In this blog post you'll find out ... that design is not (should not be) dead yet, functional architecture is as important as the technical one (and should have an owner), why BABOK sucks big-time, that it's time to pimp your dusted Business Analysts, what I think about User Stories, BPMN, Enterprise Architect - and what are the most sensible replacements for these ;)Everyone has her/his obsessions, so do I. In my case the list is quite long - the leverage of modern engineering culture on software delivery, infecting everyone with day-to-day Kaizen mindset, (controlled) scaling of complexity in growing…
This blog post contains the list of MacOS-specific apps I personally find absolutely essential in everyday's productivity.8 months ago I've crossed the barricade & embraced MacBook Pro for both professional & personal purpose (all kinds of skunkworks - mainly codework & blogging). Until then I've been splitting my time between various editions of Windows & distros of Linux (starting with Slackware & Debian, through Mandrake, ending with Gentoo & Ubuntu) - so I had no prior experience with Apple computers, nevertheless the transition was much less rough than I've expected. Partially thanks to few tools that have helped me…
No TL;DR today :) You either are interested in the recommendations or not really.Just like 12 months ago, I'd like to share with you a short list of books I consider the best I've read last year. Fortunately, it was a very good year (again) - my selection & pre-qualification sieve worked like charm: there were just a couple of books I've read that have turned out not to be worth the time & money spent.Due to the character of this blog, I'll focus on professional books (either technical/architectural or related to various aspects of management), ... but…
This blog post is all about three particular kinds of issues Airbnb focused on when declaring their way to fix problems in their company culture; why its important to name such issues explicitly; what happens if you ignore them & why it's so important not to do so.Disclaimer: the concept presented in this article is not mine, hereby I take no credit neither for the naming nor the idea itself. The terms come from Airbnb's CPO Joe Gebbia & I've read about them in "The Airbnb Story". I just think they are cool (& useful) enough to get you…
This article is all about tech recruitment interviews, but in particular: why tech skills are necessary but not sufficient, what are open questions used for, why you should always have your own questions (that make sense ...), that without high "work-awareness" you're not credible, during the interview we'd like to hear about "you", not "them" ... and why you should always remember about something to back your declarations up with.Recruitment in IT is in a pretty poor shape these days: spam offers coming in herds "out-of-the-blue", incompetent recruiters who don't bother to understand who they really look for, poorly engaged leaders…
This blog post is all about: Kaizen as an attitude (and not a buzzword!), role of everyday flexibility, reducing inertia by dissecting the problems, habit of continuous introspection and in the end - why you should always look for exponential effects (both positive & negative) - as these are the only ones that do really matter.I don't know about you, but I had (in my so-called engineering career) few enlightenment moments that have redefined me professionally - shaken my work paradigm in a way that I've completely revamped my approach - to work in general and to some particular…
This blog post is all about why you don't keep your best code in a drawer :), what does it mean to discount your work, why sometimes you have to be a bit "selfish" (and that it's not against the teamplay), that you're both brand and product, there's no excuse for staying shy (and not doing anything about it) and that even if the job market situation doesn't require it (now), you should think more long-term when it comes to "selling" out yourself.Disclaimer: potentially surprisingly - this IS a blog post for software engineering professionals of all levels & positions,…
In this blog post I'll describe why remote work != remote work, what's wrong about satellites and isles, why differences in communication bandwidth are worse than overall low bandwidth and what does it have in common with osmosis & water cooler.No, I'm not going to describe pros & cons of a remote work in depth. This is well covered in many sources & in a way I couldn't have matched in a blog post (or even series). My intention is to address a very simple & well isolated issue: plenty of people, encouraged by some commonly known successful examples of…