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SECURITY BY DESIGN FOR EVERYONE



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CATEGORY: TEAMS (PAGE 1 OF 1)



DON’T SHIP THE MICROSERVICES

By Alex

On January 1, 2018

In methodology strategy teams

Steven Sinofsky of a16z (previously Microsoft) probably first coined the phrase,
“Don’t ship the org chart”. I think there’s a new variant of this worth
discussing: shipping the microservices. I’ve been reviewing a few products in
depth recently for different reaasons, and once you see it, it actually becomes
really obvious.

Read More




SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE IS FAILING

By Alex

On October 10, 2017

In methodology strategy teams

I doubt there has ever been a time when software architecture was seen as a
raging success. The “three-tier architecture” of the web has held up extremely
well and is an excellent place for many people to start. The “12 Factor App”
approach has encouraged developers to adopt practices that make deployment and
scaling much simpler. Over the last couple of years, though, I’ve noticed
developers advocating for architectures I consider to be extreme and limited in
utility, foisting highly complex systems into startup environments at great
cost. It appears to me to be getting worse.

Read More




ARTICULATING THE ATOM APPROACH

By Alex

On April 4, 2017

In containers teams

It’s interesting watching history repeat itself. There are a number of fashions
that come and go in technology: thin client computing comes back every twenty
years or so, for example. In the 80s, Unix was very big – it faded a bit in the
nineties but then came roaring back with Linux.

Another venerable bit of software is coming back into fashion – good old Make.
It’s not the perfect tool by any means, and the niche it once had is no longer
that relevant. However, I think we’re going to see a growth in its usage once
again. Let me explain why.

Read More




LEAN VERSUS AGILE

By Alex

On April 4, 2017

In methodology performance teams

People sometimes ask me about the structure of our internal development team,
and to what extent we’re truly “agile”. My response is that we’re actually more
“lean”. I happily give examples of some of the key working practices we have. I
generally don’t explain the difference between “lean” and “agile”, though.

Sometimes, people use these terms interchangeably. I think this is wrong, but
understandable. As a JIRA user, I’m used to it offering a Kanban board to run a
scrum sprint. This can be a great choice, but it muddies the waters. Let me take
this opportunity to explain my thinking then!

Read More




BRAND DEMOLITION

By Alex

On April 4, 2017

In strategy teams

It was only just over a week ago that I posted about brand being the net result
of action, and in the last few days United Airlines have decided to furnish me
with the best example yet. There’s nothing that speaks more volumes than how a
company treats its customers, and while it’s not the case that all their
customers are treated this poorly, the fact they will go this low is shocking.

Read More




ACADEMIA IS APPARENTLY UNMANAGEABLE

By Alex

On April 4, 2017

In forecasting performance teams

There’s a great blog post doing the rounds today, titled “Every attempt to
manage academia makes it worse“. Going through a number of examples of
metric-based assessment, the conclusion is that standard management practice
applied to academic work results in obviously worse outcomes.

At the heart of the argument is an interesting contradiction – that it is
possible to assess academic work and show that under a specific regime the
results are less good, while simultaneously it is impossible to assess the
results of academic work in such a way as to improve it. However, it’s possible
to accept a slightly weaker form of the argument – that the practice of
measuring while science is being done negatively affects the work in a way that
appraising the results post-facto doesn’t. I’m not in a position to really know
whether or not this is genuinely the case for academic work, but I’m seeing
people apply the same argument to software development, and I truly believe it
doesn’t apply.

Read More




BRAND & CULTURE: IT’S ALL ABOUT ACTION

By Alex

On April 4, 2017

In performance strategy teams

There are a lot of people with strong thoughts about brand and culture, and how
the two relate to each other. From conversations I’ve had with others, I thought
it high time to put my perspective down in writing.

I have a lot of time for this HBR article, “Brand is Culture, Culture is Brand“.
It is absolutely correct to say that you cannot build a brand if your business
culture does not / will not support and live that brand, and this is a fault
seen so commonly. Business rebrand frequently; and it’s very common to see
immediate push-back because the way the business operates doesn’t fly with the
new brand at all.

However, I think things have to go deeper than this.

Read More




A SHORT REVIEW: THE AGILE TEAM ONION

By Alex

On July 7, 2016

In performance teams

This is a quick and pithy review of Emily Webber’s free e-book, “The Agile Team
Onion“. At about 20 pages of content, it’s a concise enough work itself – I
personally appreciate the laser-like focus on a single subject; in this case,
it’s thinking about the various factors that affect agile team make-up, sizing
and interfacing with other people and teams.

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BREXIT CONFIRMS: STORYTELLING IS DEAD

By Alex

On June 6, 2016

In forecasting teams

This is not a post about Brexit; this is about conversations. Storytelling rose
in the 80’s as a key marketing tool – phenomena like the Nescafe “Gold Blend”
adverts demonstrated how the ability to tell a story could convincingly engage
consumers en masse. Truth be told, this was nothing new – the “soap opera” is
so-called because those ongoing serial dramas used to be sponsored by soap
manufacturers. But, the key insight by the storytellers was that creating a
story around a message you wanted to communicate (rather than simply being
associated to or referenced by the story) was very powerful.

Read More




ON HIRING A-PLAYERS

By Alex

On March 3, 2016

In performance teams

Read More



Page 1 of 1





ABOUT ME

Advisory CTO to a portfolio of start-up and scale-up companies. I specalise in
taking businesses through periods of extraordinary technological change, often
navigating tricky waters of enterprise sales and regulatory compliance.

This is my personal site, where I write primarily about software architecture:
how to build better software, faster, and more securely.


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