Technology works best when it is focused on business solutions
 

Keeping The Agile Development Approach Flexible and Increasing Velocity

The Agile development approach is a hot topic and has been for a while.  Although it is adopted in a lot of shops and well-documented, there are still some issues with it.  The way we implement the Agile approach can defeat the purpose of a flexible model that allows a high velocity of production.  That assumes you have enough resources to effectively do more than one thing at a time.  However, there are some ways to adjust your scrums and …

Incremental vs. All-in Change and Enhancement Strategies

Sooner or later we have to consider how to change our systems.  This situation can come from growth in business, changes in technology (or requirements), or systems that have aged poorly.  When we reach the point of deciding on a move we often have to decide on the incremental vs. all-in approach to achieve our goal.  There are times when one choice or the other is obvious.  However, I have found that we almost always have both of these options available.  …

Making the Most of The Implementation Phase

The amount of time spent on each step of the software development life cycle varies from project to project.  However, the implementation phase is always the most significant portion.  That means this is the area where projects can fail or succeed.  We can ace all of the other steps in the life cycle, and a mediocre implementation will wipe out all that good work. Balance The Effort In my experience, the most impact during implementation is to try for a …