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April 01, 2008
Pumped Up About the May 7th Summit Workshop
Just finished creating a brand new workshop that I 'm teaching at the upcoming Cutter Summit conference. The cool thing will be "gestalt-ish" role playing - the exercises put attendees into simulated roles with difficult choices. (Unlike the real world, heh heh.) Seriously, the case study scenario is an amalgam of real company situations from recent clients (names changed to protect the innocent). It's already about 3/4 full from advanced registrations.
It will be good therapy. Here's the write-up; if any of you good folks want to join in on the fun, click here. For those of you already registered, get ready :) Here are a few photos of our illustrious curator Tom DeMarco, Prof. Rogelio Oliva of (Mays Business School and before that Harvard Business School), and Ed Yourdon, from last year's Innovation conference. For a look at our entire photo album, click here.
How to Collect and Use Metrics in Agile Software Development Environments
If you're implementing or considering agile methods in your organization, how do compare productivity and quality against waterfall projects? Join Michael Mah to understand both agile and waterfall metrics, and how to communicate differences in the ways they behave to key decision makers.
In this tutorial you'll learn how to move from a project whiteboard to create project trendlines on productivity, time-to-market, and defects using your own data. Get an inside look at agile measurement by seeing this in action using real case studies. Learn how to replicate these techniques to make your own comparisons on time, cost, and quality. And discover how to leverage these methods to make the case for change with your management teams at your company.
During this hands-on session, you'll use your laptop to capture metrics and do productivity calculations. You'll be paired two-by-two, and together learn to use metrics data capture templates provided by Michael. As an added benefit, you will also be offered an option for follow-up project collection after the Summit, including one-on-one metrics calculations via webinar with Michael.
more...Continue reading "Pumped Up About the May 7th Summit Workshop"
Posted by Mike at 01:13 PM | Comments (0) |
« "Town Meeting" - Open Conversation on State-of-the-Art Agile | Main | Cutter Summt Conference, Cambridge MA May 5-7 »February 28, 2008
Town Meetings and Creating Community
Whew! The last couple of weeks have been crazy, and as always I feel grumpy when I don't get to fill folks in on this blog as often as I want to. Maybe there's a new psychological condition that I'm experiencing these days - blog guilt. (Something a recovering Catholic like me can work on...) Enough of the confessions... What's new? Well, I have to say that the Town Meeting webinar that I hosted - playing the "Charlie Rose" character to my fantastic guests, Mike Lunt of BMC Software and Kim Wheeler of Follett Software - was a smash hit.... more...Posted by Mike at 09:24 AM | Comments (0) |
« Webinar: Agile Productivity Findings - January 17th, 2008 | Main | Town Meetings and Creating Community »January 31, 2008
"Town Meeting" - Open Conversation on State-of-the-Art Agile
I'm a storyteller by heart, which is why I so enjoy the work that I do. Not only my own stories, but exciting stories about what other people have experienced in life and work, which I've been privileged to share with them as a consultant. My last Cutter webinar was about telling stories from 5 companies implementing Agile methods. Two in particular achieved remarkable results from their work; they are Follett Software in McHenry IL and BMC Software in Austin TX. That webinar along with another that I delivered on industry productivity patterns was among the highest attended in the... more...Posted by Mike at 03:03 PM | Comments (0) |
« Now Shipping! The Cutter/QSM Benchmark Almanac | Main | "Town Meeting" - Open Conversation on State-of-the-Art Agile »January 10, 2008
Webinar: Agile Productivity Findings - January 17th, 2008
Once again, through the good graces of Anne Mullaney, Group Publisher of Cutter Consortium, we're running a special re-broadcast of a webinar entitled, "Case Study: The Impact of Agile on Productivity at Five Companies." Although normally reserved for Cutter Consortium clients, Cutter is generously making this event "open-access" to QSM clients and OptimalFriction readers. This event was originally broadcast last Fall through the IT Metrics and Productivity Institute, and was among the highest attended sessions. I also presented some of the data at Software Quality Engineering's Agile Development Practices Conference in Orlando last December to a strong audience response. If... more...Posted by Mike at 11:47 AM | Comments (0) |
« I'm So Excited... | Main | Webinar: Agile Productivity Findings - January 17th, 2008 »December 20, 2007
Now Shipping! The Cutter/QSM Benchmark Almanac
Great news! The Cutter Consortium is now shipping the Cutter/QSM Benchmark Almanac: Application Development Series, 2007-2008 Edition, the result of an unprecedented joint collaboration featuring industry research by QSM on software development (derived on projects mined from the QSM worldwide database), and expert opinions by Cutter authors like Tom DeMarco, Tim Lister, Jim Highsmith, Jim Love, E.M. Bennetan and... yours truly. For me, it's personally gratifying to have been the editor of this report since I also wear two hats: being a managing partner of QSM Associates, as well as serving with Cutter as the director of the Benchmarking Practice.... more...Posted by Mike at 10:50 AM | Comments (0) |
« It's Snowing in the Northeast.... | Main | Now Shipping! The Cutter/QSM Benchmark Almanac »December 12, 2007
I'm So Excited...
... and I just can't hide it. I just spent a day with our internal QSM team in McLean VA where we brainstormed about our HOT new SLIM 7.0 Release, which we're gearing up for a market launch next quarter. Building upon Larry Putnam's pioneering research on software lifecycles, we've got a new architecture that is completely adaptable to measuring, estimating, and planning Agile development projects for the software industry. It's no surprise many organizations today are moving toward agile methods. Two burning questions for many organizations are 1) how to prove that these methods really work and 2) how... more...Posted by Mike at 01:54 AM | Comments (0) |
« Nov16th Webinar: Agile Productivity Levels at 5 Companies | Main | It's Snowing in the Northeast.... »November 14, 2007
Nov 15th Cutter Webinar - Invitation Only
I'm excited... I just finished a walkthrough with Anne Mullaney, Group Publisher of Cutter Consortium, on a special webinar that we're running Thu Nov 15th at 11:30 am - 12:30 pm entitled, "Compared to What? A Look at Application Development Metrics". It's normally "invitation only" to the Cutter Consortium community. Good news! Anne just told me that Cutter has agreed to allow us to make available special invitations to a select group of my clients and readers. We're going to feature highlights of the IT industry observations being published in the newly released "Cutter Benchmark Almanac, Application Development Series 2007-2008."...
Posted by Mike at 04:15 PM | Comments (0) |
« Global Rational Community Webinar Series - QSM | Main | Nov 15th Cutter Webinar - Invitation Only »Nov16th Webinar: Agile Productivity Levels at 5 Companies
Michael Milutis from Computer Aid Inc. emailed me a couple of days ago. He said that 180 people registered in just one day (a record) for a webinar that I'm presenting on Nov 16th entitled "Case Study: Agile Productivity Levels at 5 Companies." Total registrations are expected to exceed 500 (they're currently over 230). If any of you would like to join us, click here and sign up. Below is the abstract for the talk. See you there! And Happy Halloween :) [To read an interview that Michael published from our talk on "The State of IT Metrics Practice," click... more...Posted by Mike at 03:38 PM | Comments (0) |
« POPTech: Our Hawthorn Inn Gang | Main | Nov16th Webinar: Agile Productivity Levels at 5 Companies »November 02, 2007
Global Rational Community Webinar Series - QSM
Exciting News! On Wednesday November 7th at 12noon, there will be a Webinar on the integration of IBM's Rational Portfolio Manager and the QSM SLIM-Estimate model. It will be directed by two of the best in our business: Douglas Putnam and Larry Putnam Jr., managing partners of our QSM Inc. office in McLean VA. If you'd like to join us for the event, details are as below. Contact Sean Callaghan at QSM Associates to register. Date: 11/07/2007 Time: 12:00pm - 1:00pm (GMT-05:00) Eastern Standard Time (America/New_York) By: Global Rational Community(GRC) more...Posted by Mike at 02:46 PM | Comments (0) |
« Cutter Latin America - IT in Mexico is Alive and Well… | Main | POPTech Conference 2007 - "The Human Impact" »October 01, 2007
Is The World (Really) Flat?
