The Fallacies of Agile The Agile approach is great when applied appropriately, but the concept is nothing new. In fact it goes so far back it shares its roots with the waterfall method. But Agile got a cool name in 2001 (before that it was just working closely with the customer in an iterative fashion, which wasn’t anywhere near as catchy) and was jumped upon by consultants and cowboy coders. This article looks at just some of the common fallacies that have grown up around this peculiar buzzword. ...

What would Scooby do How change programmes usually go once the consultants turn up. These are the warning signs to look out for. All found by deep reading the masterful and authoritative canon that is the work of Scooby Doo.

The Retep Principle

Foundations Packaging up delivery work for the annual plan is tricky. You don’t want huge programmes that spend a fortune and lose their way, but equally too many small projects will likely dupllicate work and create a communication nightmare. What you need is a mix of business-outcome driven initiatives supported by a small number of carefully scoped foundational projects. Here’s how.

The Analysis Business A look at business requirements from a functional and non-functional perspective, concluding that partitioning requirements up into arbitrary categories isn’t very helpful as it reinforces the subjective politics we need to get away from.

The Nature Of Functionality A look at the potential subjectivity of business requirements and how to spot it.

Dijkstras Shortest Path A visually interactive exploration of Dijkstra’s Shortest Path Algorithm.

Measuring Architecture A short walk around the discipline of enterprise architecture. What it is, why it’s good, and how you know if it’s working.

The Trouble with Transformations IT and Business transformations and change programs are very fashionable. But most often, you don’t need one. You just need to sort your problems out via better leadership.

Reality Street aint got no Vision The second of a two-part piece on reality and vision. This article puts the case that it’s all very well thinking about the right now, but without a vision it means nothing.