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Atricle Dump - Software Process Improvement - Plotting a Course to Successful Software Development
For those people who ALWAYS want to be poor all their lives then here is a list of things that you should NEVER do followed by a list of things that you should ALWAYS do. In fact, you can use this as a blueprint to a life of poverty: NEVER read a motivational, inspirational or educational book. You should especially avoid all books on wealth creation. Don't even look at the covers. Ignorance is bliss. Books contain knowledge and knowledge is potential power. Potential power could lead to actual power and this must be avoided.NEVER listen to any person who has shown by example that they have attained success. In fact, be jealous of that person and put them down behind their back for being a "big shot." Jealousy is a sure path to poverty so make sure that you never stray away from it too often.NEVER attend a seminar. In the minds of poverty thinkers, seminars ONLY exist to make lots of money for the presenters thereby making poor people even poorer. Spending $100 on a seminar where you could get ideas that would make $ million just isn't enough incentive.NEVER ask a successful person to be your adviser or mentor. Following in the footsteps of somebody who is s
Roll-out Finally, the last common roadblock in implementation is making sure the team members know what they are supposed to be doing. It’s important to have documentation on the process, but it’s also very important to provide initial training as well as ongoing coaching as the change is made. People learn in different ways, and often need the opportunity to ask clarifying questions. Formal training is key to a successful process roll out. Another technique we’ve found beneficial is having a process coach. As the team members start to use the new process, they’ll run into situations and may need help figuring out how to handle them. In truth, these situations may not have been considered when designing the process, and the process may need to be tweaked. There’s nothing wrong with that, but only someone with the big picture in view can tell that. Providing ongoing support will make the team members much more successful.
Why Bother? I acknowledge that this stuff is not always easy, especially for those of us that are much more comfortable with computers than we are with people, but it is important. We can’t continue to go on with the status quo. We have the tools we need to create an environment where we know what’s going on with our projects and we can consistently deliver on our com
Although Alexa's search results are driven by Google, this is a definite must in your search engine marketing plan.The reason is that Alexa will provide statistics about your website that no other search engine or web directory will provide.These statistics include:*Your site ranking on the internet *What sites are linking to yours *Detailed traffic statistics *Site thumbnails *Site SpeedThese are just a few examples.You can also use Alexa to search for your keywords. This will tell you who your competition is for the keywords you have selected. You can more carefully study your competition, find out who is linking to your competition, and use what you learn to raise your rankings in the search engines, as well as find better keywords for your website.Alexa also has its own crawler, and eventhough you may show up in the search results powered by Google, you still want to have Alexa crawl your site.Alexa, like Google, may discover your site on its own. However, it's been my experience that Alexa only updates my site when I visit Alexa and make updates. This includes the thumbnails.The first step that you should take before submitting to Alexa is to type in the
The issue is not that companies do not know what to do in principle. The issue is that it is not easy to do in practice. It’s simple, but not easy. The difference between principle and practice may explain why so many organizations stay in their “dysfunctional” state, which might look something like this:
- Starting fires before you can put them out. One company I worked with had no testing or release process and as a result, created many problems for themselves by releasing software updates that inevitably broke other pieces of their very complex system. As you might imagine, it was almost impossible to make forward progress with all the fires they were creating for themselves.
- Burning the midnight oil. Another organization I know of has an ongoing project that is over a year late and millions over budget. The team has been working 60-80 hour weeks for about 14 months.
- Can’t keep up. A third organization I worked with was in an industry that required changes to keep up with compliance issues. Their process was so big and unwieldy that they could not even keep up with the mandatory changes, much less add any value added features for their clients.
Buy-In The first and perhaps most significant roadblock is a lack of buy-in. The tricky part about buy-in is that to be successful in software process improvement, executive management, middle management, the development team, and in many cases, customers must all support the initiative, and they all buy in for different reasons. I’ve seen companies try to change their process by decree. I’ve never seen this work.
