Focus
I want your software development teams to become more productive.
Not in the short term, though. I don’t offer quick fixes.
My focus is on increasing your longterm productivity.
My orientation is towards concepts and paradigms. It’s the fundamentals that interest me, because I strongly believe they are core to an increase in your longterm productivity.
Clean code development with its principles and practices is among those paradigms – but it’s just one means to increase longterm productivity. I’m a big fan of clean code. There is more, however.
High longterm productivity is about quality in many respects, e.g.
- code quality
- requirements quality
- process quality
- communication quality
What all those qualities have in common, though, is: they are not or at least not immediately tangible to users or customers of your software. That’s what makes it hard for you to focus on them. I know, because I have been there: I know it from my own experience back when I was running a software company.
| If you like, read 🌐this article by Martin Fowler on why it’s worth to care for internal quality to assure high longterm productivity. It’s about reducing cruft which otherwise accumulates and reduces your speed of progress. |  |
Nevertheless those “hidden” qualities are important. If they are neglected or at least not systematically invested in, they will dwindle away, a little bit every day.
At first that’s not noticeable. Of course, because if it was you’d adjust the quality steering wheel. But over time decreasing “hidden qualities” like the above will cost you a lot of money. Among the sources for these costs are: delays, conflicts, general unreliability, bugs, general re-work, decreasing team motivation, developer fluctuation and more.
It’s about the flow
The principles, practices, concepts, methods I’m offering all converge on the same goal: increasing flow by reducing obstructions and waste.
High longterm productivity is best understood as a constant flow of results.
Results are “features”, not bug fixes. Results are valuable increases in functionality and efficiency of your software.
My focus is on getting you into a position where you produce more of them and get less distracted by deviations and hesitations and repetitions.