Posts in opinion
Can We Breed Software Leaders, Faster?
- 2024/10/17
- reading-time:
15min
As the software industry continues to flourish, so does the need for mature leaders. In this evolving landscape, two primary goals emerge: motivating and supporting current (entry-level) leaders to grow and breeding a new generation of leaders. As seen in ‘Leading Technical Software Development is Hard! We Must Improve’, the software engineering landscape is evolving rapidly, increasing the demand for more engineers, and consequently, more leaders are needed. At the same time, Scrum (particularly Scrum) has led to smaller teams, making natural leadership progression harder; see ‘Did Scrum Kill the Leadership Route?’. We also have studied some cases in ‘No leaders, no appeal!’, showing what might happen when no experienced leaders are available.
In this blog, we will explore several well-known leadership development approaches, examine how to apply them in software development and determine if we can expedite the process.
No leaders, no appeal!
- 2024/09/06
- reading-time:
11min
After some theoretical reflections in ‘Leading Technical Software Development is Hard! We Must Improve’ and ‘Did Scrum Kill the Leadership Route?’ it is time for some real-world
examples.
What can go wrong without mature leadership?
Did Scrum Kill the Leadership Route?
- 2024/07/26
- reading-time:
6min
Scrum and other Agile methodologies have revolutionised software development, bringing many benefits like improved flexibility and faster delivery. However, they are not without drawbacks. Scrum, with a focus on short-term goals, has the drawback that long-term objectives may seem less important. This may become a significant issue for complex embedded systems. For big projects, with huge codebases and many developers, the importance of (short-term) sprint goals and (long-term) architecture will conflict. Other long-term objectives may have similar issues.
As we have seen in ‘Leading Technical Software Development is Hard! We Must Improve’ leadership is becoming more important, and that the natural growth
path for future leaders —in three axes (What, When & How)— has partly vanished. Maybe for the same
reason.
In this article, we study whether Scrum did have this undocumented, unintentional negative
effect. Later, we will show how to compensate for this.
Leading Technical Software Development is Hard! We Must Improve
- 2024/07/12
- reading-time:
8min
As embedded systems and technical software are becoming larger and larger, as well as more complex, leading those massive projects and teams is more vital than ever—and increasingly challenging. Engineers need substantial experience to lead these projects effectively. However, paradoxically, people seem to have less and less experience in working in big teams.
Adding to this dilemma are the typical role names for senior leadership, which are inflating. For
example, every (little) team nowadays has a software ‘architect’, whereas that role was called
(senior) developer before. As a result, when one needs a ‘real architect’ one is flooded by
juniors. Similarly, a ScrumMaster —once the agile, facilitating project leader— is now often just a
side-activity for a programmer.
But then who is overseeing a scope bigger than a few sprints? Is somebody in charge at the tactical level?
As a side effect, this blocks the desire to grow: many modern architects and ScrumMasters assume they are on top of the world already. In this blog, I describe the need for those leaders and what they need.
Agile System Architecting
- 2023/05/12
There always has been some anarchy about the architect’s role –and even more distraction when we combine it with software and/or system. I’m not going to solve that. Not today …
Applying BDD & TDD in legacy
- 2023/05/10
- reading-time:
8m45
As I described in Introducing BDD & TDD, understanding the common goals of Behavior & Test Driven Development
and defining your specific needs is the first and most critical step to start using this essential discipline.
Whenever the goal is to use new tools, it is simple: purchase them, shop for some hands-on training, and you are
done.
Our ambition is different: we want to become Agile and Lean.
Then, it depends on the starting point too. B&TDD in greenfield development is relatively simple: start writing your
tests and code!
However, starting with B&TDD in (Modern) Embedded Software can be more challenging due to the existing and often
extensive codebase that was developed before the emergence of B&TDD.
Then, the question ‘How to start?’ is more like ’How to get out of the waterfall?’
Introducing BDD & TDD
- 2023/04/30
- reading-time:
5m30
Is Behavior & Test Driven Development an essential aspect of professional software engineering? Leaders such as
#UncleBob compare it to ‘double entry bookkeeping’: a crucial discipline. He claims that when our industry doesn’t
professionalize quickly, we have the risk that B&TDD will be enforced by law (too).
So, it can be wise to learn to practice it quickly.
It is not easy to start when writing (long-lasting) embedded systems. We have other demands, codebases with a
lot of history. Still, we can (& should).
And we have an advantage, our Typically engineers are clever: When they understand the objectives, they will find a
solution; that is their job!
Updated on 2020/07/15
This old article was never really published. As it fits my new MESS blogs, I reworked and posted it again. This is part-I; I expect other parts coming weeks.
The Never-ending Struggle on CodeQuality due to the growth of teams and codebases
- 2023/04/23
- reading-time:
6m
As your embedded software codebase grows, the risk of introducing errors and bugs increases exponentially. Doubling
the number of developers will roughly double the risk of mistakes. We need new “tricks” to strive for the
ever-demanded high quality.
This is a constant battle. As embracing tools, processes, or disciplines helps only once.
Why Modern Embedded Software Systems nowadays embrace webserver-technology
- 2023/04/16
- reading-time:
3m45
Whether it’s your office printer, your internet router at home, or your future top-notch embedded system, they all
use technologies that, only a decade ago, nobody imagined using in an embedded system! How did this happen?
And why?
De Embedded Linux Expert bestaat niet
- 2019/03/14
- reading-time:
4 minuten
Regelmatig krijg ik ‘Embedded Linux Experts’ aangeboden; bijvoorbeeld voor het HTLD-team (HighTech Linux Delivery). Vaak zijn goede mensen, met Linux ervaring; maar toch niet de mensen die ik zoek. Het blijkt erg lastig voor niet direct betrokken, om de juiste experts te spotten. Daarom een paar hints waarmee je “de” Embedded Linux Expert herkent. Immers, alleen het woordje ‘Linux’ op een CV is onvoldoende!