So what to do? The first overarching principal to gaining buy-in is over communicating. I’ve read that if you communicate something seven times, half of the people will have heard it. I don’t know if this is true, but I do know you need to communicate the changes, and the benefits multiple times in multiple ways.
Additionally, each group will have different reservations and will be motivated by different benefits, so tailoring the message is critical. When communicating with each stakeholder group, make sure to address the reservations, and highlight the benefits that are relevant to them.
Group
Reservations
Appealing Benefits
Developers
- Loss of control
- Lots of paperwork
- Loss of creativity
- Fewer fires to fight
- No more “death marches”
- Less rework
- Fewer bugs
- Loss of control
- Lots of paperwork
- Slow things down
- Better planning
- Fewer fires
- More satisfied customers
- Less flexibility
- Slow things down
- More visibility
- More satisfied customers
- Slow things down
- Less flexibility
- Less “direct access”
- Higher quality
- More visibility
- Getting more of what they want
Bite-sized pieces The second common roadblock is trying to change too much. I worked with an organization that had engaged one of the large consulting firms to help them with their process improvement. The result was a 100+ page PowerPoint with so many recommendations that the client organization was completely overwhelmed and did nothing. Granted, all of these recommendations were valid, and would have helped this organization, but would have required wholesale changes in virtually every aspect of their product development. The method that ultimately worked for this organization was one of incremental change. We spent some time interviewing key players in each group, and analyzing past projects and came up with the first couple of areas we wanted to address, based on the biggest bang for the buck. Note that we resisted the temptation to chart the whole process improvement path, and just took the first few steps, with the intent of assessing the situation again after evaluating the initial progress.
The benefit of an incremental approach to process improvement is that you can you can get improvements much more quickly, and you don’t bring the whole development group to a grinding halt. No organization can tolerate a major disruption. Culturally, incremental refinement also creates the opportunity for continuous improvement to become the norm. In one organization I worked with, the first couple of rounds of improvements were initiated and led by middle management, but after that a cross functional group of individual contributors (consisting of development, product marketing, QA, and customer support) took the reigns and continued on the path.
Broad Participation That brings me to another potential obstacle – lack of engagement by the team. By this, I mean a feeling that it is someone else’s process – no sense of ownership. The easiest way to deal with this obstacle is to avoid it entirely. I once hired a consultant to help me with process improvements, and although he and I had a pretty good idea of what we thought the end result would look like, we knew we had to get the team involved, even if it meant that the initial process design would go slower. Well, we did, and not only was the team on board, the final process included modifications suggested by team members that made it much better. This was a case of doing the right thing for not entirely the right reason, and it worked out great. One important point here, it’s important to signal the importance of this by involving “A players.” Everyone knows who they are, and if a process improvement initiative is staffed entirely with lesser players, it will not be viewed as important. Additionally, these “A players” are often leaders in their community and influence others, so their adoption and support is critical.
Pilot the process The next few roadblocks have to do with implementation. The first is “how do I roll this out to the whole organization,” and the answer is, you don’t. Piloting the process with one team or on one project is the way to go. You’ll get to iron out any kinks and show a win before you roll it out to the rest of the organization.
Avoid Analysis Paralysis Piloting also helps with the second roadblock – designing and designing and designing until it’s perfect – analysis paralysis. You don’t have to get it perfect right out of the gate. If you’re like most organizations, any step in the right direction will make an impact. Plan to pilot your process with a small group, and then make revisions before rolling it out further. Not only does that approach deal with this common roadblock, it also helps to reinforce a continuous improvement culture.
Roll-out Finally, the last common roadblock in implementation is making sure the team members know what they are supposed to be doing. It’s important to have documentation on the process, but it’s also very important to provide initial training as well as ongoing coaching as the change is made. People learn in different ways, and often need the opportunity to ask clarifying questions. Formal training is key to a successful process roll out. Another technique we’ve found beneficial is having a process coach. As the team members start to use the new process, they’ll run into situations and may need help figuring out how to handle them. In truth, these situations may not have been considered when designing the process, and the process may need to be tweaked. There’s nothing wrong with that, but only someone with the big picture in view can tell that. Providing ongoing support will make the team members much more successful.