This coming Wednesday Oct 3rd at 6pm, I'll be giving a talk at the Chicago SPIN about whether the "Flat World" according to author Thomas Friedman, is really flat when it comes to complex technology projects, especially those involving software. This presentation was really popular when I delivered it as a Keynote Address at the IT Association of Galway, Ireland a while back. Just for kicks, I plan to show data on Agile Development projects to juxtapose two of the powerful trends in technology today. I'm not saying that either is better or worse per-se, but they are strikingly different... more...Posted by Mike at 04:03 PM | Comments (0) |
« Agile Company #5 Is Revealed | Main | Is The World (Really) Flat? »September 28, 2007
Cutter Latin America - IT in Mexico is Alive and Well…
Whew! I just returned from a 2 city tour in Monterrey Mexico and Mexico City. It was a fantastic week teaching negotiation techniques for IT, to a diverse and energetic group of managers, executives, and CIOs in Mexico, provided by the Cutter Consortium Latin America. The event was part of a “Strategic IT Training Cycle" – 6 workshops conducted by the Cutter Consortium Latin America on issues that IT executives must be aware of in order to make IT a strategic resource for the organization. Cutter Consortium framed these workshops as critical skills for current and future CIOs. I found... more...Posted by Mike at 07:44 PM | Comments (0) |
« Agile Productivity Levels at 5 Companies | Main | Cutter Latin America - IT in Mexico is Alive and Well… »September 18, 2007
Agile Company #5 Is Revealed
The secret is out. After our productivity analysis of Agile methods at BMC Software, executives at the firm were so excited about the results that a press release was issued last week about the findings: Agile Excels at BMC, Programming Technique Provides Customers Higher Quality Products in Record Time SLIM Analysis Shows Agile Development Can Bring Positive Results for both Developers and the Bottom Line PITTSFIELD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--QSM Associates and the Cutter Consortium today announced unprecedented quality and productivity results for a major development initiative at BMC Software [NYSE: BMC]. Using QSM Inc.’s SLIM (Software Lifecycle Management) suite of benchmarking... more...Posted by Mike at 12:32 PM | Comments (0) |
« It's Hard Being a Consultant, and a Blogger... | Main | Agile Company #5 Is Revealed »August 10, 2007
Agile Productivity Levels at 5 Companies
In a previous post I talked about a client that wanted to know how their SCRUM projects compared against industry statistics in our QSM SLIM database, with regard to speed, staffing, productivity, and quality. I was very curious about what I’d find, because one thing that was unique about this organization was the sheer size of their SCRUM effort – almost 100 people on 7 or more SCRUM teams. Well, the numbers are in, and they are pretty astounding. We gathered the end-to-end elapsed time, the team size and resultant effort. That gave us schedule and effort/cost data. Next came... more...Posted by Mike at 07:26 PM | Comments (0) |
« Ken Orr on Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink" | Main | Agile Productivity Levels at 5 Companies »July 12, 2007
It's Hard Being a Consultant, and a Blogger...
...because when you're deeply engaged in projects for your clients, it's hard to come up for air to blog, knowing that there's, guess what? A deadline for your work :) (Plus, I have two teenage exchange students from Norway living with me this month. Spectacular kids they are ... and an amazing country that I have yet to visit.) So, put simply, I'm still here. Immersed in two projects: one involves a productivity analysis using our SLIM Model (and industry database) to pick out patterns on what is so far - the largest SCRUM project I've measured to date. Almost... more...Posted by Mike at 12:29 PM | Comments (0) |
« Formula 1 Racing in Montreal | Main | It's Hard Being a Consultant, and a Blogger... »June 21, 2007
Ken Orr on Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink"
This is from my friend and Cutter Consortium colleague Ken Orr: "I recently read the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. I had read pieces of his earlier book, The Tipping Point , and I also heard him on C-SPAN talking about his new book. Blink is about the instantaneous knowledge that we used to refer to as "intuition." In his book, Gladwell takes advantage of modern research into human intelligence. He begins with an interesting case. The incident has to do with a supposedly ancient Greek statute on which the Getty Museum performed extensive scientific due diligence and then purchased for US $10 million. Following the purchase, the museum invited a number of period experts to examine its new acquisition. One after another, the experts questioned the authenticity of the statue. The museum, though shaken, drew comfort in its detailed scientific study. But in the end, the experts were right and the scientists were wrong." more...Posted by Mike at 02:22 PM | Comments (0) |
« Five Questions About the Flat World | Main | Ken Orr on Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink" »June 09, 2007
Formula 1 Racing in Montreal
Montreal has the nicest people in the world. Maybe it’s because springtime has shaken off the winter blues for all of us northerners. I’m here collaborating with my good friend Tim Lister for a client. They have a huge project with a tight deadline, and the risks are high. We’ve got a strategy to help. Meanwhile – lucky me – it’s great to be here for work, but along the way I discovered that it’s also the weekend of the Canadian Grand Prix. All the world’s top Formula 1 race car teams have descended on this lovely cosmopolitan city –... more...Posted by Mike at 12:12 PM | Comments (0) |
« Easy As Implementing a Package … Part 2 | Main | Formula 1 Racing in Montreal »June 04, 2007
Five Questions About the Flat World
http://www.projectsatwork.com/content/articles/236756.cfm...The world may be flattening, but it’s also clustering, as I described in this interview that I gave for projectsatwork.com. In this, I make the case for the “energy synchronization” of co-located project teams, describe why creativity and outsourcing are difficult bedfellows, why adding staff often exacerbates problems on high-pressure projects, and how offshore, in-house and agile-led projects fare on defect rates. You can read the full text at the projectsatwork website, but I've also included the questions and answer section here. Enjoy!
==========================
Five Questions - Agile Methods and Outsourcing in a Flat World
Is the world really as “flat” as proponents of Thomas Friedman would have us believe?
Yes and no. It’s true that globalization has enabled all kinds of work to become decentralized and spread across the globe, with workers being split geographically across 2 or more continents.
But on the other hand, people around the world are “clustering” together more than ever before. Fifty percent of the world now lives in urban areas. There are “megacities” like Seoul, New York, Mumbai, Shanghai, and others that boast 20 million or more people.
There’s a reason for this, according to people like the Nobel-prize winning economist Robert Lucas and George Mason University professor Richard Florida. It has to do with the powerful productivity gains that come from the “energy synchronization” that occurs when teams of people are co-located. You can feel this yourself when you’re with an enthusiastic person, working together on a new idea. Creativity flows, your excitement feeds off of one another, often both in and outside of work, and it’s more fun.
So the world is flat, but it’s also “spiky,” with clusters of people around the world getting larger and larger as rural populations migrate to urban areas. It’s actually creating a crisis in the countryside in places like rural China.
In the world of technology, this is coming down to two forces at play – the continued outsourcing and offshoring of technology work, but with increasing competition from people arguing the case for work being done in-house, using methods like Agile software development. The former argues to split people up, and the latter aims to bring them closer together. My work involves measuring and managing the outcomes of both approaches.
What are the primary forces that are driving outsourcing?
One primary force: the lowering of costs by using cheaper labor. We’re seeing more “forced outsourcing” when it’s dictated by the executives like the CFO and not the head of engineering or product development. It seems less about accessing skilled talent overseas and more about cutting costs. There’s plenty of talented people right here in the USA and North America, but if they can't be hired at third-world wages, they're sometimes out.
However, recent studies reveal that actual cost savings might be shrinking, and that it’s smaller than we thought in the first place. A survey by the Cutter Consortium of about 100 organizations showed that a typical IT organization was outsourcing about one-fourth of its work. On that one-fourth, they’re labor costs are about 20 percent less on average. So the net savings is 20 percent of the “one-fourth slice,” which comes out to five percent. That’s not a lot at the end of the day.
And unfortunately, we’re seeing that it’s hard to coordinate work across multiple continents and time-zones. Many projects slip their dates, and experience higher defect rates in spite of good intentions. That drives up costs. Teams often find it difficult it is to communicate with one another “through a wire,” and it sometimes drives the outcome of the project.
