I am just filling in my companies annual self assessment form and thought I would share some of my thoughts regarding 2009.
Value and Quality
“Quality is doing things right when no-one is looking” this is a quote from John T Ford, mentioned in the infamous software book “The Mythical Man Month” by Fredrick Brookes. This year I have strived to fulfil this meme to it’s upmost. I believe the quality achieved by automating things that previously used unreliable human methods to achieve adds the same level of value to the client as the entire creative process. A relevant historical example of this can be found in the automotive industry and the subsequent collapse of poor quality American vehicle engineering as the Japanese and Asian markets obliterated them with durable, reliable, inexpensive import cars. The same is true of software and the beginning of this trend can be seen in companies like Goggle.
Productivity
This year, I have learned about the most important form of productivity as espoused by the agile and Lean principles. “Sustainable development” is a quality generally completely misunderstood in this certain circles, but is in fact the source of a large amount of client dissatisfaction. Selling projects in under budget and with the assumption that developers will work overtime to get them completed is a fallacy perpetuated by incompetence. Rushed, ill thought out work leads to unrealistic expectations for the client and ultimately disappointment in the output which is then reflected onto our company and the production staff. Even more harmful is the attrition it leads to as experienced developers leave unfulfilled and frustrated. In which case productivity should be measured by a lack of overtime and encouragement of advanced thinking.
Strategic Context
With a marketplace of vendors that are consolidating into large inefficient groups driven by bureaucracy and nepotism, trying to win the business of other larger inefficient monoliths, there are few things that will allow one to distinguish themselves from the crowd. Honesty, integrity and reliability are the three main things that will allow us to stand tall above the rest and are the most important things for our strategic context in terms of winning the business of the companies of tomorrow.