Why Bother? I acknowledge that this stuff is not always easy, especially for those of us that are much more comfortable with computers than we are with people, but it is important. We can’t continue to go on with the status quo. We have the tools we need to create an environment where we know what’s going on with our projects and we can consistently deliver on our comm
As a Futures Trader, you must take 100% responsibility for acquiring the knowledge and skills needed to attain your financial goals. You need to study and practice before you can build an effective trading system.You need to thoroughly understand the techniques and trading methods which have stood the test of time.Most people who open trading accounts lose, no matter how successful they may have been in former careers. In fact, previous success can give rise to over-confidence.Trading attracts some of the best minds in the world. For example, banks and other large organisations recruit the brightest of graduates into their trading rooms, train them extensively, and use experienced traders to mentor their progress. They are the opposition!Unfortunately, it is all too common to find intelligent people who have decided they can make a living by trading with virtually no structured education or guidance from a teacher or coach.The benefits of success are considerable.* INDEPENDENCE: You are your own boss, free to make your own decisions, work your own hours, and take holidays when you wish. * LIFESTYLE: All you need is a reliable internet link and you can
Buy-In The first and perhaps most significant roadblock is a lack of buy-in. The tricky part about buy-in is that to be successful in software process improvement, executive management, middle management, the development team, and in many cases, customers must all support the initiative, and they all buy in for different reasons. I’ve seen companies try to change their process by decree. I’ve never seen this work.
So what to do? The first overarching principal to gaining buy-in is over communicating. I’ve read that if you communicate something seven times, half of the people will have heard it. I don’t know if this is true, but I do know you need to communicate the changes, and the benefits multiple times in multiple ways.
Additionally, each group will have different reservations and will be motivated by different benefits, so tailoring the message is critical. When communicating with each stakeholder group, make sure to address the reservations, and highlight the benefits that are relevant to them.
Group
Reservations
Appealing Benefits
Developers
- Loss of control
- Lots of paperwork
- Loss of creativity
- Fewer fires to fight
- No more “death marches”
- Less rework
- Fewer bugs
- Loss of control
- Lots of paperwork
- Slow things down
- Better planning
- Fewer fires
- More satisfied customers
- Less flexibility
- Slow things down
- More visibility
- More satisfied customers
- Slow things down
- Less flexibility
- Less “direct access”
- Higher quality
- More visibility
- Getting more of what they want
Bite-sized pieces The second common roadblock is trying to change too much. I worked with an organization that had engaged one of the large consulting firms to help them with their process improvement. The result was a 100+ page PowerPoint with so many recommendations that the client organization was completely overwhelmed and did nothing. Granted, all of these recommendations were valid, and would have helped this organization, but would have required wholesale changes in virtually every aspect of their product development. The method that ultimately worked for this organization was one of incremental change. We spent some time interviewing key players in each group, and analyzing past projects and came up with the first couple of areas we wanted to address, based on the biggest bang for the buck. Note that we resisted the temptation to chart the whole process improvement path, and just took the first few steps, with the intent of assessing the situation again after evaluating the initial progress.
The benefit of an incremental approach to process improvement is that you can you can get improvements much more quickly, and you don’t bring the whole development group to a grinding halt. No organization can tolerate a major disruption. Culturally, incremental refinement also creates the opportunity for continuous improvement to become the norm. In one organization I worked with, the first couple of rounds of improvements were initiated and led by middle management, but after that a cross functional group of individual contributors (consisting of development, product marketing, QA, and customer support) took the reigns and continued on the path.
