If you thought “synergy” was yet another buzzword from the 80s (or 90s … ), like synchronicity, then you would be mistaken … unless you meant, like, 80 BC (or earlier).Dr Will

If you have been following along the current best practices you know that the answer is not … “multitask.” But is that advice even possible to follow? https://www.etsy.com/listing/1632838223/tech-team-building-buzz-word-bingoDr Will

This is all about empathic listening … listening to understand … not just waiting for the other guy to finish so that you can say what is on your mindDr Will

Would it be outrageous for me to suggest that the primary function of leadership is to teach? Because the primary function of teaching is to lead …Dr Will

You can’t turn around without stubbing your toe on win/win solutions … everybody talks that talk. We hear about win/win quite a bit. It is a buzzword mercilessly deployed by salespeople who at least pay it lip service. Reality may not be so kind, though.Dr Will

Have you ever worked in - or with - an organization that really has taken the Quality message to heart? spl.drwill.co/freeconsultDr Will

Jon is looking for a software solution for a specific problem - business model, actually. Seems he’s outgrown his spreadsheet. Jon “… suppl[ies] furniture to clients on an 'as and when' basis - i.e. we don't hold stock but order individual pieces for each client …” so he needs a solution that will “keep track on deliveries arriving to our office fo…

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is organized into two sections - Private Victory and Public Victory. “Paradigms of Interdependence” is the bridge between them. spl.drwill.co/freeconsultDr Will

Psychologists will tell you that what you aim at determines what you see rather than what you see determines what you aim at … see the difference? I guess you would need to aim at the difference to see it. Spl.drwill.co/freeconsultDr Will

So, I had a question from Tony V: “You gave three problems that non-technical technology project leaders have to figure out. I am a non-technical project lead on a software project … what do I need to know about these things?“Dr Will

You might be wondering … errr … where else would you put first things? I guess you’d be surprised where people put them … my Mom always said “a place for everything and everything in its place” … she’d want first things … right, you know, there … first. https://fs.blog/great-talks/common-denominator-success-albert-gray/…

Management is management, right? I recently polled a population of project managers asking the musical question - how much (or little) domain knowledge is needed to be an effective project manager? spl.drwill.co/freeconsultDr Will

I keep my finger on the pulse of various groups online looking for people to help. Sometimes you find people for whom the best advice is that you gotta “know when to run!” https://spl.drwill.co/costrisk https://spl.drwill.co/risk https://spl.drwill.co/asses_schedule_riskDr Will

One of the key concepts in stoicism is that of “memento mori” Latin for “remember you will die.” I guess that works for everybody but Keith Richards … https://spl.drwill.co/costrisk https://spl.drwill.co/risk https://spl.drwill.co/asses_schedule_risk https://www.selfauthoring.com/Dr Will

What do you think is the least secure part of your computer system? If you answered “the wetware,” you win a prize. Wetware is people, of course https://spl.drwill.co/costrisk https://spl.drwill.co/risk https://spl.drwill.co/asses_schedule_riskDr Will

If you build it they will … err … buy it, right? I mean … the engineering speaks for itself, right? Actually, no. But isn’t persuasion just marketing … or sales? Well, broadly speaking, yes. In the sense that you have to sell your ideas. https://spl.drwill.co/teamsDr Will

“Dr. Will, we are preparing to migrate from the server version of Atlassian tools to the Atlassian Cloud … what advice do you have as we get under way?" Spl.drwill.co/webinar https://www.amazon.com/What-You-Dont-Know-Successfully/dp/B0BKJL9NDr Will

As promised, this is the first habit of the 8 habits of highly effective people applied to software development teams. Reminder: instead of crafting 7 (or 8 ) habits out of whole cloth for software teams, we are applying Stephen Covey’s habits and seeing where that takes us spl.drwill.co/risk spl.drwill.co/costrisk spl.drwill.co/asses_schedule_risk…

Got a question from Chris W of Sioux City (Wait! Isn’t that where the Litigation Hall of Fame is?) … he is having some customer challenges … this may belong in the Q&A playlist, but it is germane to software projects, so here we are … spl.drwill.co/freeconsultDr Will

It is usually after the fact - after you have traversed new terrain. Done something you’ve never done before. You look back – figuratively, maybe literally – and wonder at what just happened spl.drwill.co/freeconsult spl.drwill.co/webinarDr Will

A lot of people know the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey. I had heard of it years ago, but had never taken the time to read it … until recently. How many people know that the subtitle of the book is “Restoring the Character Ethic?” https://www.experis.com/en/insights/articles/2022/06/22/7-habits-of-effective-software…

It is reported that Microsoft is investing $1 billion (that’s billion, with a “b”) in OpenAI the parent of ChatGPT. We should be thankful that there are companies that are so generous and self-sacrificing and willing to help the open source community like that... Webinar: spl.drwill.co/webinar Book: https://www.amazon.com/What-You-Dont-Know-Success…

