Category Archives: Team Management

Development Team as a Jazz Band

August 13th, 2019

Working within a software development team is like being a member of a jazz band. Software architects convert specifications into overall designs. Engineers distill overall designs into detailed designs of individual modules. And, implementers convert detailed designs into source code. Each role has some degree of creative freedom. Each member improvises while keeping their contributions […]

Do Not Disturb: Working

December 28th, 2010

Jason Fried gives a talk entitled Why Work Doesn’t Happen at Work. He presents his observation that people feel more productive when they work at places other than their office, into which companies invest heavily with the hope of maximizing worker productivity. He concludes that people find other places for work more conducive to productivity, […]

Problem Reports

March 31st, 2010

The responsibility of a project’s outcome is shared between developers and managers. Developers depend on managers to effectively manage projects, and managers depend on developers to provide reports that serve as the basis of project management decisions. Possibly due to insufficient transparency, a problem may be detected after attempting to use a fully implemented and […]

Viewing More Work with Multiple Displays

January 16th, 2009

A news story at The New York Times, Boss, I Need a Bigger Screen. For Work Efficiency, of Course., professes the benefits of using multiple displays or a bigger screen while computing. The article’s writer, Farhad Manjoo, points to research at the University of Utah that observed a 44% increase in productivity when multiple bigger […]

Searching for a 2008 Wall Calendar

December 19th, 2007

The year is almost over, and I’ve been searching through the usual office supply stores for a type of calendar. I saw a vertical year planner, similar to this during my last trip to Germany. I thought that something like this could be found easily at my local store, but neither officedepot.com nor staples.com seem […]