Isn’t there credence to the idea of a “software factory?” I thought you could take IT work and “chunk it, routinize it, digitize it, automate it, and then offshore it?”
Yes, some routine cognitive tasks can be done this way. It appears much harder when expert thinking, creative problem solving, and complex communication is involved. Simple maintenance tasks fall into the former. Innovation and cutting-edge software development “inventions,” fall into the latter.
In the words of Rob Austin, professor at Harvard Business School, “The future belongs to those who can create new things.” That is innovation and it is creative and non-repetitive. (Things like YouTube, Skype, and even iTunes are basically “killer software apps.” Remember that term? They represented new things - incredible innovations that no one had heard of before, and they blew the top off of the box in their respective markets.)
In manufacturing, we know what to do and how to do it. We automate the process. If we want to double the output or halve the time, we add another assembly line or speed up the machines. That is a factory, and lower labor rates are relevant.
However, when it comes to things that require creative expert thinking and complex communication, this applies: To some extent we don’t know what to do or how to do it. We spend most of our time, not building the system, but figuring out what to build and how to build it, by talking to one another. And adding more staff can have negative rather than positive consequences, because of communication complexity.
The difficulty some companies are finding with outsourcing is that “talking to one another” piece. Compounding the problem is talking through a wire when you’re fresh and they’re tired because of vast distances and time-zones, or talking when you’re tired and they’re feeling fresh.
The idea of a software factory tries to force a cost-cutting Frederic Taylor manufacturing philosophy - into a creative economy, killer-app, innovation culture. It’s totally paradoxical, and while we don’t hear it used by name very much these days, in practice the idea is still out there in force.
In software, the idea of “finishing the requirements” and handing them over to low-cost factory coders in another country is extremely rare, if nonexistent. In truth, during the design and build phase, the requirements constantly churn, often requiring lots of complex communication and feedback loops. Agile methods by design are intended to meet this challenge head-on.
What is industry productivity data showing on projects that are offshored, versus those that use Agile methods?
We have statistics on several thousand IT projects right up to the present. We’ve seen productivity and quality patterns on in-house projects, offshore outsourced projects, and now, patterns on agile projects are emerging.
We are seeing similar productivity numbers. But not surprisingly, the defect patterns are different. When offshore projects experience that “talking to one another” problem I referred to earlier, the bug rates are higher. Sometimes 2x to 3x higher. When agile projects successfully execute a co-located team strategy, the defects rates are 20 to 50 percent lower.
Is it possible to successfully outsource to an offshore vendor who uses Agile methods?
That’s a real tough one to answer. Let’s think about it. By definition, an agile method like Extreme Programming (XP) means “co-located teams.” Offshoring, by definition means splitting teams, often across 2 or more continents and multiple time zones. If someone can make those two definitions co-exist simultaneously, it would be a remarkable accomplishment.
I’m not sure that it can follow the “Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup” recipe – you’ve got chocolate in my peanut butter, or peanut butter in my chocolate. Software engineering might be more complicated than taking two different flavors and mixing them up.
But we don’t have to worry about the answer – people are bound to try it, and if they do, we can measure it. A few companies that I’m working with are attempting it. Stay tuned, the results are bound to be intriguing.
Michael Mah
Continue reading "Five Questions About the Flat World"
Posted by Mike at 09:13 PM | Comments (0) |
« Cutter Summit 2007 – Tom DeMarco’s Wrap-up | Main | Five Questions About the Flat World »May 16, 2007
Easy As Implementing a Package … Part 2
In Part 1 of an article series (see the posting here), I described the productivity characteristics of large IT package implementations, including enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications. I took on this subject in response to an article by my fellow Cutter colleague Steve Andriole (" Sourcing Today and Tomorrow," Cutter Consortium - 15 February 2007), who said that many CIOs and CTOs are often extremely frustrated by cost and schedule overruns in projects like this. In worst-case scenarios, some have even lost their jobs. - There are several reasons why companies struggle greatly with project estimation when it comes to... more...Posted by Mike at 03:29 PM | Comments (0) |
« Cutter Summit 2007 – Lynne Ellyn; Is Innovation Relevant to IT? | Main | Easy As Implementing a Package … Part 2 »May 04, 2007
Cutter Summit 2007 – Tom DeMarco’s Wrap-up
Well, a moment many of us have been waiting for has arrived. Tom’s wrap-up of the conference is a time when we get to go on a guided tour of “connecting the dots” as seen through Tom’s lens. Seeing Tom prepare his index cards at the front of the stage blows me away; the man is a quintessential pro at pulling it all together and saying it with a clarity and cohesiveness that allows us to make sense of it all - with a twist - in one amazing hour. [This wrap up is giving me deja-vu from the years... more...Posted by Mike at 04:44 PM | Comments (0) |
« Cutter Summit 2007 – Paul Robertson; Art and Paradox of Leadership | Main | Cutter Summit 2007 – Tom DeMarco’s Wrap-up »May 03, 2007
Cutter Summit 2007 – Lynne Ellyn; Is Innovation Relevant to IT?
Lynne is VP and CIO at DTE Energy. She and I have enjoyed much of this conference sitting together in the back row, and she now takes the stage. Her IT operation is nearly 850 employees and is responsible for [get the stats from her slide]. In a nutshell, Lynne’s answer to this question is an unqualified yes, and she shows a timeline showing IT’s role in various industries over a 40 year period. Innovation has been there all along. Within DTE Energy, she cites examples like neural networks to optimize and forecast power demand, price analysis for electricity, and... more...Posted by Mike at 03:59 PM | Comments (0) |
« Cutter Summit 2007 - Volkswagen Case Study | Main | Cutter Summit 2007 – Lynne Ellyn; Is Innovation Relevant to IT? »May 02, 2007
Cutter Summit 2007 – Paul Robertson; Art and Paradox of Leadership
Paul Robertson leads us into this subject; fascinating that for 35 years he was Founder and Leader of the world-acclaimed Medici Quartet. As we were gathering to start the session, he treated us to wonderful melodies on the solo violin - Bach I believe. Along the lines of the theme “Pursuing Perfection,” he is guiding us through some music history. We are listening to him describe the master violinist Jascha Heifitz, now seeing some archival video of an actual performance. What an INNOVATIVE way of addressing the subject of leadership at a conference dedicated to the subject of innovation. It’s... more...Posted by Mike at 01:55 PM | Comments (0) |
« Cutter Summit 2007 – Rob Charette on Risk | Main | Cutter Summit 2007 – Paul Robertson; Art and Paradox of Leadership »May 01, 2007
Cutter Summit 2007 - Volkswagen Case Study
This afternoon is a treat here at the Summit. Prof. Rogelio Oliva is leading a fantastic Harvard Business School (HBS) like case study for our group, using a real world situation at Volkswagen of America. Rogelio was on the HBS faculty for Technology and Operations Management, and is now on the faculty at the Mays Business School. He has a PhD in Operations Management and System Dynamics from MIT. What a treat here! Rogelio is dynamic and fast-paced, and how he engages the audience makes everyone feel like they're sitting at HBS as fellow classmates. The case deals with real... more...Posted by Mike at 05:17 PM | Comments (0) |
« Cutter Summit 2007 - Stowe Boyd on Web 2.0 | Main | Cutter Summit 2007 - Volkswagen Case Study »Cutter Summit 2007 – Rob Charette on Risk
Rob Charette is going into an area that most people might not think about when they think of risk (which usually evokes feelings of worry). The UPSIDE of risk. It will be interesting to hear how he frames this conversation. Most people when they think about risk fathom the downside. Images that follow are photos of a hurricane, then a view above the clouds from the cockpit of an airplane. Rob is using a success case study of Rockwell Collins Avionics (disclosure: Rockwell had been a longtime client of QSM in the 1990s, using the SLIM suite of software estimation... more...Posted by Mike at 12:32 PM | Comments (0) |
« Cutter Summit 2007 - Rob Austin on Learning from Expert Innovators | Main | Cutter Summit 2007 – Rob Charette on Risk »April 30, 2007
Cutter Summit 2007 - Stowe Boyd on Web 2.0
Stowe Boyd is taking the stage on Web 2.0. He describes it as a very important revolution in the space of social apps that is itself transformative. He says that taking up blogging towers over everything else he has ever done in his career. It trumps his getting a degree in computer science, or all the years of working for large corporations. Being part of a large global network has been personally transformative for him. Stowe talks about social applications as being one of the most important things in industry. Innovation as iteration is the subject now. Innovation isn’t always... more...Posted by Mike at 03:02 PM | Comments (0) |
« Cutter Summit 2007 - Day 1 | Main | Cutter Summit 2007 - Stowe Boyd on Web 2.0 »Cutter Summit 2007 - Rob Austin on Learning from Expert Innovators
“The future belongs to those who know how to create new things.” - Rob Austin, Harvard Business School. At the opening keynote for the Cutter Summit 2007 conference, this tag line is what caught my eye in Rob Austin’s assertion for a Cutter Council Opinion entitled, “The Future of IT Value Creation in a Global Economy." Rob’s is taking the stage right now, and his keynote is on “Learning from Expert Innovators.” I always have loved Rob’s engaging style; it’s a great way to launch the Cutter Summit. Innovation is the theme of this year’s conference. He starts by saying... more...Posted by Mike at 09:30 AM | Comments (0) |
« More Thoughts on Ireland's Software Industry | Main | Cutter Summit 2007 - Rob Austin on Learning from Expert Innovators »Cutter Summit 2007 - Day 1
Well, here I am at the Cutter Summit once again, which promises to be a fantastic program on Innovation. The event is being held at the Royal Sonesta hotel in downtown Cambridge overlooking the Charles River with the Boston skyline in all its splendor. I can't believe how this area has evolved over the years. I remember being a student here over 25 years ago, and it was a run down warehouse district. Like Hoboken and Jersey City across from lower Manhattan, this has become a hip place after all these years. Here's a view from the hotel.
