The more things change... the more they stay the same

As I was perusing through about a year's worth of industry journals accumulating as they do in a pile in the corner of my office, I was hit with a flash of deja vu. Some of the journals hidden in the corners had actually been there for more than 24 months, and I was amazed to discover that this depression/recession/financial crisis we are in is not new. In fact, for the majority of years in this new millenium - we've been in a downturn!

This continuing trend - Information Week headlines from 2003 declared job hunting woes were in full swing back then - has been going on for years - albeit not in as dramatic as today - but the situation is not strikingly new. It's just taken us the aggregation of a pile of small things (and big things such as the Wall Street collapse) to realize the full gravity of the situation.

Having said this, there are two major thoughts that come to mind when we apply this same trend to software development:

1. This too will pass (it always does); and
2. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Let me explain:

"This too will pass" - in the heat of our current crisis where software development budgets, projects, contracts, have been curtailed and layoffs announced, companies have reacted in the typical cocooning mode by burying their heads and cutting out any "superfluous spending" such as training, travel, conferences, process improvement and measurement. Yet, again and again, we know in our hearts and minds that this current crisis will pass and that this is the IDEAL TIME to invest (wisely) in just that very training to upgrade our workforces, exchanging information at conferences with best-in-class organizations, and investing strategically in process improvement and sustainable measurement initiatives so that we are ready, lean, and mean when the current situation passes (as it will). Corporations simply do not seem to learn, and instead of truly relying on the ingenuity and innovativeness of the America we know and love, they fall back on the scrimping and saving mode (like hiding money between mattresses) that worked for our forefathers but which has been proven to worsen (not improve) the competitiveness of a corporation when we come out of the current temporary crisis.

2. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

What I mean by this is that the more an industry finally embraces a particular concept, methodology, or newfangled approach, the more that nothing really changes. For example, take the current case of the adoption of agile methods of software development. While the proponents tout statistics based mostly on intuition and gut feel (proclamations such as agile is the only way to develop software today, bar none), the contrarians proclaim that the approach does not progress the industry but rather takes us back a step. They profess that agile is imperfect for all applications, do not provide a trail of quantifiable measurements, do not provide adequate documentation or commented code, and do not provide a solid system architecture to sustain the functionality into the future.

So what happens next? Following in the historical cycle, the current agile methods will begin to crumble (and be torn apart by some of the early adopters who now see the folly in some of the less disciplined aspects of the methodology), a "new and improved and evolutionary" approach will be devised and introduced, and the masses will go back to the tried and true (waterfall methodology) that does not work when agile is needed - and a new convincing and influencing cycle will start to convince the software development industry to try the new and improved "whatever approach".

So the more that things change, the more they seem to stay the same. Interesting culture of change n'est-ce pas?

This week I am facilitating a different set of workshops on Global Projects with Cultural Diversity and the question arose about the changing of a country's culture (such as India or China) based on the amount of outsourcing that is happening. While the pace of technology change can be rapid and pervasive, the change of a culture is extremely slow - proving again that the more things change, the more things stay the same.

Stay warm this February wherever you are (or cool if you are in Australia facing this month's record high temperatures of +40C!) - and have a good week.

I'll be back next week with more of the same - and a little bit of different! Happy development.

p.s., Here's a humorous photo from the icy streets of Santa Fe, NM during New Year's week this year. The Danger sign was missing a few letters.... Enjoy!


Regards,
Carol Dekkers

Carol Dekkers email: dekkers@qualityplustech.com
http://www.qualityplustech.com/
http://www.caroldekkers.com/





Contact Carol for your keynote and speaking needs - she translates technical subjects into easily digestible soundbites - in a humorous and forthright manner. See http://www.caroldekkers.com/ for details of topics and opportunities.

View also Carol Dekkers' general blog at http://caroldekkers.wordpress.com/

============Copyright 2009, Carol Dekkers ALL RIGHTS RESERVED =============

Certified Scope Manager - the new IT Job Role - FREE webinar this Wed. Dec. 3, 2008

The Professional Certified Scope Manager (CSM) - a New IT Job Role. – A webinar presented by Carol Dekkers
December 3rd, 2008-- 11:00 am - 12:30 pm Eastern Time

To register (there is no charge to attend this webinar), visit: http://solutions.compaid.com/forms/WebinarA20081203?ProcessType=PreReg

Are you worried about your job when we're all expected to do the same as yesterday but achieve better results? All this while we have tightened budgets, less time to complete our work, and little time for rework or risk-laden technology investments. Learn from Carol Dekkers, a main partner in the European Certificates Association for the Certified Scope Manager (CSM) job role, how becoming a Certified Scope Manager could insulate you from a potential job cut.
Recessions bring many things including added stress and discomfort for customers needing to streamline their business with uncertain technology solutions. Fixed price budgets do not serve either suppliers or customers well without solid requirements and in a down-turned economy, timeframes and resources are tightened even further.

