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Shaping Software

Enduring Ideas in the Realm of Software

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Project-Management

Make a List of the Jobs to Be Done

How do you create an effective work breakdown structure?  A Work breakdown structure (WBS) is a powerful tool for improving your project success.   An effective work breakdown structure is an informed list of the jobs for your project.  You can think of a work breakdown structure as a map of the jobs to be done …

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patterns & practices Solution Engineering

This is one of my favorite figures that shows how we do solution engineering in patterns & practices at Microsoft:   Architectural Scenarios It all starts with a scenario.  It has to be a meaningful problem.  You can’t evaluate an architecture in a vacuum.  In order for us to build useful baseline architectures, we need …

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How To Cure Optimitis

How do you cure optimitis?  Optimitis is an unhealthy, overly optimistic, unrealistic agreement to solving a problem.  It ignores the tradeoffs.  In Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully, Gerald M. Weinberg writes about how to cure optimitis. OptimitisOptimitis is an overly optimistic and unrealistic agreement.  Weinberg writes: Optimitis can be …

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Impact of People on Cost and Effort

The Impact of People on Cost and Effort

Just how much can people factors influence your project cost and effort?  24.6 percent!  In other words, the least experienced team (the bottom 15 percent) can require up to 24.6 times as much effort to complete a project as the most experienced team (top 10 percent.) In Professional Software Development: Shorter Schedules, Higher Quality Products, …

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Microsoft Solution Framework (MSF) at a Glance

The Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) provides people and process guidance—the proven practices of Microsoft—to help teams and organizations become more successful in delivering business-driven technology solutions to their customers.  Note that this MSF is not the same as the MSF Agile process included in VSTS.  I like to be able to scan process methodologies.  To …

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