© 2000 Johanna Rothman. This paper first appeared in Software Quality Professional, Volume 2, #3, June 2000. INTRODUCTION Software publishers create commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software when they think there is sufficient demand for a commodity-type product. By avoiding custom software development, these publishers can create an economy of scale, increasing the likelihood of profitability. Some […]
If this month’s guest column strikes a familiar chord with you, welcome to the club. We have all been there. Caught in the maelstrom of unrealistic requirements and damnable deadlines, we grab for whatever tactic looks like it might keep us afloat. More often than not, we start putting in longer hours and expect everyone
© 2000 Johanna Rothman. You’re not going to meet schedule. Maybe requirements have taken longer. Perhaps in the middle of implementation, you uncover something requiring redesign. Maybe the developers haven’t met one milestone yet and you’re worried about the test time. What do you do? The first slip is the initial indication that something is
© 2000 Johanna Rothman “We’re repeatable. We consistently and repeatably do the same stupid things over and over again.” – senior test engineer Process improvement experts emphasize the importance of having a repeatable process. I’ve found that the term “repeatable” is often misused to mean “not entirely chaotic.” In process improvement terminology, “repeatable” means that
© 2000 Johanna Rothman A recent client, Bob, asked me to assess their major project. “Johanna, it’s so late, I don’t know what to do. If we don’t get it out on time, we’ll miss the market window. I can’t believe any of the estimates I get anymore, the project manager hasn’t met a single
Abstract You’ve written the job description. You know just what you want in this employee. You have one tiny problem—you just can’t find that person. Now what? Sometimes you can continue to wait for the right person to come along. Sometimes you choose to hire someone with inadequate skills. In either case, you don’t have
by Johanna Rothman. Originally published in Cutter’s Business-IT Alignment E-Mail Advisor, October 6, 1999. I visit many different organizations over the course of the year. As I begin working with a client, inevitably someone whispers to me, “Can you help kill my project?” I don’t normally kill projects, but some folks are so desperate to
© 1999 Johanna Rothman. Originally published in Cutter’s Business-IT Alignment E-Mail Advisor, March 24, 1999. At a recent visit to an IT client, the new QA manager took me aside and said: “JR, here are the metrics I want to measure on a monthly basis. What do you think?” He had attempted to measure efficiency,
© 1999 Johanna Rothman. You’ve written the job description. You know just what you want in this employee. You have one tiny problem-you just can’t find that person. Now what? Sometimes you can continue to wait for the right person to come along. Sometimes you choose to hire someone with inadequate skills. In either case,
©1999 Johanna Rothman “Ship it!” Do you say these words with a feeling of pride? Or a feeling of desperation? For any project, the big question is “when will the project be ready to ship?” When is the project complete? You can’t know when the project is ready, unless you know what “complete” means. I