Jan Bosch
This week, I had a wonderful conversation with the CEO of a midsized company (around 1,000 employees) to discuss business strategy and the implications on technology strategy in the overall context of digitalization. As the company supports its customers with digital solutions, it’s an example of the part of the economy that’s doing really well … Read more
This week, I had a meeting with the leadership team of a company that has asked me for help to accelerate their growth. We’ve been reconvening regularly and going through the process of defining who we are and what our purpose is as a business, identified the key avenues to accelerate growth, created a plan … Read more
In my last column, I presented our research agenda for AI engineering. This time, we’re going to focus on one of the topics on that agenda, ie data versioning and dependency management. Even though the big data era has been with us for over a decade now, many of the companies that we work with … Read more
Few technologies create a level of hype, excitement and fear these days as artificial intelligence (AI). The uninitiated believe that general AI is around the corner and worry that Skynet will take over soon. Even among those that understand the technology, there’s amazement and excitement about the things we’re able to do now and lots … Read more
Recently, I got an e-mail asking me why we should care about Agile if the overall product development process, including mechanics and electronics, is measured in years and is completely waterfall. The question took me by surprise. I’ve been working with Agile practices for the better part of two decades now and for me, it’s … Read more
For all the human suffering and economic impact caused by corona, there’s one thing that has just surprised me over and over again these last weeks: companies and professionals just adjust and adjust quickly. Teams and departments that were stuck in old ways of working suddenly have found that it’s entirely possible to work in … Read more
With the vast majority of white-collar staff in companies currently working from home, the normal ways of managing people are disrupted quite fundamentally. Working closely with people in such a way that you can tell them what to do is much more difficult when you’re not physically in the same place. Similarly, many organizations rely … Read more
During multiple meetings this week (online, obviously), the same challenge came up: companies and their customers are extremely poor at precisely defining what the desired outcome is that they’re looking to accomplish. At first blush, every person that I meet claims to know exactly what he or she is looking to achieve, but when push … Read more
All of Europe, as well as the rest of the world, is in the throes of the Corona virus and some people I meet are comparing it to the start of one of those apocalyptic movies where the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Of course, nobody can ignore the human suffering … Read more
One of the well-known struggles of every company I work with is to combine innovation with efficiency-oriented operations. This is the classic problem of ambidexterity: the company needs to deliver on today’s revenue and margins while securing its future. The problem is not that companies aren’t aware of the challenge but that they lack the … Read more