I also clipped a conference description off the Cutter website:
Innovation has become the new business-IT obsession. But really, what is "innovation"? And what does it mean for your enterprise? At Cutter, we believe innovation is a reliably repeatable process — one that is required to develop novel markets, product, services, and strategies that provide real economic value to the organization. At the 11th annual Cutter Consortium Summit conference, you’ll discover:
* How you can nurture an innovative culture in your organization
* How you can be a Risk Entrepreneur and use risk as a catalyst to innovation
* How one company has been able to make its enterprise architecture investment pay huge innovation dividends
* How to become a leader who not only has passion, but who can make a lasting impact
* How you can put the headline-making Web 2.0 technology and social trends to work for your enterprise, and
* How CIOs can balance cost-cutting pressures with the need to innovate.
The annual Cutter Consortium Summit is unlike any other conference you've ever attended. It provides a live venue for IT and business professionals to meet and debate with one another and noted experts in the IT field. The intellectual give-and-take is second to none. Discover why business and technology professionals return each year — and why you should join them!
more...Continue reading "Cutter Summit 2007 - Day 1"
Posted by Mike at 08:36 AM | Comments (0) |
« A Conference NOT to miss... | Main | Cutter Summit 2007 - Day 1 »April 18, 2007
More Thoughts on Ireland's Software Industry
In a previous post I offered the question, "Is Ireland a Talent Magnet?" and from various statistics about the health of the software industry, the answer was a resounding yes. Being called Europe's Silicon Valley is no small moniker, with Ireland exporting billions of euros worth of software each year, while the country's entire population of 3.7 million is only about 1/3rd that of New York City alone. Goodness! In light of that, I think back on a conversation I had with Seamus Gallen of Enterprise Ireland a couple of weeks ago over dinner. He told me that as attractive... more...Posted by Mike at 07:54 PM | Comments (0) |
« Ireland As the World's Largest Exporter of Software | Main | More Thoughts on Ireland's Software Industry »April 06, 2007
A Conference NOT to miss...
...is the annual Cutter Summit, which will be held on April 29-May 2 in Cambridge MA. I *never* miss it; Along with the POPTech Conference in Camden Maine, it goes on my calendar and everything else simply revolves around it. The topic this year is - Innovation, a subject that matters more than ever in today's creative economy, if your company doesn't want to be another 'also-ran.' This year the Cutter Summit is moderated once again by my dear friend and mentor, Tom DeMarco. If you've never been to an event with Sir Tom, then you simply haven't lived (yet)....more...
Posted by Mike at 03:59 PM | Comments (0) |
« Is Ireland a Talent Magnet? | Main | A Conference NOT to miss... »March 29, 2007
Ireland As the World's Largest Exporter of Software
Holy smokes. In my last post, I asked "Is Ireland a Talent Magnet?" The answer is a resounding YES, according to this archived article that I found on the web. What really struck me - at least when this article was written - were the numbers showing Ireland as the world's largest software exporter! Ahead of the United States and India! Read about it here.... more...Posted by Mike at 02:41 PM | Comments (0) |
« Ireland Diary Part 1 | Main | Ireland As the World's Largest Exporter of Software »March 26, 2007
Is Ireland a Talent Magnet?
I recently came across an interesting passage cited by Richard Florida in his book, “Flight of the Creative Class.” I had the pleasure of meeting Richard after his speech at the POPTech conference last Fall in Camden Maine. In “Flight,” he says: “The global talent pool and the high-end, high-margin creative industries that used to be the sole province of the U.S. and the critical source of its prosperity have begun to disperse around the globe. A host of countries – Ireland, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand among them – are investing in higher education, producing creative people,... more...Posted by Mike at 01:16 PM | Comments (0) |
« Speaking to Ireland's Software Industry | Main | Is Ireland a Talent Magnet? »March 22, 2007
Ireland Diary Part 1
Just returned from a whirlwind visit to Ireland, where I gave my talk entitled, "Is the World (Really) Flat? Measurement Insights from Around The World" to a group of about 90 people who participated in the Software Process Improvement Conference 2007 in Galway, Ireland.
Here's a photo from a delightful day in Galway City, before the talk:
There is so much to say about my visit to this marvelous land that I don't know where to begin, so bear with me and I'm just going to let it flow in a brief stream of consciousness. (Forgive me for it possibly being rather unedited.)
First, I was taken by the absolute beauty of the countryside and the incredible kindness and hospitality of its people. Even in March, the meadows were lush, and dotted with livestock and stone walls. Now I know why God made the color green. The Irish own it.
I traveled to Galway on the western coast of Ireland. It is a prosperous port with a beautiful bay on the and splendid countryside. I was fascinated to learn that in 1625 and 1690, it was nearly destroyed by Cromwell's and then William of Orange's attacks on Catholic Ireland. You can sense the richness of Galway's heritage in the buildings and architecture. Today, it's home to a national university with a historic town center and hi-tech industries, but I also noticed from the newspapers that much of the region's manufacturing is being outsourced. Even Galway's and Waterford's famous crystal apparently is sourced from Eastern Europe, although the designs are still etched in Ireland.
Flying into Shannon airport, one comes into the southern part of Galway county, the second largest in the country. A delightful man named Robert met us at the airport and drove north to our hotel at Galway Bay. The land is absolutely gorgeous. I had to get used to the right hand drive cars and narrow roads, and on more than one occasion I could tell that if I were driving with my reversed perspective, there would have been a high risk of a head on collision. Robert said that many American drivers often break off the left hand mirrors of rental cars because they can't get used to driving on the left side of the road.
The conference was at the Galway Bay hotel, which looks out on the water not far from Galway City, a short cab ride to a fantastic downtown area. It's a university town, so in addition to the tourists, there's a vibrant energy from students strolling the pedestrian walkways and shops. I got a sense of "old Ireland" from the architecture and the land, but you could tell that there was also a healthy industry in the area and there was a balance between the pastoral feel of the countryside and a modern economy.
Keep checking this site... I've got more to say and not enough time to say it right now...
