Jan Bosch
The traditional way of software development is to first agree on what to build, then build the functionality and finally commence testing and fixing defects until the quality is at an acceptable level. As anyone who has spent any time in this field knows, no software is ever flawless, but the concept is to get … Read more
With the Ascension weekend upon us, I decided to take a break from my (probably) 33 part blog post series on the 8 capabilities to boost your digitalization. In this post I want to focus on change and the resistance of change that many are experiencing around them. To illustrate this, I want to start … Read more
Every company I meet claims that they’re agile. When I push a little bit and ask for details, typically the conclusion is that this is only true at the team level. The rest of the organization is stuck in traditional, slow cycles. The defense that I get is that the company is fast enough in … Read more
Wherever Agile principles and practices took a foothold in industry, the word “process” became anathema. In many ways, this was a healthy reaction to the CMMI approach to software engineering that preceded it and that was extremely focused on process. It turns out that in addition to process, we actually need architecture, technology, teams, commitments, … Read more
Even if many of us conceptually agree with the notion of data-driven decision-making, it’s my experience that many still fall back into old-fashioned opinion-based decision-making. These opinions are formed by experience and for most of history, making decisions based on experience was a great principle as the pace of change was very slow. The challenge … Read more
One of the concepts I think is poorly understood by many is the notion of modularization. Generally, most people will consider a more modular system as preferable to a less modular system. As a consequence, modularity is viewed as positive and generally used as an alternative word for “good.” My concern with this view is … Read more
Sometime last year, I had a discussion with senior leaders of an automotive tier-1 supplier. I explained to them that if we’re serious about moving towards DevOps in automotive, their customer-project-centric approach would have to change. A typical car model is developed for three to four years, then manufactured for around seven years and the … Read more
While the last posts were about the business dimension of digitalization, there obviously is a technology side to it as well. Digitalization requires the company to build new technical capabilities, specifically around the use of data and artificial intelligence, but the primary challenge is, in my experience, concerned with system and software architecture. The system … Read more
So far, the posts in this series have stressed that the continuous value delivery to customers, rather than the transactional model, affects all parts of the company. One of the areas often ignored or seen too late as playing an important role is customer support. In many companies, this team is assumed to already have … Read more
For most of my life, I’ve worked in engineering. I worked as a programmer during my university studies. Built my own compilers while conducting my PhD research as I looked into alternative object-oriented programming languages. Worked in industry as a vice president on the engineering side and, of course, I published hundreds of papers on … Read more
