Oct
11
The Rise and Fall of Methodologies
October 11, 2005 | Leave a Comment
New methodologies follow a pattern. They get introduced by the inventors. Those inventors report amazing successes. Soon, other practitioners with a similar outlook pick up the method and they, too, find it works great. Then it spreads. And once it gets outside of that initial circle, it starts to fail. Scattered successes occur, but so [...]
Oct
11
On User Time Commitment
October 11, 2005 | Leave a Comment
In Jim Highsmith’s paper on Objections to Agile Development, he shows that he’s missing the point I’m trying to make in some of the posts here (not that he’s replying to me, but I’m guessing that others have made similar points).
He writes:
As to underestimating the impact of agile methods on the business users, this [...]
Oct
11
Articles on the BA Role
October 11, 2005 | Leave a Comment
How BPM will change the BA role. One of the things we’re doing with the BA BoK is trying to ensure that BAs have a stronger business focus.
Scott Ambler on the role of Business Analysts (one and two).
Kitty Hass’s paper on the future of the BA (Kitty is a member of the BA BoK Committee).
Oct
11
Why Agile Development Will Create BAs
October 11, 2005 | 2 Comments
Many (though not all) of the Agile methodology gurus consider the Business Analyst role to be unnecessary on a project. I understand their rationale. In their view, requirements should pass directly from the user to the developer, with no filter in between. The BA introduces another step in the process and therefore both slows things [...]
Oct
10
Top 20 IT Mistakes?
October 10, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Computerworld lists the top 20 IT mistakes.
Now, personally, I wouldn’t have put dealing with OSS and outsourcing at the top of the list, but then I come at it from the perspective of custom development rather than infrastructure management. However, the list is certainly hardware-centric. Development only gets one entry, and that one just [...]
Oct
10
Software Commoditization II
October 10, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Originally, I was going to write a post following up on this one…then I stumbled across this post from Joel Spolsky. So I didn’t.
Every product in the marketplace has substitutes and complements. A substitute is another product you might buy if the first product is too expensive. Chicken is a substitute for beef. If you’re [...]
Oct
10
The Globalization of Software
October 10, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Originally written in November 2004.
The rapid growth and adoption of personal computer technology in the last few decades had three major drivers or “killer apps”. The first, which I’ve discussed previously, was the business productivity/office market. The last few years have seen that market mature, with open source applications becoming competitive with commercial ones. That’s [...]
Oct
10
Metamodels III
October 10, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Never mind.
As so often happens when trying to figure out a problem, I found that someone else had run into similar issues and come up with a workable solution. I even had the relevant book. I just had to get deep enough into the problem to recognize the solution.
Basically, it is in fact possible [...]
Oct
9
Metamodels II
October 9, 2005 | Leave a Comment
My previous metamodeling concepts are no longer operative.
There are a couple of reasons for this. First of all, I think I was trying to develop categories that were a little too all-inclusive by lumping textual descriptions in with UIs and normal analysis techniques. I now think there are two basic types of analysis diagrams: a [...]
Oct
8
Google vs. Microsoft
October 8, 2005 | Leave a Comment
In the past few weeks, the undeclared war between Google and Microsoft seems to have finally come out in the open.
There’s been a lot of speculation on the internet about “Google Office”. There’s not going to be a Google Office any more than there is a “Google Browser”. Google doesn’t need to build their own [...]
What I'm Reading- Agile Requirements Information Model (4) – Subset For Agile Programs (a): Features and Feature BacklogScaling Software Agility
- The Great Implication of Context-Driven MethodologyJames Bach's Blog
- User stories versus Use CasesBusiness Analyst Blog
- Can Use Cases Possibly be Agile?Agile Product Owner (.com)
- A little bit of levity for the holidays from iRiseThe iRise Blog
- The end of reposiphilia?The Forrester Blog For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals
- IT ethics and the recessionIT Project Failures
- Risk Assessment ModelingEDS' Next Big Thing Blog: Read and Respond to What the EDS Fellows Say About Technology
- Test Requirements, Don't Test CodeHerding Cats
- Enterprise architecture is optionalBizRules Blog