Continue reading "Ireland Diary Part 1"
Posted by Mike at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) |
« Easy As Implementing a Package … | Main | Ireland Diary Part 1 »March 12, 2007
Speaking to Ireland's Software Industry
Tomorrow I head to Galway, Ireland, where I'm giving a speech entitled "Is the World (Really) Flat; Measurement Insights from Around the World," at a software conference sponsored by Enterprise Ireland and Intec Billing.
The conference sponsor asked me to give a talk that addresses - interestingly enough - the pressures that Irish software companies are feeling to outsource development to countries like India!
I find this fascinating since one of my recent client engagements involved a financial services company that was outsourcing parts of its software development to - Ireland. They wanted a productivity and quality assessment of several multi-shore projects where teams were split between the U.S. and Ireland, a place with an apparently thriving software industry.
And yet I'm struck by the common thread - that companies are finding it very challenging to manage these kinds of projects, irrespective of what country they live in. The common dilemma is the mandate from the financial executives who are dictating policy when it comes to product development strictly because of lower labor rates in the countries that they can outsource to.
So, the debate will come down to followers of Thomas Friedman on one side, who say the world is flat; that all kinds of economic activity can decentralize and migrate away from advanced countries because of the rapid technological advances in communication. And on the other side are emerging voices that say the world is spiky; that there is a powerful counterforce from the clustering of human creativity and talent - resulting in productivity and innovation gains that come from smart people being co-located in close proximity to one another. People voicing these counter-views are folks like the Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Lucas and Richard Florida, Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University and author of "The Rise of the Creative Class."
I hope to add some lively insights into the debate by voicing what the data is saying, when we examine projects divided across continents compared to those where teams were "clustered" around. It promises to be an interesting trip to Ireland. I'll be sure to share the experience here.
In the meantime, here's a photo of the Cliffs of Moher. I'm told that the view is stunning and not to be missed.
Continue reading "Speaking to Ireland's Software Industry"
Posted by Mike at 09:29 PM | Comments (0) |
« Agile versus Offshore at the NYC SPIN Meeting | Main | Speaking to Ireland's Software Industry »March 03, 2007
Easy As Implementing a Package …
Last weekend I had a conversation with an uncle who recently retired from his accounting job at a large university. His family was financially secure, the children were grown (with his first grandchild on the way), and he was healthy after going through a medical scare years ago. It was time to call it quits, start to restore the antique motorcycle his wife had given him for Father’s Day last year, and get ready to bounce his new granddaughter on his lap. But before it was official, his employer asked him to reconsider, for one more project: deployment of an... more...Posted by Mike at 06:12 PM | Comments (0) |
« Ed Yourdon blogs Michael Mah... | Main | Easy As Implementing a Package … »February 20, 2007
Agile versus Offshore at the NYC SPIN Meeting
Finally getting a chance to collect my thoughts after last week's presentation at the New York City SPIN meeting. My presentation originally began as a discussion of two case studies. In both cases the companies that I had the privilege of working decided to ask me to help them collect and analyze productivity and defect metrics on their Agile/XP environment. For kicks, I added about 8 slides on patterns that my company has been seeing on offshore/outsourced projects. Why? Because in both cases, the client companies implementing agile were having to answer challenges about why they were not simply doing... more...Posted by Mike at 06:56 PM | Comments (0) |
« CAI Interview on the Software Industry | Main | BREAKING NEWS...blogging at NYC SPIN »February 08, 2007
New York SPIN Presentation: Extreme Programming (XP) & Productivity Measurement
Tony Hutchings from Bank of America and chair of the New York City SPIN has graciously sent out the following invitation for a speech that I'm going to be giving there on Tuesday, February 13th. I'll be speaking about benchmark results on Agile/XP projects from a productivity, time-to-market, and defect/quality perspective. Hope you can join us!
--------------------------------------------------
We are delighted to welcome back one of City SPIN's long-time friends, the much published, always insightful, Michael Mah.
Michael, like Tim Lister last month, has spoken twice before at City SPIN, and on both occasions provided us with great practical advice, as well as the expert's perspective on metrics, productivity and modern trends. We asked Michael this time to bring his measurement expertise to the world of Agile methods (specifically, XP), continuing our exploration of this important trend in software engineering methods. I can think of no-one more qualified than Michael to talk on this topic, so I hope you'll join me for what will be a most valuable look at a very important part of our software engineering canon.
We had a great turn-out for last month's event with Tim Lister, so let's see if we can't do the same for Michael - I promise you won't be disappointed.
Please join me on February 13th. at JPMorgan Chase's 1/CMP offices for this event!
Tony Hutchings
Bank of America Quality & Productivity
& New York City SPIN Chair
Website Access Note:
We have successfully moved the New York City SPIN web site to a different host. If, however, you ever encounter problems accessing www.nycspin.org, try www.nycspin.net.
Continue reading "New York SPIN Presentation: Extreme Programming (XP) & Productivity Measurement"
Posted by Mike at 12:26 AM | Comments (0) |
« Worrying About the Wrong Things | Main | New York SPIN Presentation: Extreme Programming (XP) & Productivity Measurement »January 05, 2007
CAI Interview on the Software Industry
Last Fall I was privileged to be the subject of an interview conducted by Michael Milutis of Computer Aid, Inc. for their IT Metrics and Productivity Journal. It was an easy, relaxed dialog, where we talked about lots of things, including the history of my collaboration with Larry Putnam (creator of the SLIM methodology), the track record of software project failures, insane Internet-speed deadlines, and other quandaries that vex the high-technology industry.
Some people hate pictures of themselves. Others cringe when they read something that they've said or written. I'm happy to say that when I read this transcript, I actually think I said some useful things for our technology community. I hope you agree. You can read the full text here. Let me know what you think!
more...Continue reading "CAI Interview on the Software Industry"
Posted by Mike at 08:09 PM | Comments (0) |
« On This Thanksgiving Eve | Main | CAI Interview on the Software Industry »December 05, 2006
Worrying About the Wrong Things
Mad cow disease, bird flu, airplane accidents, E. coli outbreaks, and shark attacks. I don’t often get the chance to read Time magazine, but a cover story entitled, “Things That We Often Worry About (But Really Shouldn’t)” caught my eye this week at an airport magazine stand. I was on my way to brief a CEO and his board of directors, and a topic for discussion was the things that people worry about when outsourcing.Being a self-described “metrics guy,” I found myself fascinated with statistics cited in the article that showed barely a handful of annual fatalities occurring from things like Mad Cow and shark attacks. However, I was really surprised to discover that nearly 4,000 deaths occur annually from things like choking. Would you believe that another 1,500 or so deaths occur by falling down stairs, and about 600 people a year die by falling out of bed? What -- are these beds perched at the edge of a cliff?
According to the article, the problem is with our perceived assessment of risk (perception is also a problem with project risks). The reason for this comes from the fact that we live in a modern world, with what is essentially a pre-historic brain. Although we don’t have to deal with saber-toothed tigers or mastadons these days, the amygdala -- a pear-shaped clump of tissue above the brain stem -- reacts quickly to perceived threats as though tigers are indeed in our midst, setting off the fight-or-flight response that triggers the release of adrenaline and other hormones into the bloodstream. Because the upper region of the brain that sorts out dangers more rationally is slower to react, our fears tend to dominate our experience compared to the more rational response from places like the cerebral cortex. Psychologists point out that since our perception of risk is more tightly connected to our emotions -- a primary emotion being fear -- most of us are stuck on that system instead of relying on rational thought to gauge risk.
What does this have to do with software? more...
Posted by Mike at 07:42 PM | Comments (0) |
« Metcalfe Does His POPTech Recap | Main | Worrying About the Wrong Things »November 23, 2006
On This Thanksgiving Eve
I'm thinking of one word as we approach this Thanksgiving holiday: Gratitude.
For me, it's about much more than turkey and cranberries. Sure, it's easy to fall into the trap of yet another helter-skelter time-compressed mindset as we enter what for some, is a dreaded holiday season with all its pressures and obligations.