The impact of rework, missed deadlines, budget excesses, and projects with missing or incorrect requirements is difficult to gauge, but blame increasingly is found to be shared equally between the customer and supplier. As a result of the ongoing frustration and the lack of an objective third party similar to a real estate agent, software intensive systems development may continue to derail until such time as accountants step in with their own cost-based accounting and other manufacturing approaches to remedy what they see as the issues.

This doesn’t need to happen. In the same way as a homebuyer hires a real estate agent to assist them in their search, evaluation, inspection, acquisition, financing (mortgage), and closure of a property to meet their needs (which may include construction and renovation); a new IT job role – that of a Certified Scope Manager (CSM) – can serve an analogous role on IT projects. Scope management is an emerging concept whereby a "scope manager" works throughout the preliminary requirements through to final delivery with software acquirers and suppliers to alleviate the scope management related ills that plague software intensive systems.

In this webinar, join 4SUM Partner, and Quality Plus Technologies President, Carol Dekkers and find out what is involved in the emerging job role of a Certified Scope Manager as defined by the European Certificates Association and the northernSCOPE™ concept from Finland. Ms. Dekkers is the author of two 2008 books related to scope management: Program Management Toolkit for software and systems development (published by Talentum) and The IT Measurement Compendium: Estimating and benchmarking success with Functional Size Measurement (published by Springer). Carol is heavily involved as a main partner in the European Certificates association for the Certified Scope Manager (CSM) job role, and she frequently gives keynote presentations on software measurement, scope management, global software development, and project management at international software conferences.

Target audience: Anyone who has a role in the success of a software or systems project including project managers, systems analysts, business analysts, quality assurance specialists, software and systems acquirers, metrics specialists, steering committee members, project sponsors, prospective scope managers, etc.

Learning takeaways from this webinar:
· Learn why scope management alleviates six of the top ten reasons for project failure
· Understand the 12 steps necessary for success with the northernSCOPE™ concept
· Discover if your skills match up with the mandatory pre-requisite and acquirable job requirements to become a CSM
· Identify the critical success factors for a CSM to make a clear difference on software intensive systems projects anywhere in the world.

To register (there is no charge to attend this webinar), visit: http://solutions.compaid.com/forms/WebinarA20081203?ProcessType=PreReg

Have a good week!
Carol
Carol Dekkers
email: dekkers@qualityplustech.com
http://www.qualityplustech.com/
http://www.caroldekkers.com/

Contact Carol for your keynote and speaking needs - she translates technical subjects into easily digestible soundbites - in a humorous and forthright manner. See http://www.caroldekkers.com/ for details of topics and opportunities.

View also Carol Dekkers' general blog at http://caroldekkers.wordpress.com/

============Copyright 2008, Carol Dekkers ALL RIGHTS RESERVED =============

Certified Scope Managers (CSM) Alleviate Customer Stress on Software Projects

-- Read to the end of this post for a free webinar offer Dec. 3, 2008 --

Can you imagine purchasing or building a new residence today without having the internet and real estate resources to assist with pricing comparisons, market research, neighborhood planning and demographics (including crime statistics, trends, etc.), arranging for an inspection, title transfer, mortgage financing, bids and closing, etc.? This is exactly the situation on many software development projects - the customer knows that they need a technology solution to business problems but often must navigate through the software development process on their own - with only the builder (software developer) to guide them through. Until now, that is! Introducing a new professional job role that we are standardizing in Europe through the European Certificates Association - the Certified Scope Manager (CSM).

In building construction/home buying, a buyer who works without the support of third parties to assist (real estate agents, general contractor, architects, etc) in negotiations and ongoing communication with the seller or builder, would be stressed out. The sheer number of activities and issues in the processes can be overwhelming, and an independent buyer becomes highly dependent on the honesty and trust relationship they personally establish with the seller or builder. In addition, buyers without a background in home sales or construction often enter the process rather innocently and find that the overall purchase or construction can be one of the most stressful events possible. Not only is a residence the largest single capital investment most people ever make, its acquisition is laden with emotion and a number of expectations of what the residents will experience (hopefully happy and stressfree) once the move is complete.

