Jan Bosch
The CEO of one company that I work with lamented that his leadership team was discussing a reorganization again. And that although he was not again reorganizing in itself, the last reorganization had not really solved any of the issues the company struggled with. Consequently, he was concerned that this new reorg would throw up … Read more
Since the summer, I’ve been working with well over a dozen companies in different capacities and in several of these companies, there is a challenge on the R&D front that actually is caused by bad business habits. When I’m asked to spend some time with a company, it very often is because there is some … Read more
If there is one buzzword that is getting a lot attention in the circles I operate in, it is INNOVATION. As I spent another week on the road spending time with different companies, I realized that I probably haven’t had a meeting at a single company over the last year or more where the “I” … Read more
The majority of companies that I work with provide products, systems and solutions to the market that include mechanical, electronic (hardware) and software parts. In order to design these systems, companies appoint system architects that are supposed to manage the system design, realization and evolution. Over the last couple of months, I have run into … Read more
In the age of continuous deployment, B2B and B2C customers expect that the software in their product or system is updated frequently throughout its economic life. As a minimum, security updates need to be deployed, but also bug fixes and improvements or even entirely new functionality is expected to be added to products and systems … Read more
Over the last years, I have time and again run into the conflict that many companies experience between long term planning and continuous (agile) practices. In an embedded systems context, where the system contains mechanics and electronics in addition to software, the organization needs long term planning for “the atoms” because of manufacturing processes, ordering … Read more
During a conference in Vienna, I listened to a keynote from a researcher from a large industrial company. The talk was full of the promise of IoT, connectivity, cloud, edge computing and apps and the business benefits that could be realized. The presenter did a good job, but I have heard these presentations on the … Read more
Most of the software-intensive systems companies that I work with are in the process of converting from pure product businesses to product + service or pure services businesses. This is a huge change for any company and means changes at several levels and all functions of the company. Over the last months, I have been … Read more
Reflecting on software intensive companies during the summer break made me think about the way investment decisions are made and what new approaches, such as continuous integration and deployment as well as data analytics, mean for these investment decisions. A key principle that I learned while working in Silicon Valley is to minimize investment between … Read more
As I am starting up my weekly blog posts again after a great vacation in Japan and the Netherlands, I thought I’d start with a more personal post. The trigger for this is that (drum-rolls please) I turned 50 this summer, meaning that I’ve been walking around on this rock hurtling itself through space for … Read more