But right now I'm sitting quietly in my lake house, reflecting about having one day out of 365 to consider the concept of gratitude. On the other 364 days, what is the predominant feeling that you tend to experience? Anxiety? Stress? Anger? Fear? All common emotions of life in today's modern economy. I recall reading an article recently about the #1 concern among Americans today: the lack of free time. In a time-compressed world, with deadlines everywhere and too much to do in too short a time, I sense that the predominant feelings tend to be the ones I described above. I think fear and anger tend to take 1st and 2nd place.
A dear friend of mine recently told me about an exercise that he practiced. Every day he would write down 5 things for which he was grateful. He would do this for several days. He discovered that it made a very meaningful difference in how he viewed the world. It actually changed how he felt, in his body.
I imagine that if we had the inclination to try this out, that we would have a different perspective about life in our deadline-driven world. It seems to me that one of the first things that suffer when we fall into this time-sick trance is the erosion of our relationships.
I'm thinking a lot about relationships these days. You see, about 9 months ago, I fell asleep at the wheel of my car after months of taking on too much, for too long. It was on a Interstate 95 - the New Jersey Turnpike - just outside of New York City. I never knew that I had passed out - mostly from exhaustion - as I approached a tollbooth near the Lincoln tunnel.
I happened to awaken just as the Volvo was threading the tollbooth lane at about 40mph. I'm not sure who was driving the car, but it sure wasn't me. I woke up just as my 10-year old son yelled "Whoa!" because he sensed something was amiss. By some act of grace, we're both still here. We didn't smash into another car, into an innocent toll operator, or the cement barrier. We just sailed right through.
I pulled over, shaking about what had almost happened. Later, I thought about a friend of mine, Peter O'Farrell (who I wrote about in this blog) who had died less than 2 months earlier in a car crash, on a dark two-lane road in Maine. His son in the passenger seat survived.
On that day, my son David and I both happened to be spared. But it left me with a profound sense of gratitude. One that reminds me to re-evaluate my priorities from time to time. It also makes me realize that every day from here on out is a gift - for both of us. And for that, I will have a lot of gratitude for many days out of 365.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Blessings to all of you and your families.
more...Continue reading "On This Thanksgiving Eve"
Posted by Mike at 01:28 AM | Comments (0) |
« The World May Not Be So Flat... | Main | The QSM 2006 SLIM User Conference »September 24, 2006
Making Tom Friedman Grumpy
Ed Yourdon recently wrote me in response to the most recent post about the world perhaps not being so flat. He says:
"Great blog posting about the un-flat world today; no doubt you've made Tom Friedman grumpy! Since death-march projects are often the cause of litigious IT failures that keep you and me gainfully employed
and if interested, take a look at a couple more recent postings, where I've created some quickie polls to find out why people think death-march projects are initiated in the first place, why anyone in his right mind would volunteer for one, and what "type" of death-march projects (kamikaze, suicide, "ugly," or "mission-impossible") is most common."
Fans of Ed will no doubt find his insights remarkable, as I always do. Ed's blog is also something you don't want to miss. As Tim Lister once told me, "I don't think Ed has ever had an undocumented thought, ever :)" Nice to have the opportuntity - at every turn - to have access to his mind. Thanks Ed!
more...Continue reading "Making Tom Friedman Grumpy"
Posted by Mike at 02:23 PM | Comments (0) |
« Words of Wisdom from the Hedonism Handbook | Main | Making Tom Friedman Grumpy »September 06, 2006
The World May Not Be So Flat...
Recently, a client of mine who is a senior VP of software development told me, "My CFO declared that fully one-third of our work should be in India within the next two years." For me, it wasn't that the directive was about outsourcing to India that was shocking. What caught my attention was that the mandate was coming from the head of finance, the CFO. The top bean counter was the one directing this decision, not the head of engineering. In some corporations, outsourcing can be about gaining access to skilled labor in a global economy, but in many others,... more...Posted by Mike at 05:09 PM | Comments (0) |
« Cutter Summit 2006 – Outsourcing and Service Level Agreements | Main | Personal Productivity Strategies »June 22, 2006
Keynote Address at the Better Software Conference
Next week, I'll be giving this keynote address at the Better Software Conference in Las Vegas Nevada. I'm pretty excited about sharing a case study demonstrating before/after productivity and defect patterns on Agile Methods. My team collected actual time-to-market, effort, sizing, and defect information for an organization that made a major strategic investment in extreme programming. We gathered the hard numbers and the environmental attributes for both traditional and agile releases and compared the two. For more information, see the Better Software conference website.Better Software 2006 Keynote Abstract: “Agile Productivity Metrics”
Abstract: Enough of the stories. Where is the quantitative proof that agile methods like Extreme Programming (XP) deliver higher productivity and quality? Such data have gone missing for years now, perhaps because agile practitioners and metrics experts have never fully cooperated to crack this difficult problem.
Whatever the reason, the wait is now over. In this presentation, Michael Mah will discuss how productivity benchmarking techniques were successfully applied on numerous real-world XP projects, where a company’s development approach was transformed using agile methods by XP expert Joshua Kerievsky. He’ll give an overview of the projects analyzed, explain an approach to gathering “Agile Productivity Metrics,” review how the data was interpreted, and show what was revealed in the time-to-market and quality numbers. This presentation concludes with a glimpse of the kind of agile management and measurement that is possible when you collect the right information. more...
Posted by Mike at 10:35 AM | Comments (0) |
« Cutter Summit: Tim Lister on How To Avoid Litigation | Main | Keynote Address at the Better Software Conference »May 18, 2006
Cutter Summit 2006 – Outsourcing and Service Level Agreements
It’s been a few days since the Cutter Summit conference in Boston, and one of the sessions is still rolling around in my brain and won’t let go of my frontal lobes. It was Tim Lister’s talk on “Avoiding IT Litigation”. It was a particularly fun session because Tim made it a three-way speaker opportunity by inviting both Ed Yourdon and me to share the stage. I know I’ve already written about the talk, but it still haunts me because there are elements from it that pervade almost all software projects that I know of, even those that are not contracted or outsourced, and I still have a lot to say about it.It starts with a story by Ed, who is surely one of the master storytellers of our field. For those of you who don’t know Ed, try reading any one of his 25+ books over his illustrious and ongoing career. Ed is one of my heroes and early mentors. (The first time I met Ed, I was a young buck speaking on the topic of software project estimation in the late 1980s. Ed packed the house with 200+ attendees at his speech - a tough act to follow. For my talk, I looked out into the revved-up crowd, and hyperventilated so much that I nearly passed out. But at the Summit, I felt just fine.) more...
Posted by Mike at 04:16 AM | Comments (0) |
« The Cutter Summit | Main | Cutter Summit 2006 – Outsourcing and Service Level Agreements »May 09, 2006
Cutter Summit: Tim Lister on How To Avoid Litigation
Tim Lister gave a wonderful and entertaining talk on the software patent mess and the litigation quagmire that accompanies failed outsource projects. I always find Tim's perspective refreshing - the audience was alive and engaged in large part due to his remarkably entertaining style.I was privileged to have been invited on-stage to address the audience along with Ed Yourdon. I found it interesting that we represented 3 dimensions in the area of software disputes: Ed as an expert witness on several multi-million dollar lawsuits, Tim as an arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association, and myself as someone practicing mediation on project and outsourcing disputes. more...
Posted by Mike at 06:05 PM | Comments (0) |
« Permissible Defects? | Main | Cutter Summit: Tim Lister on How To Avoid Litigation »May 06, 2006
The Cutter Summit
Tomorrow I head to Boston for the Cutter Summit 2006 Conference. As the description says, it's a great place to meet great thinkers from around the world, to collaborate and share emerging ideas and to debate them as a group, to leap beyond the mainstream. As expected, it sold out quickly. One keynote that I think will be relevant to readers of Optimal Friction is "The Changing Nature of Work", by Ward Cunningham. The write-up says "organizational paradigm that people think of as business is changing. We've reached the tipping point, and the manufacturing paradigm no longer works. Today's emerging... more...Posted by Mike at 05:00 AM | Comments (0) |
« Speed, Slowness, and Serendipity | Main | The Cutter Summit »April 17, 2006
Permissible Defects?
