Can accountability exist without authority?
The ubiquitous way of structuring companies is by nesting areas of responsibility. You introduce well-defined areas and problems, and assign them to people, so that each area or concern has exactly one person responsible for it.
Read more…The 3M Rule of management
Metrics and indicators are amazing when used appropriately. But problems arise when people either:
- Use metrics as targets. I wrote a post about this, so I’m not going to explain why this is the case again.
- Focus exclusively on things that can be measured, while neglecting things that cannot.
- Adopt metrics without understanding their context. I wrote a post about McKinsey’s software development productivity nonsense, so I’m not going to expand on this either.
- Don’t factor in any delays between inputs and outputs.
- Believe they need metrics in order to manage anything.
Today I want to challenge the last point, that you need metrics in order to manage anything.
Read more…Make the change easy, then make the easy change
“Make the change easy, then make the easy change”. Didn’t Kent Beck say that? He did, didn’t he? So why are we talking about this (again)? I just want to clarify a few things about this very good piece of advice.
Read more…It's time to put REST to rest
REST is still going strong these days, with many companies structuring their HTTP API based on its principles. And yet, I think that REST is a fundamental mistake, that it caused a lot of damage and pain, and that people should just stop creating RESTful HTTP APIs.
Read more…Why software development is hard
We always hear that software development is hard, and that a very high percentage of all software projects fail. But have you ever wondered why software development is so hard?
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