In software development there's different players involved and also a far bigger investment at stake, yet many customers have relied for years on "fixed price" contracts that begin before requirements (when no one knows exactly what is required!) Suppliers in such instances typically "pad their estimates" to cover any eventuality because of the vagueness of the requirements in the RFP. No wonder the overall projects end up overbudget and behind schedule! What we need in software development is a real estate agent for acquirers -- and the good news is that in Finland and Australia, it's already a reality in the form of a Scope Manager!

Free webinar: JOIN ME ON DEC. 3, 2008 from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm EST for a free webinar: The Professional Certified Scope Manager (CSM): A new IT Job Role. – A webinar presented by Carol Dekkers

To register (there is no charge to attend this webinar), visit: http://solutions.compaid.com/forms/WebinarA20081203?ProcessType=PreReg

I look forward to welcoming you there!

Have a great week,
Carol

Carol Dekkers
email: dekkers@qualityplustech.com

http://www.qualityplustech.com/
http://www.caroldekkers.com/

Contact Carol for your keynote and speaking needs - she translates technical subjects into easily digestible soundbites - in a humorous and forthright manner. See http://www.caroldekkers.com/ for details of topics and opportunities.

View also Carol Dekkers' general blog at http://caroldekkers.wordpress.com/ ============Copyright 2008, Carol Dekkers ALL RIGHTS RESERVED =============

The Future of Technology Conferences...

Depending on your age, you may or may not remember when... technology-centric conferences were in their infancy in the late 1970's. It was a time of abundance and technology was new and exciting - and colleagues would sometimes select the conference for the half-year (two to four conferences a year was the norm) - based on the exotic locale?
Without reference to age, some of us even may remember when... conferences grew larger by the hundreds every year based on positive word of mouth and the location?
Remember when... budget and training dollars were granted when you applied to go to a particular conference, and then additional dollars were authorized when you found another equally "not to be missed" conference after you got back from the first?

Those were the boomtown eighties all right! Ok, I'm old enough to recall attending international specialty workshops, training seminars, and software development conferences with hardly more justification than the conference brochure - and we certainly didn't need to submit triplicate copies for every lunch and coffee receipts for every day of every trip. Today, things are vastly different and the whole traditional, in-person conference is a big make it or break it expenditure for the corporations and not-for-profit groups alike. And, with the downward trend in attendance, it can take a single poorly attended conference to wipe-out an organization's assets. What are the challenges that technical conferences are up against these days? Here's a few of the emerging trends:

1. Increased competition for conference dollars

It is virtually impossible to keep up with the explosion of specialty "international" conferences that pop up almost weekly. It appears that anyone who sees that a buck can be made if you can just "tap the right market at the right time" seems to have gone into the conference business. ABCD (or some other clever 4 letter acronym) springs up and touts itself as "the provider of the premiere conference experience". Or it is common to read "Ixxxx Institute presents the first ever blahblahblah conference" as a conference headline. Be careful how you allocate your conference dollars before you trust the printed brochure to make sure that value will be delivered. It is good practice (but not a common practice) to call the organizers ahead of time and ask for the names of five of last year's attendees, then follow-up with them by phone or email to ask what they thought of their conference experience. Be wary if all of the attendees are board members or a member of the conference planning team. Otherwise, if the advice is "skip this one" - you know that you've probably saved your company travel money, conference fees, and workshop fees - and have crossed one tenuous conference off the list.

2. Conferences that sound too good to be true probably are.

Watch for fly-by-nights in today's money hungry economy, there are those who think that any popular topic will pack a conference - and that is partially true. Agile, SOA, Open source and Web2.0 conferences are popular and currently still amassing good turnouts. When we're talking about the amount of money generated at a well-attended conference (1000 attendees at $1000 per attendee is big bucks!), there are those who may get greedy and put customer satisfaction and value and speaker treatment on the bottom of their list of priorities. Make sure that all of the speakers listed for the conference will be appearing live and in person if you want to meet the speaker as there are conferences today that "beam in" a satellite feed of the speaker at another venue (like on the academy awards with entertainers who couldn't make the live show!) or sometimes even run a pre-recording of the speaker delivering his/her presentation. Especially watch this at conferences where the speaker lineup appears just too plentiful and illustrious to be true - because it probably is!

3. Webinars and podcasts are the rage today

Remote, small bite sized presentations on a particular (usually highly focused) topic packaged as a low-cost or free webinar seem to increase weekly. While webinars were once limited to high-technology companies seeking to demonstrate their software remotely, the webinar and podcast (usually audio only as opposed to video for webinars) frequency have taken over the mainstream of technology offering topics ranging from coding tips to software development methodology. Why go to a conference if a webinar will deliver the information directly to your desktop?

