Mon, May 21, 2012 - The concept of lean software traces its origins to lean manufacturing and the Toyota Production System. Building software is much different than building a car, but lessons about reducing waste and achieving continuous improvement apply nonetheless.

Mon, May 21, 2012 - Unless you want to build a software system that quickly becomes a fossil (or a monster), you should avoid doing these five things that usually seem like a good idea at the time.

Fri, May 18, 2012 - Despite all the changes to application lifecycle management (ALM), IT organizations are doing just fine when it comes to core development processes. It is the "bookend" processes of requirements management and release management that need help.

Wed, May 16, 2012 - There are several factors that need to be considered when thinking about a services initiative. Sourcing and vendor management (SVM) professionals need a structured yet flexible approach that evaluates the vendor's stability as well as its service, solution, or delivery capability.

Fri, May 11, 2012 - Things that won't die are great for the movies, but bad ideas that won't go away can really hurt cloud projects. Unfortunately, management likes classic, counterproductive waterfall project management and binary go-live deployments for cloud projects.

Wed, May 09, 2012 - If the dynamics of code inspections have changed in the past three decades, how should we inspect now? Matt Heusser suggests that pair programming principles could provide some, but not all, of the answers.

Wed, May 02, 2012 - Zombies and vampires are great for the movies, but life-sucking ideas that won't go away are bad for IT projects. Problem is, clients really encourage bid to win behaviors -- even in cloud projects where they are counterproductive.

Fri, March 30, 2012 - Open Source components are a boon to developers, allowing them to efficiently write code without reinventing the wheel. But since open source lacks the notification infrastructure of commercial software, organizations must maintain a running inventory of open source components and their dependencies in production applications or risk deploying apps with known vulnerabilities.

Fri, March 30, 2012 - With customers and suppliers on seven continents, there is no good time for system maintenance -- and little room for error -- at Etsy.com. Yet by the time you finish reading this article, the company's continuous deployment process has resulted in code pushed to production by a developer with no one else's approval.

Tue, February 28, 2012 - The beta of Microsoft's integrated development environment, code-named Visual Studio 11, will focus on helping developers build modern consumer and business applications, providing a simplified and distraction-free environment and enabling collaborative and agile development teams, according to Microsoft.

Tue, February 21, 2012 - Some process improvement projects and best practice frameworks such as ITIL and COBIT can do more harm than good--particularly when implemented by third-party IT service providers.

Wed, February 01, 2012 - Michael Fagan first found software inspections yielded a massive productivity improvement when working for IBM in the early 1970s. Now, 35 years later, we need to ask certain key questions: Are the dynamics of software development the same, are Fagan's findings still relevant in today's world of agile development and "extreme programming"? And, if so, what should your organization do about it?

Mon, October 24, 2011 - In what Forrester calls "the age of the customer", it's more important than ever for enterprises to innovate to differentiate -- and to define and solidify I&O's role in innovation.

Wed, September 29, 2010 - The relationship between your business analysts and quality assurance folks is key to software development success. Here is Forrester Research's advice on making the partnership work.