The “imposter syndrome” affects many (sub-)creators of training/coaching content – but they are reassured that they only have to be slightly more knowledgable than their audience. Maybe that is why there is so much fluffy training cluttering up the internet. What You Don't Know: https://a.co/d/fEPkAWD https://www.atlassian.com/blog/productivity/dun…

spl.drwill.co/risk ChatGPT – a free online advanced AI chatbot that produces human-like responses to user prompts – is being used to generate college essays … among other things. (Doesn’t that make it CheatGPT?) So … what are the limitations of AI … or the dangers of it … or the opportunities …Dr Will

spl.drwill.co/freeconsult When people ask me what I did in the Air Force, I usually tell them that I “flew computers.” Looks like aviation doesn’t aviate without computers.Dr Will

If you have been setting goals and rewarding yourself for achieving them - if you achieve them - then you may be sabotaging yourself with your own dopamine. https://youtu.be/1TSTnDRnIAs spl.drwill.co/freeconsultDr Will

This will be our last recording in this location … we are moving our place of business … and reflecting on what that meansDr Will

spl.drwill.co/costrisk A cost driver is the direct cause of a cost and its effect is on the total cost incurred. What are the direct causes of the cost of software development?Dr Will

Steve Jobs once said: “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people are not used to an environment where excellence is expected.” Some people? Only some? Software Quality Playlist https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx2U7H9VtJ4CiuT49YNO-XnZk-R0CsGEc Self Authoring https://www.selfauthoring.comDr Will

https://spl.drwill.co/asses_schedule_risk Always plan ahead … remember, it wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark. Also … according to Peter Drucker, “Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.”Dr Will

spl.drwill.co/freeconsult We are looking at another vertex of the iron triangle … cost … can we predict how much something will cost? If we cannot then how do we make a rational argument to build it?Dr Will

spl.drwill.co/freeconsult When one of my team members brought a new product idea to me, I had two questions. The first was: who (precisely) is the customer? Please note that shrugging your shoulders conveys exactly what your expect … that you don’t know. In this case it means that you haven’t thought the thing through ……

I have always worked a lot. I mean, a lot. I guess I am an “ergophile” which is a nice way of saying “workaholic.” But like any good workaholic, I have never felt I needed an intervention … well, maybe once …Dr Will

Spl.drwill.co/freeconsult Awhile back I noticed my team was stuck and not making much progress on some issues that had been plaguing us for awhile. I asked for a synopsis of what was going on and discovered that they were trying to resolve 3 issues all at once … they were combining installing a new CI/CD system with deploying to a new hosting platf…

spl.drwill.co/freeconsult Rigid structures are fragile. Compare the mighty oak to a palm tree … in a hurricane. An organization … or a supply chain … that is too lean has no slack and therefore has no flexibility. Guess what happens when the wind starts to blow?Dr Will

https://spl.drwill.co/teams Smarty-pants philosopher Aristotle once said: “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”…

Are they a biohazard? What should be done about “social loafers” or “toxic team members?” This is “toxicity’s” very own episode … one might not be enough! If you poke around on the internet looking for information about “toxic” team members … employees … co-workers … supervisors … whatever, you will discover an entire zoo of toxic species. It is a …

If you think building a team when everybody works in the same building is difficult … wait until you try it with people scattered across the globe … in different time zones, from different cultures, different native languages …Dr Will

How does a group develop integrity - wholeness, cohesion, unity? How does it become a team?Dr Will

A team is not a collection of individuals. If it devolves into that then you can stand back and watch it disintegrate … notice that word … dis - integrate … to lose cohesion or unity. The loss of integrity. https://www.thebalancecareers.com https://hbr.org/2009/06/rethinking-trustDr Will

https://spl.drwill.co/teams What does a productive, gelled development team look like? What does any productive, gelled team look like?Dr Will

They say you don’t know what you don’t know. It is true; not only don’t you know it, but you can’t know it. It is that ontological risk quadrant we discussed last time. Find it here https://www.amazon.com/What-You-Dont-Know-Successfully-ebook/dp/B0B7C4L2Y2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1TLAIXYTU58JC&Dr Will

Whether something exists and whether something is known are two different questions. Formally, ontology is the study of existence … and epistemology is the study of knowledge. You are probably wondering why software leaders would possibly need to know those terms … or even care whether they exist at all? (See what I did there?)…

So, what would you do – or how would you feel – if you realized that the software you had helped develop was responsible – at least in part – for the loss of 346 lives?Dr Will

The latest security problem reported on the Apple M1 chip – PACMAN – is buried deep within the hardware. And, no, it cannot be fixed in software.Dr Will

https://spl.drwill.co/maintenance If you have ever had to maintain somebody else’s code … without documentation … especially code that is idiosyncratic and poorly designed – or not designed at all – well, you probably ended up rewriting most of it.Dr Will

https://spl.drwill.co/maintenance The three areas of concern when it comes to maintainable software: the documentation, the code, and the implementation. First, the documentation.Dr Will

https://spl.drwill.co/maintenance Successful software gets changed. It also tends to hang around for a very long time. But crafting software that will be easy to maintain is usually not considered very much by the development team.Dr Will

https://spl.drwill.co/maintenance Every software system that is remotely successful will have to be “maintained.” Why is that such an expensive proposition? What can be done about it?Dr Will

The five degrees of initiative a manager or leader exercises relative to the “boss” and the “system” and that subordinates exercise relative to you. Also, the rules of monkey management.Dr Will