Why you should not align

This week, I met with some companies in the embedded systems space that are looking to start A/B experimentation in their products. These products have safety-critical functions and subsystems and of course, it’s difficult to even imagine A/B tests that aren’t, in some way, touching safety-critical functionality. The proponents of experimentation at these companies outlined … Read more

Beyond Agile

Some decades after the term “Agile” was introduced in software development, one would expect that – assuming it was a good idea (which it is) – the concept should have been fully embedded in industry and we’re busy with other things. Still, and this never fails to surprise me, everyone is talking about “beyond Agile.” … Read more

Planning for business agility

During the summer, I reflected on the main differences between software engineering in the 1990s, when I became a professor, and today. The best way to describe what I feel is the key difference is perhaps through an analogy. In the 90s and early 2000s, software engineering was akin to designing and building a jet … Read more

Why your company works as it does

During my vacation, one of the questions I spent time thinking about is why companies function as they do. And why companies that are digitally born operate and “feel” different from traditional ones. Why companies that were different from the beginning tend to fall back into traditional patterns and become like traditional ones. I realized … Read more