An interesting thread came up on the IT Toolbox website www.ittoolbox.com on "Permissible Defects." The question had to do with acceptable industry thresholds for defects on SAP projects (as opposed to other classes of software work.)The reply from a gentleman based in the Netherlands warrants discussion. Here it is for your consideration. An interesting PDF paper that he wrote on Quality Assurance standards is here as well. It's got useful information on how software projects behave that can give understanding about reasonable expectations and commitments. Setting these expectations is the task of managers coming up with project estimates, hopefully using project estimation tools that can explore these in a "war games simulation".
Of course, my take on this is our observation at QSM of defects being directly a function of deadline pressure. Haste makes waste, as they say. But what is surprising from the research data (see the QSM IT Metrics Almanac posting) is how severe the trade-off is. If you try to compress dates without giving up on promised functionality, the defects can go up geometrically. For example, compressing the time by only 20% can yield a 4x or more rise in project defects, all of which have to be tested and corrected. As I've said in my articles, "Projects don't like to be time-compressed. They get very angry." more...
Posted by Mike at 11:49 AM | Comments (0) |
« Stainless Steel Screws in My Shoulder | Main | Permissible Defects? »April 13, 2006
Speed, Slowness, and Serendipity
This photo is tells yet another chapter of the ideas that are shaping “Optimal Friction,” and my observations about life in the speed lane of high-technology.
The contraption you see me wearing here is a Donjoy Ultrasling, mated with an Aircast Cryo-cuff. It’s home for a month and a half, as I live life in the slow lane after tearing the shoulder muscle, biceps, and ligaments off the bone from my legendary fall. As readers of previous OF posts may recall, this occurred from my being in a frantic hurry to put out the trash on an icy driveway, thinking about the 9am conference call at the office that I was late for. (Sad but true: The story of my rescuing my children from a wild bear while hiking in the woods was indeed, just an elaborate cover-up.)
The Donjoy sling immobilizes the shoulder at a 90 degree angle so that the subscapularis and supraspinatus (rotator cuff) tendons heal correctly. The subscap tendon is attached to my shoulder with a double-row of Mitek stainless steel screws. The Aircast Cryo-cuff is filled with ice water, exchanged by that cooler attached to a filler tube. It’s circulated a few times a day to keep the swelling down as the soft tissue heals. I kid you not; when I walk down the street with this get-up, people stop and stare. I draw crowds - men, women and children stop what they're doing to ask me what in the world had happened.
more...
Posted by Mike at 11:33 AM | Comments (3) |
« 2006 QSM Software Almanac - IT Metrics Edition | Main | Speed, Slowness, and Serendipity »April 08, 2006
Stainless Steel Screws in My Shoulder
Here's a digital image of the inside of my left shoulder, showing the insertion of stainless steel screws ito re-attach the bicep that was torn off (among other muscles, tendons, and ligaments) during my recent "battle to rescue my children from a hostile bear." The photo was taken by Dr. Laurence Higgins as he performed what was to be a nearly 4 hour surgery. He used these images to describe the work that was done to put me back together, which I scanned and uploaded to this blog after re-watching a webcast of a shoulder operation that he performed.
As I mentioned in other posts, Larry Higgins is chief of Sports Medicine and chief of the Harvard Shoulder Service in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. I meet with him in 2 days for a routine follow-up evaluation of my progress. [See the posts "I Would Be So Late If...(Part 1&2) below for details.]"
More to come on information technology and reducing the costs of health care, but I've been procrastinating too long to get this photo up, so I decided to just do it.
Quite a bit of my consulting work of late is with companies who are developing new technologies for health care. This is an area I plan to understand even more as our nation grapples with $2 trillion+ annual health care costs. There's no doubt about the dramatic advances and significant productivity gains that are to be had with the application of technology in this industry. The implications for society are staggering.
Continue reading "Stainless Steel Screws in My Shoulder"
Posted by Mike at 05:13 AM | Comments (0) |
« I Wouldn't Be So Late If... (Part 2) | Main | Stainless Steel Screws in My Shoulder »March 22, 2006
2006 QSM Software Almanac - IT Metrics Edition
The 2006 QSM Software Almanac – IT Metrics Edition, is here! It contains more than 100 pages of analysis and observations that provide unparalleled access to the latest developments in the software industry.It's with great pride that we're announcing the Almanac here on the pages of Optimal Friction. My partners here at QSM have assembled overviews and in-depth analysis of more than 500 completed projects from all major industries, collected in the last 5 years. One can easily peruse the (sometimes surprising) qualities and characteristics of “best/worst in class” projects, with the attendant implications about core metrics tradeoffs. Best of all, it describes extensive actionable intelligence gathered over more than 25 years of consulting practice as revealed by the software industry’s most detailed and comprehensive database of completed projects using the analysis capabilities within the QSM SLIM Suite of tools.
Special thanks to Doug Putnam, Kate Armel, Don Beckett, and all on the QSM team. Readers of the Almanac will no doubt recognize the heritage of this work, tracing to Larry Putnam's pioneering research on metrics for the software and Information Technology fields. more...
Posted by Mike at 09:39 AM | Comments (0) |
« I Wouldn't Be So Late If... (Part 1) | Main | 2006 QSM Software Almanac - IT Metrics Edition »March 08, 2006
I Wouldn't Be So Late If... (Part 2)
[This article is a follow-up to the February 15th blog entry entitled, "I Wouldn't Be So Late If..."]The Weiner Center for Pre-Operative Evaluation is located at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in Boston MA. “The Brigham’s” as it’s often called, is affiliated with Harvard Medical School. It’s odd that I wound up here typing this blog article, because after my shoulder injury, my friend Digital Doc said to me, “I bet there are people in Boston who specialize in shoulder repair and sports injuries just for tennis-player-management-consultants like you.”
Sure enough, there is such a group. I found out that they existed when my colorful shoulder sling garnered the attention of an acquaintence at our local health club. She had her two children in tow and had just left the pool. “I’m a swimmer,” she said. “When I tore my supraspinatus tendon in my shoulder, I had a great doctor at the Brigham’s perform the procedure. So did David here," referring to her friend. "He tore his bicep off the bone. We’re both doing great.”
“Well,” I replied, “I’ve got both of your shoulder injuries plus more in my one shoulder. I would love a name. The surgeon here cringed when he reviewed my MRI; plus they’re backed up until mid-April.”
A few Google searches later, and I found that BWH was planning a live Internet broadcast of an arthroscopic rotator cuff repair on Thursday, March 9th at 4:30 p.m. Way cool. Laurence D. Higgins, MD, chief of Sports Medicine and chief of the Harvard Shoulder Service in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery is performing the procedure as orthopedic surgeon Scott D. Martin narrates. To view the Webcast, visit http://www.or-live.com/BrighamandWomens/1374/ more...
Posted by Mike at 11:20 AM | Comments (1) |
« Complexity Doesn't Scale | Main | I Wouldn't Be So Late If... (Part 2) »February 15, 2006
I Wouldn't Be So Late If... (Part 1)
“Omigod, what happened to you?” asked my friend Jenny when we saw each other after dropping off our 4th-graders at school yesterday. My shoulder was heavily bound with a most impressive arm sling. It was throbbing like crazy, but the attention that my fancy sling garners me everywhere in town is almost worth it. Sympathy is a neat thing – everyone pouring love and attention at you after only one brief glance.
(By the way, Jenny Michaels MD is a top psychiatrist specializing in chemical dependency. Her husband Basil is one of the best plastic surgeons in Massachusetts. If you’re alcoholic and need a face lift, they’re the ones for you.)
I replied, “I was walking in the woods with my kids, when suddenly a large bear leaped out from behind a tree! I seized it in a death-grip headlock, and punched it in the nose repeatedly while yelling for the kids to escape. The bear gave a mighty struggle and as it tossed me left and right, I wrenched my shoulder. But you should have seen how I beat up that bear!! I gave it the biggest bloody nose you ever saw!” more...