Broad Participation That brings me to another potential obstacle – lack of engagement by the team. By this, I mean a feeling that it is someone else’s process – no sense of ownership. The easiest way to deal with this obstacle is to avoid it entirely. I once hired a consultant to help me with process improvements, and although he and I had a pretty good idea of what we thought the end result would look like, we knew we had to get the team involved, even if it meant that the initial process design would go slower. Well, we did, and not only was the team on board, the final process included modifications suggested by team members that made it much better. This was a case of doing the right thing for not entirely the right reason, and it worked out great. One important point here, it’s important to signal the importance of this by involving “A players.” Everyone knows who they are, and if a process improvement initiative is staffed entirely with lesser players, it will not be viewed as important. Additionally, these “A players” are often leaders in their community and influence others, so their adoption and support is critical.
Pilot the process The next few roadblocks have to do with implementation. The first is “how do I roll this out to the whole organization,” and the answer is, you don’t. Piloting the process with one team or on one project is the way to go. You’ll get to iron out any kinks and show a win before you roll it out to the rest of the organization.
Avoid Analysis Paralysis Piloting also helps with the second roadblock – designing and designing and designing until it’s perfect – analysis paralysis. You don’t have to get it perfect right out of the gate. If you’re like most organizations, any step in the right direction will make an impact. Plan to pilot your process with a small group, and then make revisions before rolling it out further. Not only does that approach deal with this common roadblock, it also helps to reinforce a continuous improvement culture.
Roll-out Finally, the last common roadblock in implementation is making sure the team members know what they are supposed to be doing. It’s important to have documentation on the process, but it’s also very important to provide initial training as well as ongoing coaching as the change is made. People learn in different ways, and often need the opportunity to ask clarifying questions. Formal training is key to a successful process roll out. Another technique we’ve found beneficial is having a process coach. As the team members start to use the new process, they’ll run into situations and may need help figuring out how to handle them. In truth, these situations may not have been considered when designing the process, and the process may need to be tweaked. There’s nothing wrong with that, but only someone with the big picture in view can tell that. Providing ongoing support will make the team members much more successful.
Why Bother? I acknowledge that this stuff is not always easy, especially for those of us that are much more comfortable with computers than we are with people, but it is important. We can’t continue to go on with the status quo. We have the tools we need to create an environment where we know what’s going on with our projects and we can consistently deliver on our com
How do you get your articles read and actioned? Well it seems to me that the only way to be sure that you get your articles read and actioned is to make them interesting.Writing good interesting articles can be a lot of hard work and if nobody reads them, it all just goes to waste.If you make it hard work for the people who are supposed to be reading your articles why should they bother?Articles are written to be read. It’s just a matter of making them interesting and worth reading. Let me remind you of how writing articles can be fun, as well as profitable for you and your site.I imagine you are already knowledgeable about the certain topic or theme of your niche website. When you write articles about it, you shouldn’t have a hard time because you already know what it is and what it’s about. It’s just a matter of making your writing creative and interesting to get your articles read and actioned. Oh by the way, when I say "actioned" what I mean is a click through to your site (otherwise it's still wasted).To make sure that your articles get read and actioned, here are half a dozen top tips to get your articles read. These tips will make your articles readable and interesting.1.
- Less flexibility
- Slow things down
- More visibility
- More satisfied customers
- Slow things down
- Less flexibility
- Less “direct access”
- Higher quality
- More visibility
- Getting more of what they want
Bite-sized pieces The second common roadblock is trying to change too much. I worked with an organization that had engaged one of the large consulting firms to help them with their process improvement. The result was a 100+ page PowerPoint with so many recommendations that the client organization was completely overwhelmed and did nothing. Granted, all of these recommendations were valid, and would have helped this organization, but would have required wholesale changes in virtually every aspect of their product development. The method that ultimately worked for this organization was one of incremental change. We spent some time interviewing key players in each group, and analyzing past projects and came up with the first couple of areas we wanted to address, based on the biggest bang for the buck. Note that we resisted the temptation to chart the whole process improvement path, and just took the first few steps, with the intent of assessing the situation again after evaluating the initial progress.
