Jan Bosch
Few words are as overused and misused in product companies as the word “innovation.” In most contexts, it means something along the lines of new and good. It’s new because we didn’t have it before we developed it and it’s good because it wouldn’t be innovation otherwise. Few people are interested in discussing innovation that … Read more
The distinction between development and operations has been identified as obsolete in many companies that have adopted continuous deployment. The term DevOps was coined to refer to teams that are responsible both for development and operations. Although DevOps sounds really easy in theory, it’s surprisingly multi-faceted in practice. Since software started to be included in … Read more
Once upon a time, the customers and users of the products we built were vague, amorphous beings. Although most in R&D suspected they were out there, they were no real, tangible personas. This led to many decisions being made based on technological capabilities and, sometimes, spurious ideas of what customers and users might appreciate. At … Read more
Most companies I work with are focused on R&D. As product development is viewed as the wellspring of all new products and, by extension, revenue, the function is often protected from external influences by putting gatekeepers in between the customer, suppliers and other ‘distractors’ and the folks in R&D. Generally, the thinking seems to be … Read more
Why do you get out of bed in the morning? What are you looking to accomplish? How do you decide where to best spend your limited time and energy? Some of us are purely driven by the whip, meaning that others have decided where they need to be at what time to be doing what … Read more
Complex software-intensive systems typically consist of mechanical, electronic and software components. To ensure that all the parts come together in an integrated system that delivers the intended functionality to the customers, we need people to keep it all together. These are often referred to as systems engineers or system architects. Systems engineers frequently have a … Read more
In my experience, companies tend to fall into two categories when it comes to technology. Either they’re extremely market and customer-focused and view R&D as a necessary evil required to get the products we need to have anything to sell. Or they’re technology-focused and have the implicit belief that as long as we put bleeding-edge … Read more
Although many feel that digitalization is, by now, old news and that we should look forward, I feel that we’ve barely started to scratch the surface of what software, data and, more recently especially, artificial intelligence will bring to industry and society. Our ability to automate tasks that earlier needed to be done by humans … Read more
When I was young, I remember that my grandmother would often complain about things changing faster and that it was hard for her to keep up. At that point, I thought that this was because she was old, which she was, but these days, I know she was right. If we look at the societal … Read more
Many people implicitly believe that anything natural is better than anything created by humans, despite ample evidence to the contrary. Cooking on wood is much worse than cooking on an electric stove. Walking long distances is much worse than taking a car, train or plane. Sending an email is much better than having a courier … Read more