Posted by Mike at 03:46 AM | Comments (2) |
« Agile Methods, Systems Theory, and “Mind-Blending” | Main | I Wouldn't Be So Late If... (Part 1) »February 10, 2006
Complexity Doesn't Scale
Last week, an excellent piece by my fellow Cutter Consortium colleague Ken Orr crossed my inbox. I decided to excerpt it here since it directly speaks to a subject near and dear to my heart: software complexity.After reading this, you may want more access to insights from various Cutter authors like Tom DeMarco, Ed Yourdon, Tim Lister, Rob Austin and scores of other experts. We publish research on Agile methods, Outsourcing, Business Technology Trends, Benchmarking, and the like. Check out the Cutter Consortium website at www.cutter.com. Sign up for trial subscriptions by contacting us there. You'll be plugged in to some real interesting stuff!
Complexity Doesn't Scale
by Ken Orr, Fellow, Cutter Business Technology Council
Cutter Senior Consultant Tom Welsh asked in a recent Business Technology Trends Executive Update whether software development had gotten too complex. He asked for feedback, so here it is: the answer to Tom's question is unquestionably "Yes," software development has clearly become too complex! While it is true that the software that people use today is more sophisticated, at least at the user interface level, the complexity of software development has clearly spun out of control.
There are plenty of villains in this piece. There are the hardware and software vendors who have pushed new generations of user interface, operating systems, and programming languages while largely ignoring business analysis, requirements, and design. And there are the software developers who, until many of their jobs were swept away by outsourcing, were so enamored with the latest bells and whistles that they lost track of delivering high-quality, easy-to-maintain software. more...
Posted by Mike at 04:18 PM | Comments (0) |
« January 2006 Talk at the Boston SPIN | Main | Complexity Doesn't Scale »January 20, 2006
Agile Methods, Systems Theory, and “Mind-Blending”
In a recent article entitled “Complexity’s Rising Tide”, I talked about modern systems and software development being primarily about the “blending of minds” among IT professionals. I consider this idea at the heart of successful innovation in a tech-driven world, where the paramount challenge is to successfully build more complex systems under increasingly tight deadlines. Many are looking to agile methods as a way to accelerate their cycle time given the pressures that they’re facing.To me, mind-blending is the essence of knowledge work, which many technologists consider software development to be. However, if you take this idea further and want to understand why agile methods can reduce defects and thereby shorten schedules, then it helps to appreciate concepts like cybernetics and systems theory. Systems theory (a modern synonym for cybernetics) can be seen at many intersections within the agile development philosophy. more...
Posted by Mike at 09:25 AM | Comments (0) |
« Peter O'Farrell 1946 - 2005 | Main | Agile Methods, Systems Theory, and “Mind-Blending” »January 06, 2006
January 2006 Talk at the Boston SPIN
On Tuesday, January 17th 2006, I'll be giving this talk at the Boston SPIN. One theme is about what happens when you violate "Rifkin's Laws" - just one of the dynamics described here in Optimal Friction.com. If you'd like to come, you can get directions here.Excess Friction: How Fast Deadlines Can Slow You Down and Ruin Your Life
Description: For those of us in the software field, high-pressure deadlines are a fact of life. In this environment - to build more and more in less and less time - there is a never ending push for higher productivity and faster schedules. However, statistics show that there are, in fact, conditions where harsh deadlines actually cause lower productivity, longer schedules, and high conflict amongst a team - the exact opposite of what we're trying to achieve.
In this talk, Michael Mah will talk about "the cult of speed" and how overcoming this challenge is critical to the modern-day IT organization. He will address how software managers can more effectively manage the high-tension pressures of work life in the Information Age, while maximizing chances for project success. more...
Posted by Mike at 04:49 AM | Comments (0) |
« Film Editing on “The Producers” | Main | January 2006 Talk at the Boston SPIN »December 21, 2005
Peter O'Farrell 1946 - 2005
IN MEMORIAM
The Cutter Family mourns a deep and tragic loss.
Peter O'Farrell was the beloved husband of Karen Fine Coburn, President and CEO of Cutter Consortium in Arlington MA USA. He died - far too soon last week - in a terrible car accident while taking his son Nathan to visit a school in Maine. It was a father-son journey, something very typical of Peter, given how much he adored his children.
They say behind every great woman is a man (or something like that), and Peter was the man behind Karen. In many ways, Karen's seemingly boundless enthusiasm for creating the Cutter extended family was made possible in part by the loving attention that Peter dedicated at the home front and in his deep (yet understated) involvement with Cutter. He was not so much interested in being famous, although as my friend Ken Orr writes below - he should have been far more famous than he was. The man was brilliant, and most of all he was kind, but in a world often filled with egos, he wasn't so much interested in fame. more...
Posted by Mike at 01:26 AM | Comments (0) |
« Stan Rifkin's Wisdom Part 2 | Main | Peter O'Farrell 1946 - 2005 »December 16, 2005
Film Editing on “The Producers”
Rick Derby is an HBO award-winning documentary film producer (“Rocks With Wings”) and a senior film editor on one of the hottest Hollywood film projects of 2005, “The Producers”, starring Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, and Uma Thurman. It opens today in New York and Los Angeles.
Yesterday I had the chance to visit my good friend Rick at the Broadway offices of Sound One, one of the major players in the film industry in New York’s Times Square. What a treat. I got an up-close and in-person look at the inner workings of digital film editing and sound effects in one of the hottest of hot American industries, and one of our biggest exports. more...
Posted by Mike at 07:25 AM | Comments (0) |
« Partisan Perceptions and Ingo Gunther’s Globes | Main | Creativity, Exercise, Music, and Brain Power »December 01, 2005
Complexity's Rising Tide
Recently, I had the privilege of being a guest keynote speaker at symposiums for two of the world’s largest financial services companies, where I spoke about the people dynamics and success/failure trends of deadline-intensive projects – something near and dear to all our hearts. Between the two events (one held in Chicago and the other in Boston), there were about 700 technology professionals in the audiences. It was an exciting time.Something struck me that both organizations had in common, which was touched upon in the opening remarks by senior executives who introduced me to their audiences. The paramount challenge before them -- more often than not -- stemmed from being a global company with geographically dispersed teams, dealing with the rising complexity of technology projects, while under higher pressure of ever-tighter deadlines.
This macro-challenge is one for the ages. It is especially daunting in today’s Information Age, because being a company that only uses technology as a peripheral aspect of its core business is an outdated paradigm. As a banking executive once told me, “We’re not a financial services company where we simply use IT. Today, more than ever, we’re discovering that we must be a TECHNOLOGY company that happens to be in the financial services business.” more...
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« Fortune 500 Executives Reconsider 24/7 | Main | Complexity's Rising Tide »November 27, 2005
Partisan Perceptions and Ingo Gunther’s Globes
A term often used in the modern theory and practice of conflict resolution is “partisan perceptions”. To some it carries a ring of academic jargon, but in practice it’s at the very heart of creating mutual understanding between parties in conflict, a vital step in moving toward resolution.Partisan perception refers to the fact that we all have unconscious and sometimes hidden biases about how we see the world, which drives our sense of “the truth”. These biases exist because “what we see” is shaped in large measure by the lens through which we view a situation. This lens is determined by our personal history and our beliefs, among many other things. For example, how might you see a rainforest? It may have one reality if you’re an ecologist or climatologist. But it’s entirely another if you’re a Brazilian land developer, a coffee grower, or a timber executive. (If you looked at a project deadline, what does it look like if you were a senior executive in charge? A project manager, someone in marketing, or a venture capitalist/investor?)
Ingo Gunther is someone who directly challenges people with the question of how they see the world. He is described as an artist, correspondent, and author. Ingo lives in New York, but was born in Germany, traveled throughout Africa, is an accredited correspondent at the U.N., and has worked in Japanese television South America and Asia. He also founded the first independent TV station in Eastern Europe, nine months before the reunification of Germany. Ingo is someone who has seen the world through many lenses. (An interesting interview from a writer in Japan is here.)Here is an example of a globe from Ingo’s “Worldprocessor” art exhibit. This one is called High Tension / Crisis Zones. The highlighted areas indicate where political crises have developed military aspects. When you look at information presented this way, you get a different perspective about our world and along with it, a different feeling.
more...