so perfectly with the recruitment series that I couldn't resist adding another episode to the mini-series.

In this episode, I look at feedback.