The benefit of an incremental approach to process improvement is that you can you can get improvements much more quickly, and you don’t bring the whole development group to a grinding halt. No organization can tolerate a major disruption. Culturally, incremental refinement also creates the opportunity for continuous improvement to become the norm. In one organization I worked with, the first couple of rounds of improvements were initiated and led by middle management, but after that a cross functional group of individual contributors (consisting of development, product marketing, QA, and customer support) took the reigns and continued on the path.
Broad Participation That brings me to another potential obstacle – lack of engagement by the team. By this, I mean a feeling that it is someone else’s process – no sense of ownership. The easiest way to deal with this obstacle is to avoid it entirely. I once hired a consultant to help me with process improvements, and although he and I had a pretty good idea of what we thought the end result would look like, we knew we had to get the team involved, even if it meant that the initial process design would go slower. Well, we did, and not only was the team on board, the final process included modifications suggested by team members that made it much better. This was a case of doing the right thing for not entirely the right reason, and it worked out great. One important point here, it’s important to signal the importance of this by involving “A players.” Everyone knows who they are, and if a process improvement initiative is staffed entirely with lesser players, it will not be viewed as important. Additionally, these “A players” are often leaders in their community and influence others, so their adoption and support is critical.
Pilot the process The next few roadblocks have to do with implementation. The first is “how do I roll this out to the whole organization,” and the answer is, you don’t. Piloting the process with one team or on one project is the way to go. You’ll get to iron out any kinks and show a win before you roll it out to the rest of the organization.
Avoid Analysis Paralysis Piloting also helps with the second roadblock – designing and designing and designing until it’s perfect – analysis paralysis. You don’t have to get it perfect right out of the gate. If you’re like most organizations, any step in the right direction will make an impact. Plan to pilot your process with a small group, and then make revisions before rolling it out further. Not only does that approach deal with this common roadblock, it also helps to reinforce a continuous improvement culture.
Roll-out Finally, the last common roadblock in implementation is making sure the team members know what they are supposed to be doing. It’s important to have documentation on the process, but it’s also very important to provide initial training as well as ongoing coaching as the change is made. People learn in different ways, and often need the opportunity to ask clarifying questions. Formal training is key to a successful process roll out. Another technique we’ve found beneficial is having a process coach. As the team members start to use the new process, they’ll run into situations and may need help figuring out how to handle them. In truth, these situations may not have been considered when designing the process, and the process may need to be tweaked. There’s nothing wrong with that, but only someone with the big picture in view can tell that. Providing ongoing support will make the team members much more successful.
Why Bother? I acknowledge that this stuff is not always easy, especially for those of us that are much more comfortable with computers than we are with people, but it is important. We can’t continue to go on with the status quo. We have the tools we need to create an environment where we know what’s going on with our projects and we can consistently deliver on our com
Can you imagine if you could lower your marketing costs while increasing your sales?Profitable hospitality and tourism professionals know that staff training to enhance customer service and staff attitude is one of the best returns on investments you can make. We are in a customer service/ hospitality industry and it shows up in your staff both on the job and in your remote travel marketing. If your staff is happy, excited and a team player, their ability to represent and effectively promote your destination or tours goes way up. A great place to use happy motivated staff to promote and increase sales is in travel trade shows.Trade shows and public presentations are great opportunities for knowledgeable field staff to enthusiastically communicate face to face with prospective clients. Who else can share with prospective visitors your great trips or destinations, better then field guides?Tim’s Tip: Role-play here with your staff is key. Also check out “Travel Trade Show Success" audio course. Don’t consider exhibiting without listening to this. This can increase your success and revenues ten fold. Travel Trade Show Marketing to become the norm. In one organization I worked with, the first couple of rounds of improvements were initiated and led by middle management, but after that a cross functional group of individual contributors (consisting of development, product marketing, QA, and customer support) took the reigns and continued on the path.