4. Open universities

Did you know that anyone with an internet connection worldwide can attend classes remotely at MIT and other major universities throughout the world? While a degree is granted only to those paying students, others can watch and learn for no cost by simply accessing the university site and selecting the topic and date for the class and "tuning in" (double clicking on the selected video link). For example, Thomas Friedman's lecture on his book The World is Flat from May 2005 at MIT can be readily viewed at anytime day or night. Visit MIT open university at http://mitworld.mit.edu/.

What's the future for technology conferences? If there's the right combination of location, people, topics, and proven good speakers delivering content rich presentations, then there will always be a market for well attended in-person conferences. However, miss one of the ingredients or have a stale or old school style conference where the same old presenters present the same old stuff at a conference run by the same old not-for-profit board members, and you're going to see a decline in attendance no matter where you locate the conference.

It's going to be interesting to see which conferences survive and thrive in 2009, and what conferences simply disappear from the landscape... any guesses from your vantage point?

Have a nice week!

Carol Dekkers
http://www.caroldekkers.com/
http://www.qualityplustech.com/
-----------COPYRIGHT 2008 Carol Dekkers ALL RIGHTS RESERVED------------------------

What we have is a Failure to Communicate

I don't know if you 've been following the technology trends of the past year or so, but a few disparate headlines keep surfacing and are not easily dismissed:

• The Percentage of Females entering Computer Science and Engineering Falls to an All Time Low (mainstream newspapers)
• Is there a link between Asperger's Syndrome and Social Skills in IT (SEPG conference presentation)
• Communication is the Bigger Part of Project Management (frequent presentations on soft skills at PM conferences)
• Innovation and Communication are two of the Areas not easily Outsourced (citing Thomas Friedman's book "The World is Flat")
• Barely 1/3 of IT Projects are Successful (Annual CHAOS reports by the Standish group)

Taken individually these topics seem harmless enough, but as I speak internationally on the topics of IT measurement, global software development (and the accompanying cultural issues), and the future of project management and quality in IT, I am struck by the common chord that permeates all of these headlines: we in computer science and engineering are stereotypically lacking in social and communication skills.

I can hear it now, anyone who's been in software and systems development for more than six months is saying, "No ****! Say something we don't already know!" I know from personal experience that few students enter engineering or computer science to gain people skills!

Recent research illuminates that computer science related professions - and in particular IT development - are so devoid of gratitude and basic human appreciation that women in particular find the environment uninhabitable over the long term. Gosh, it sounds like Mars - and in many ways, in many organizations, an IT career in software development is often like life on Mars may turn out to be. I do realize that there ARE places that are on the top 100 list of companies to work for in IT - and I applaud those companies who nurture their employees, take a solid interest in making sure that their technical experts don't burn out, have ample opportunities, and a lifelong career. But, this is not the norm - at least not amongst the worldwide cadre of corporations represented at software and systems engineering conferences at which I speak. When I routinely ask "How quickly do you find out when you've done something wrong at work?" the answer is solidly quantified by minutes. However, when I ask the same question about doing the right things or going the extra mile - the answer is met with puzzled reactions that range from "NEVER!" to "if we're lucky, maybe after a few months".

What's wrong with this picture???? We're the same human beings that interface with parents and kids at soccer games, go out socially with friends, run governments, manage companies, you name it - the professionals involved in IT have the same lives as non-IT'ers - the need for friends, socialization, families, contact, movies, money, you name it - yet when we cross the threshold of our offices, it all goes out the window. (Yes, there ARE other professions that do this as well, but I'm talking about IT right now...)

One presentation of note at an SEPG (software engineering process group) conference of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) in the US a few years back, conjectured that perhaps the dysfunctional communication and appreciation in the IT field could be attributed to "Asperger's Syndrome" a form of early onset autism (for which the syndrome and accompanying diagnosis was not identified until 1972) - in which its sufferers lack the emotional empathy for others. In the presentation, the speakers were careful to caution audience members from labeling their co-workers who lack social skills as being autistic. But, it raised an interesting point - the room was filled to capacity and everyone seemed to be taking notes that they mentally could attribute co-workers to. I've never attended any other conference where professionals were eager to pin a lack of social skills of co-workers so readily on a medical condition. (A sidenote of interest was the research that showed a marked increase in the occurrence of early onset autism in Silicon Valley families where both parents worked in IT ).

