For Budding Business Tots−Books for Project People Part 4 of 6

At 14, Ben Casnocha founded a software company called Comcate Inc. At 17, Inc. magazine named him “entrepreneur of the year.” As a business professional with more years experience than Ben has been alive on the planet, it is intuitively easy to resent this guy sight unseen, but luckily I have had the pleasure of meeting Ben in person and he is just too darn humble to resent, and on top of it, he has written a really nice first book. You will be disappointed if you are expecting a how-to manual on writing a business plan or on launching a company. But while perhaps not as useful in that way, it is a very interesting story-a memoir of a very young, first time entrepreneur.
(more…)

People Who Need People − Books For Project People Part 3 of 6

Almost every job I know requires some people skills. But unlike sales and marketing for instance, being a project manager generally requires someone who may not naturally tend towards the “social theme” of the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory, but someone who prefers working more with “things” and data. (more…)

Make Mine Spumoni − Books For Project People Part 2 of 6

One of the on-going risks for technical people these days is to be seen as a commodity-and treated as such. How many times have you heard the need for talented technical people reduced to a description of rather “vanilla” technical skills-like, “we need a great JAVA guy”? Now, granted, you cannot fill a technical role in a technology company without skills and experience with some technical products, tools and languages. (more…)

I’m with the Band−Books for Project People Part 1 of 6

I am NOT a Project Manager. As a technology business strategist working primarily with emerging technology products, I spend most of my time trying to understand why a customer would want to buy what you building and ultimately hoping to sell. So, pathetically enough, I guess I am more like a PM groupie! I hang out with the folks who make the art, but you’ll never see my name on the credits. So why I am blogging here?

The short answer is because I was asked, but the longer answer is that I love to read and thought it would be fun to share some of the books that I have read recently as I try to keep up with the technology and the business side of our industry, and also mention some books that help us all to get along better on projects, as professionals and more importantly, as PEOPLE. (more…)

Outsourcing software development –a bad idea? (continued)

Unintended consequences?

I certainly would agree with anyone who tells me there are appropriate circumstances and projects for outsourcing, whether on or off shore. As Jacky implied in her comment to my first post, when requirements are firm – such as localization or porting of a product that already runs in one language or on one platform – outsourcing can result in a product that is usable in the country where the localization is done, or can take advantage of engineers who do not think of the task as a boring repetition of something they have already done. (more…)