Jan Bosch
Some years ago, Frederic Laloux published a book called “Reinventing organizations,” which received quite a bit of attention in the media and industry. The basic premise was that organizations don’t need hierarchies, managers and bosses but should instead rely on other mechanisms. Mechanisms such as the advice process, agreements and roles. Others had published works … Read more
After more than three weeks of amazing vacation, I am now gearing up to get back to work again. And that, of course, means returning to posting on my blog as well. This summer was really good for me in that I completely disconnected from work, email, paper reviews, writing, PhD student supervision, research center … Read more
As the summer vacation is approaching or has started for most of us, also this blog will take a summer vacation. We will be back in mid August, but I thought I’d share a final post before the summer with five ideas, concepts and reflections that I hope provide you with some food for your … Read more
Few topics are as hotly debated in companies as the question of how to organize people into teams and departments. All kinds of arguments are thrown around, ranging from span of control for managers to optimal professional and personal development for frontline people. Of course, not all of these discussions are genuine and only focused … Read more
There’s a scenario that keeps repeating itself in our collaborations with a variety of companies. We come in and agree to work on a specific data-driven use case. The company claims to have vast amounts of data and nobody in the company worries about not having the data available. That is, until they start looking … Read more
One of the worst misconceptions in software engineering is the assumption that if we build software based on a requirement specification, test it according to the spec and deliver it to our customers, we’ve delivered value to these customers. This may be the case when a small team of consultants develops software for a single, … Read more
Humans are belief-driven storytelling machines who post-rationalize their, often irrational, behavior. This is at odds with our self-image of rational beings who make measured, balanced choices between well-reasoned alternatives. While this image may hold up in some contexts, research in psychology and elsewhere shows that unless there’s a non-negotiable yardstick holding us accountable, we easily … Read more
Architecture provides the linchpin between business strategy and technology strategy. Previously, we’ve explored how deep the relationship is between architecture choices and the available business strategy options. As the world is constantly evolving, we need to evolve with it. This means not only adjusting our business strategy to changes but also, by extension, changing the … Read more
When I wrote my first book in the 1990s, it was on software architecture. The central tenet at that time was that we had to be careful and intentional about the initial design of the architecture as subsequent changes were considered to be impossibly difficult. So, as a community, we developed techniques to assess architectures, … Read more
One of the topics many people fail to understand is the intimate relationship between business strategy and system and software architecture. This is the case for folks on the business side as well as many engineers. To illustrate this, one company I work with is involved in standardization in the context of home automation. It … Read more