Putting the SEPG presentation aside, still leaves the fact that soft skills are typically learned by osmosis or treated as "fluff" in IT (and engineering) despite the huge cost to our industry. During my engineering education, it was commonplace for colleagues to question why anyone would befriend non-engineers or attend non-engineering functions (which I did as a matter of course) - thinking that everyone else was either inferior (as if everyone in the world aspired to be an engineer!) or boring. Computer science wasn't much better and the cirriculums were often devoid of communication courses. Yet, in IT those very skills are the most needed and missing. Software development is a human endeavor for the most part.

What can we do about changing our world? Say a kind word, thank someone who goes the extra mile - and make it a conscious effort until it becomes a habit. As Clint Eastwood said "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

I am of the firm belief that if we put people first and technology second in our IT initiatives, and we concentrate on truly listening and learning about each other from a human perspective, our IT programs will succeed more often. And isn't process improvement and success what we need more of today - AND appreciation of the same?

Happy weekend!

Carol

http://www.caroldekkers.com/

http://www.qualityplustech.com/

-----------COPYRIGHT 2008 Carol Dekkers ALL RIGHTS RESERVED------------------------

The Economy and Software Measurement...

Every day I ponder just what power we, as individual homeowners and workers, can do about the mess our economy is in. As the owner of a small business who is reliant on having a steady stream of consulting and speaking clients, business is predictably UNpredictable. Entrepreneurs (like me) get used to the ups and downs of the business and its idiosyncracies and the dysfunctional behavior of corporate leaders.

For example, when the economy is good and business is up, companies will invest heavily in training and process improvement efforts. Yet, when the economy lags or economic growth slows, these same corporations cut out training as an excess "expense", and drop the non-mandatory (so called optional) programs such as process improvement! This is the opposite of what we do in personal life: when our income drops or the future looks less than positive, we typically start to look for a second job, cut back on non-essential spending, and go back to school for retraining. We certainly don't stop looking for ways to eliminate waste, find ways to improve, or to do things more effectively - we know that to survive we need to do just the opposite!

Yet business acts uncharacteristically to our personal lives, and does so over and over - each time anticipating different results. (Einstein called this "insanity" -- doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results!) Software measurement - the process of gauging and reporting just how well your IT department is performing in order to determine how much better we can do (through process improvement opportunities) - is perceived as "unnecessary overhead" and "not real work". Yet it is this very evaluation and measurement process that will uncover wasteful processes thereby saving the corporation time and money in the long run. Doesn't it seem like a downturned economy is the perfect time to determine where there is waste and rework hidden in your systems and software process?

I ask you this, what is a better time than today to figure out how to do things better? When our companies are losing money and squeezing workers ever harder to perform better, wouldn't that be the ideal time to figure out what NOT to do? It seems logical that major corporations need this information even more urgently in today's downturned economy. Companies NEED to know how to leverage those processes they do well on -- across the corporation, and cease doing (or change how they perform) those processes that result in underperformance and rework.

Everyone is talking about how the bleak outlook on our economy harkens back to the Great Depression, yet a few realists are actually talking about "opportunities" - acan you imagine? The optimists with an outlook toward positive change and opportunities are going to survive and thrive in this new "economy" and will lead the way in showing the remaining majority how business should be done!

Could it be that this is the perfect time to do things right - and focus on getting our corporate houses in order through measurement and comparison of methods? I believe that there has been no more POSITIVE time than now to invest wisely in software measurement rather than spending money the same way we have always done. There is a saying "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten." Isn't today the first day of an improved corporate life?.

Call me (727) 393-6048 office or email me dekkers@qualityplustech.com if you'd like to talk further about how we can work together to improve the bottom line of your IT business. Stay positive, remain resilient, and live for today - and somehow, someway in the silence, common sense and sane solutions will emerge. Software measurement is one of these!

p.s., My newest book was published last week in Germany and is now available in the U.S.! Visit www.qualityplustech.com/books.html to read reviews and link to Amazon.com to order The IT Measurement Compendium: Estimating and Benchmarking Success with Functional Size Measurement.

Best wishes for resiliency and success,
Carol
http://www.qualityplustech.com/
http://www.caroldekkers.com/
Carol Dekkers, PMP, CMC, CFPS, P.Eng.
International software and systems industry expert on ISO standards, estimating, IT measurement. Consultant, Workshop leader, Speaker, Author.

-----------COPYRIGHT 2008 Carol Dekkers ALL RIGHTS RESERVED------------------------