Jan Bosch
As an engineer, I’ve often had difficulty with the somewhat touchy-feely language used in leadership literature and HR departments. Rationally, I know that humans are irrational beings that excel at post-rationalizing their decisions and actions. And to reason about our irrational or pre-rational side, we need to use language that seeks to model that part … Read more
When I was 14, I started to work in a local supermarket. That was actually not legal, but family connections and some creative managing of practicalities caused me to stomp around there anyway. The guy who got me introduced to the secrets of filling shelves, pricing goods and unloading trucks had the habit of not … Read more
There are few topics in companies as sensitive as the notion of organization and organizational setup. Many still view their career as climbing the corporate ladder and, having reached a few rungs up the ladder, worry about sliding down again. So, every discussion that might rock the boat is received with great skepticism and people … Read more
There’s more data in the world than ever before. According to some sources, the world stores over 50 zettabytes of data. A zettabyte is 2 to the power of 70, or one billion terabytes. So, one would assume that the entire world has moved to data-driven ways of working. As we all know, this is … Read more
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
