Productivity 7 Sep 2023 · 4 min read The Rat Race: The Dangers of Short-Sighted Employee Productivity Metrics In 2011, the film Moneyball brought data-driven decisions into the spotlight. The 2003 book by Michael Lewis told the story of Billy Beane, the Oakland Athletics general manager. Beane assembled Read more
Build vs Buy 6 Sep 2023 · 4 min read Custom or Off-the-Shelf ? Choosing Which Way To Go Is Like Shopping For A Campervan We’ve all faced this dilemma before — do we invest in an expensive, custom-built solution or go with a cheaper, off-the-shelf option? It’s a question that gives every builder Read more
Project Management 5 Sep 2023 · 4 min read The Context Switching Catastrophe: How to Save Your Engineering Team from Burnout It was the perfect storm. One of our lead engineers, Alex, had finally settled into coding a complex new feature that customers had eagerly awaited for months. Thirty minutes into Read more
Data Science 4 Sep 2023 · 3 min read Why Your Engineers Can’t Do It All: Building a Data-Driven Dream Team Acme Inc., a mid-sized retailer with 50 stores, wanted to use all the customer and sales data they had accumulated over the years. The CEO envisioned using analytics to optimize Read more
Data Collection 3 Sep 2023 · 3 min read Info Overload: How to Avoid Drowning in Crappy Data The sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912 is one of history’s most infamous maritime disasters. Over 1,500 lives were lost when the supposedly “unsinkable” ship struck an Read more
AI 2 Sep 2023 · 3 min read Is This Our “GUI Moment”? — Comparing AI Interfaces to Computing History The debate over whether the current wave of generative AI models like OpenAI’s GPT, Google’s Bard, or Facebook’s LLaMa is really the start of a new era Read more
Stakeholder Management 1 Sep 2023 · 3 min read Engagement, Not Signoff: Building Partnership With Stakeholders The Apple Lisa was launched in January 1983, before the Mac. The launch wasn’t public, though. It was overshadowed by the Mac the following year. The Lisa was named Read more
No-Code 31 Aug 2023 · 4 min read Everything Old is New Again: No-Code Through the Lens of History In 2004, I landed a job as a junior system admin at a local ISP. The owner was a super tech-savvy guy. I’ll call him Peter to keep things Read more
AI 30 Aug 2023 · 6 min read How AI Impacts Creative Roles, from Illustrators to Software Developers It’s been five years since I first tried my hand at public writing back in 2018. I’ve come a long way since those early days of struggling to Read more
Estimation 29 Aug 2023 · 4 min read Why Software Time Estimates Are A Pipe Dream Today, I want to discuss a sensitive topic — time estimates for software projects. This issue significantly impacts engineers of all kinds who are constantly asked to provide estimates, as well Read more
Hiring 28 Aug 2023 · 4 min read Why I Always Ask About Job Tenure When Hiring Engineers I still remember one time being called in to “rescue” during my engineering years. It was a tricky situation — a company had built a complex app that had turned into Read more
No-Code 27 Aug 2023 · 4 min read The Rise of Citizen Developers — How Your Own Employees Could Transform Your Business Meet Amy — a sales manager at a medium-sized software company. She’s ambitious, knows her team’s needs intimately, and has excellent ideas to improve productivity. But she needs to Read more
Data Collection 26 Aug 2023 · 3 min read Data Pollution is Choking Business Productivity: Cleaning Up the Info Excess Let me tell you about my data obsession. For 20 years, I’ve compulsively written down every fleeting thought, idea, and meeting detail into digital notes, calendars, and reminders. I Read more
No Code 25 Aug 2023 · 2 min read When SaaS Pulls the Rug Out From Under You So Amazon is retiring Honeycode, its no-code app builder. After just a few years. Ouch. These kinds of things happen occasionally, though — services come and go. As a business, you Read more
No-Code 24 Aug 2023 · 3 min read Don’t Confuse Speed with Progress: No-Code vs Custom Code I was talking to a consulting client recently. I’ll call him Mike. Mike is a big fan of NoCode. He learned to create unique automation for his company without Read more
No-Code 23 Aug 2023 · 3 min read Mix, Match, Integrate: Software Strategies for the Modern Company I was talking to a friend of a friend many years ago who owned a small retail store. Let’s call him Jake. Jake’s store was struggling to recover Read more
Iterative Approach 22 Aug 2023 · 3 min read The Winding Path to My Perfect Home Mirrored Creating Custom Business Software I had dreamed for years of constructing my perfect home. However, I’ve learned it’s quite a challenge, requiring countless decisions — from picking the ideal plot of land to Read more
No-Code 21 Aug 2023 · 4 min read NoCode is Not NoWork: The Tradeoffs of Simplicity NoCode is a new phenomenon that allows people without any coding knowledge to build all kinds of software applications. Or is it? That’s what most articles on Google will Read more
Productivity
