Why is a common goal so important?

“I just want to get the first version out quickly. Can you just skip the testing, refactoring and all that mumbo-jambo? We just need to get it out quickly”, says Laura. Laura is the product owner.

The most destructive misunderstanding in today’s work life

Utilization refers to the amount of time spent doing actual work during working hours. A high level of utilization means no slack, few breaks and a constant sense of urgency.

Controlling a project leads to poor results

In 1982 Tom DeMarco published a book called Controlling Software Projects: Management, Measurement, and Estimation. The book is the source for the famous quote: “You can’t control what you can’t measure”.

How to create a rewarding situation

Imagine the following situation. You’ve just been assigned a new boss whom you’ve never met. He calls you in for a meeting the next day, but doesn’t tell you what it’s about. You already have something booked at the time he specifies, but he insists you move the…

How meta can you go?

Let’s roughly divide skills into two categories: task skills and meta skills. As a programmer, your task skills might include programming languages, debugging tools, IDE’s, design patterns and such. Task skills are the skills that are not easily transferable from one profession to another.

Things you don’t learn in the university, but should

Tomorrow I will be giving a lecture at Aalto University on the topic ‘Software development — Things you don’t learn in the university, but should’.

My key points are:

• It’s about people