Broad Participation That brings me to another potential obstacle – lack of engagement by the team. By this, I mean a feeling that it is someone else’s process – no sense of ownership. The easiest way to deal with this obstacle is to avoid it entirely. I once hired a consultant to help me with process improvements, and although he and I had a pretty good idea of what we thought the end result would look like, we knew we had to get the team involved, even if it meant that the initial process design would go slower. Well, we did, and not only was the team on board, the final process included modifications suggested by team members that made it much better. This was a case of doing the right thing for not entirely the right reason, and it worked out great. One important point here, it’s important to signal the importance of this by involving “A players.” Everyone knows who they are, and if a process improvement initiative is staffed entirely with lesser players, it will not be viewed as important. Additionally, these “A players” are often leaders in their community and influence others, so their adoption and support is critical.
Pilot the process The next few roadblocks have to do with implementation. The first is “how do I roll this out to the whole organization,” and the answer is, you don’t. Piloting the process with one team or on one project is the way to go. You’ll get to iron out any kinks and show a win before you roll it out to the rest of the organization.
Avoid Analysis Paralysis Piloting also helps with the second roadblock – designing and designing and designing until it’s perfect – analysis paralysis. You don’t have to get it perfect right out of the gate. If you’re like most organizations, any step in the right direction will make an impact. Plan to pilot your process with a small group, and then make revisions before rolling it out further. Not only does that approach deal with this common roadblock, it also helps to reinforce a continuous improvement culture.
Roll-out Finally, the last common roadblock in implementation is making sure the team members know what they are supposed to be doing. It’s important to have documentation on the process, but it’s also very important to provide initial training as well as ongoing coaching as the change is made. People learn in different ways, and often need the opportunity to ask clarifying questions. Formal training is key to a successful process roll out. Another technique we’ve found beneficial is having a process coach. As the team members start to use the new process, they’ll run into situations and may need help figuring out how to handle them. In truth, these situations may not have been considered when designing the process, and the process may need to be tweaked. There’s nothing wrong with that, but only someone with the big picture in view can tell that. Providing ongoing support will make the team members much more successful.
Why Bother? I acknowledge that this stuff is not always easy, especially for those of us that are much more comfortable with computers than we are with people, but it is important. We can’t continue to go on with the status quo. We have the tools we need to create an environment where we know what’s going on with our projects and we can consistently deliver on our com
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Roll-out Finally, the last common roadblock in implementation is making sure the team members know what they are supposed to be doing. It’s important to have documentation on the process, but it’s also very important to provide initial training as well as ongoing coaching as the change is made. People learn in different ways, and often need the opportunity to ask clarifying questions. Formal training is key to a successful process roll out. Another technique we’ve found beneficial is having a process coach. As the team members start to use the new process, they’ll run into situations and may need help figuring out how to handle them. In truth, these situations may not have been considered when designing the process, and the process may need to be tweaked. There’s nothing wrong with that, but only someone with the big picture in view can tell that. Providing ongoing support will make the team members much more successful.
Why Bother? I acknowledge that this stuff is not always easy, especially for those of us that are much more comfortable with computers than we are with people, but it is important. We can’t continue to go on with the status quo. We have the tools we need to create an environment where we know what’s going on with our projects and we can consistently deliver on our commitments. By implementing some structure in the development process, we can allow our teams to use their creativity to solve the tough problems and drive innovation. Additionally we can create a sane environment where our people can do good work and still maintain balance between work and the rest of their lives.
Companies are under increasing pressure to deliver more with less. Whether the pressure comes from overseas or from upstarts right here at home does not matter. To survive in today’s fast-paced world, we need to be able to deliver quality products quickly and consistently. If you use these techniques to overcome these common roadblocks to process implementation, you are much more likely to create a sustainable, positive change in your organization.
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