Software systems rule our world. My regular newsletter explores the human factors that make software engineering so unique, so difficult, so important and all consuming.
Friday 31st March - The Business Perspective of IT
How would you going about describing the work you do to someone else?
Would you say for example:
“I'm building a microservices platform in Kubernetes”
Or would you say:
“I'm working on a system which allows customers to track their orders through our systems”?
Which is more important to you? And how do you find and keep that touchstone in everything you do?
This is at the heart of a book I’m reading called The Value Flywheel Effect by David Anderson. What is does is break down - from an CEO, Engineer, Product Manager and CTO perspective - what is needed in order to deliver a successful modern technology solution internally as well as externally.
If you’re interested in finding out how Wardley Mapping, Sociotechnical systems and event-driven design both for teams and architectures (as discussed in Team Topologies), then you should listen to the David Anderson Interview about “The Value Flywheel Effect” in the Tech Lead Newsletter:
Regarding code as a liability: check out the latest episode of Lovin’ Legacy with Jonathan Hall I recorded where we talk about scaling DevOps, his love of the language Go as well as doing Continuous Delivery in reverse. We also talk about how you should go about building systems that actually meet up well with customer expectations.
AI and Large Language Models continue to cause debate and excitement. Elon Musk and Steve Wozniac among 1000s of others this week called for a six-month moratorium on next generation AI tool creation in order to prevent "profound risks to society and humanity". If we can ignore the noise (like we must with so much in the modern world of tech) and concentrate on the message then perhaps we can still find a use for it peacefully. So much of the AI discussion is tied in with aggressive rhetoric or business positioning. Why not make up your own mind? Here's the open letter that everyone is talking about.
Always ask yourself, what is the technology doing to improve my business?
Have a great weekend
-- Richard
Lovin’ Legacy Podcast: Jonathan Hall – DevOps, Go and Continuous Delivery in Reverse
Published on March 30, 2023
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On the podcast, I talk to Jonathan Hall about all things DevOps from small companies to large companies and where the customer fits in the often technical story of our code development and deployment. How do you bring junior devs up to speed responsibly? How do we as an industry think of DevOps tooling and… Read More »Lovin’ Legacy Podcast: Jonathan Hall – DevOps, Go and Continuous Delivery in Reverse
The Challenge of IT Change
Published on March 30, 2023
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IT and software projects regularly under-deliver because, despite best efforts, the nature of the change is often unexpected. Consider this scenario: Unexpected change is hard for anyone to cope with. Change, if planned, can be fine. But often the impact of a change is hard to communicate or predict if the development or implementation of… Read More »The Challenge of IT Change
IT and Software Delivery is the Heart of Your Business
Published on March 26, 2023
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Under the laws of our universe, gravity is inviolable – except when it isn’t. Gravity works differently at different scales and we still don’t have an explanation for everything we see. Because in fact there are no rules. Humans just make up rules to explain what we experience. These blind spots that we have as… Read More »IT and Software Delivery is the Heart of Your Business
The Human Software
Software systems rule our world. My regular newsletter explores the human factors that make software engineering so unique, so difficult, so important and all consuming.
Three years ago, I started a podcast without much idea of its future. Before that, I'd started writing, wandering through automation, programming techniques, infrastructure, DevOps, and thoughts about management, leadership, and how companies are organised. Where was I going? While I'd read a few books, it was clear that I was searching for something. Was I just talking for the sake of it? It sometimes certainly seemed that way. And then, about eighteen months ago, I started writing a novel....
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