Software Project Leadership

https://spl.drwill.co/teams

What does a productive, gelled development team look like?  What does any productive, gelled team look like?

They say you don’t know what you don’t know.  It is true; not only don’t you know it, but you can’t know it.  It is that ontological risk quadrant we discussed last time.

Find it here
https://www.amazon.com/What-You-Dont-Know-Successfully-ebook/dp/B0B7C4L2Y2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1TLAIXYTU58JC&

Whether something exists and whether something is known are two different questions.

Formally, ontology is the study of existence … and epistemology is the study of knowledge.  You are probably wondering why software leaders would possibly need to know those terms … or even care whether they exist at all?  (See what I did there?)

So, what would you do – or how would you feel – if you realized that the software you had helped develop was responsible – at least in part – for the loss of 346 lives?

The latest security problem reported on the Apple M1 chip – PACMAN – is buried deep within the hardware.  And, no, it cannot be fixed in software. 

https://spl.drwill.co/maintenance

If you have ever had to maintain somebody else’s code … without documentation … especially code that is idiosyncratic and poorly designed – or not designed at all – well, you probably ended up rewriting most of it.

https://spl.drwill.co/maintenance

The three areas of concern when it comes to maintainable software: the documentation, the code, and the implementation.  First, the documentation.

https://spl.drwill.co/maintenance

Successful software gets changed. It also tends to hang around for a very long time. But crafting software that will be easy to maintain is usually not considered very much by the development team.

https://spl.drwill.co/maintenance

Every software system that is remotely successful will have to be “maintained.”  Why is that such an expensive proposition?  What can be done about it?

The five degrees of initiative a manager or leader exercises relative to the “boss” and the “system” and that subordinates exercise relative to you.  Also, the rules of monkey management.