In this episode, Ger Cloudt—author, trainer, and Software Quality Manager—joins our host Werner Heijstek, Senior Director at Software Improvement Group, to explore the complex role of technical debt in modern software development.They discuss why technical debt is inevitable and not always a bad thing. Sometimes, it’s a necessary trade-off to move fast. Other times, paying it down can boost productivity and reduce long-term costs.Learn how to spot the technical debt that matters, what makes it manageable, and why context is everything, in just over 30 minutes.Chapters00:00 – Trailer00:26 – Meet the guest: Ger Cloudt01:59 – What is technical debt, really?03:52 – Intentional vs. unintentional debt06:03 – Can you measure technical debt?07:06 – Impact on organizations: why it matters beyond the code09:31 – Productivity, roadmaps, and ROI of refactoring11:13 – Context is everything13:22 – Ownership and responsibility16:10 – Quality standards and making trade-offs19:02 – When technical debt is a good thing20:49 – Making technical issues visible to leadership22:47 – Why testing is more than functional checks25:04 – Why technical debt isn’t just “a developer problem”26:29 – Key takeaways on technical debt28:26 – What's new in the second edition of Ger's book?Learn more about how Software Improvement Group helps organizations take control of their technical debt and learn how you can uncover inefficiencies, identify risks, and benchmark your software portfolio against the competition–In just two weeks: https://www.softwareimprovementgroup....

As organizations adopt AI, they must balance innovation with responsibility. But what does that mean?

In part two of this two-part episode of our SIGNAL podcast, Rob van der Veer, Chief AI Officer at Software Improvement Group, is joined by Wouter-Bas van der Vegt, Global Data Protection Officer at Randstad, to discuss how the world’s largest talent company is leading the way in AI governance, compliance, and responsible innovation.

Check out part 1 here

Listen now and learn how to become AI ready.

Time stamps:

00:00 Trailer

00:33 Introduction: Part 1 recap

01:09 Assigning a multidisciplinary AI committee

02:27 Identifying relevant laws and regulations

03:31 Creating an inventory for applications of AI

09:45 Evaluating applications of AI

13:25 How to deal with bias

17:15 Data protection impact assessment and AI

18:48 The business risk of not using AI

20:43 The environmental and monetary costs of AI

22:34 AI skills atrophy

25: 16 AI Policies

26:32 Upskilling and establishing a learning organization

28:12 The final steps of the AI readiness guide

30:23: How ready is the world's workforce for AI?

32:00: Wrapping up

Download the free AI readiness guide or learn more about Randstad and AI here:

- Randstad AI principles

- Randstad AI equity

- ⁠⁠⁠⁠The labor market and AI⁠

- ⁠⁠⁠Randstad corporate governance

During the 'Evaluating applications of AI' chapter, Rob mentions the ⁠MIT risk repository⁠

As organizations adopt AI, they must balance innovation with responsibility.

But what does that mean? 

In part one of this two-part episode of our SIGNAL podcast, Rob van der Veer, Chief AI Officer at Software Improvement Group, is joined by Wouter-Bas van der Vegt, Global Data Protection Officer at Randstad, to discuss how the world’s largest talent company is leading the way in AI governance, compliance, and responsible innovation. 

Listen now and learn how to become AI ready. 

Timestamps

(00:00) Trailer

(00:33) Introduction

(01:57) Randstad and AI

(06:02) Randstad’s AI principles

(11:10) Balancing innovation and compliance

(16:20) AI risk assessment and the shift in perspective

(18:28) AI readiness Step 1: Board AI readiness

(24:41) AI readiness Step 2: Assigning roles and responsibilities

Download our free AI readiness guide

Learn more about Randstad and AI here:

• Randstad AI principles
• ⁠Randstad AI equity⁠
• The labor market and AI
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Randstad corporate governance

The SIGNAL podcast is brought to you by Software Improvement Group

Software Improvement Group (SIG) leads in traditional and AI software quality assurance. Empowering organizations to become more resilient and agile by guiding them to enhance their software quality and security through deep source code analysis and tailored, strategic advice.  

Sigrid® - its software assurance platform - leverages the world’s largest database containing over 300 billion lines of code across more than 20,000 systems and 300+ technologies, and intelligently recommends the most crucial initiatives for organizations. SIG complies with multiple ISO/IEC standards, including ISO/IEC 27001 and 17025, and has co-developed ISO/IEC 5338, the new global standard for AI lifecycle management.   

SIG was founded in 2000 and has offices in New York, Copenhagen, Brussels, and Frankfurt, and is headquartered in Amsterdam.    

Sigrid®, together with expert software engineering consultants, and over 25 years of industry-leading research, position SIG as the foremost authority on software excellence.   

For more information visit our website: http://softwareimprovementgroup.com/

As businesses embrace AI to boost efficiency and innovation in software development, a dangerous myth has emerged—the belief that we no longer need the human skills that have been automated.

In the very first episode of our new podcast series SIGNAL, Rob van der Veer, Senior Principal Expert AI at Software Improvement Group and co-author of multiple AI standards, is joined by socio-technical strategist Caitlin Begg, founder of Authentic Social, to discuss why this belief is not only flawed but also a critical risk to long-term organizational success.

Listen now and find out the strategic dangers of over-reliance on AI and its impact on innovation and problem-solving.

Timestamps:
00:35 Introduction
02:23 The problem with AI skills atrophy
03:50 Why people tend to over-rely on AI
06:51 AI won't stop making mistakes - what to do?
08:03 Can we prevent AI overuse?
10:13 The prevalence of hallucination
12:10 The solution of maintaining active involvement
15:15 Guiding people in their behavior with AI
18:40 Conclusions

Links:

https://www.softwareimprovementgroup.com/

https://authsocial.com/