Have you ever wondered how many hours do you actually work at the office? Excluding lunch breaks and other breaks obviously. Have you ever calculated your productivity level during the day? How many hours are you able to work uninterrupted? If at all possible.

Yesterday I was talking to a researcher of the Amsterdam University. As Goyello we take part in the Symbiosis program and from time to time they measure the progress of all the participants. During the interview we concluded that in many outsourcing projects in general the demand management is the weakest part and the main cause of failure. Nothing new, I stressed the importance before. The main question is probably why this keeps going wrong. I think the answer is simple: Software development is Art! And artists are hard to handle.

Try to recall the last talk you had with some friends in the bar or colleagues over lunch? What was it about?

In the case of a group of women I don’t know it. If related to cars I guess you mentioned the nice but, the great look & feel, the rounded shapes, beautiful striping, nice and special color, the safety and the great seat covers.

If not about women or money you and your male friends talked about cars. Especially about horse power, engine size, fuel type, fuel consumption, acceleration, maximum speed, tire size and more technical and impressive specs.

Do you ever have such talks about the software you have just bought?

Just imagine yourself being the world famous painter Rembrandt van Rijn. Somebody hired you to prepare a nice painting of his company. Once you show him your almost finished painting, he requests you to remove a person and to move another one. And of course in his opinion this isn’t a big job.

Are you still there? How would you feel? Who’s the artist here? Who can decide whether something is easy or not?

You can often read about software development projects that failed. The presented figures vary from about 35% up to 75% of the total amount of projects. There is no need to argue these figures. Let’s better try to fight the causes. So, first we need to find the biggest traps in software development.

[Picture credits: Stock.xchng]

There is no escaping the fact that a good code is written by a good programmer. Obviously, we need good programmers if we want to satisfy clients’ needs. However, while recruiting a developer you cannot forget that a  good developer is more than a language syntax source. He should bring more than technical competencies alone. Our research & experience revealed that, yet again, it’s more about social and emotional intelligence as well as thinking patterns and overall attitude. Before we add any new member to the team we should always specify what kind of person we would like to work with? Who is the best fit to the team?

Agile SCRUM defines the way how people should cooperate on the daily basis. However, in reality we are faced with situations where Agile rules are hard to use. How to handle such exceptions not destroying Agility in the team?

Do you know the feeling when you look at your screen waiting for the project to build its workspace for hours or when you have to search the whole project in order to find a simple function ? If you do I recommend trying NetBeans as your primary IDE.

Computerworld UK published an article in April saying: “Outsourcing Not the Big Savings Firms Expect, Study Says”. Summarizing, the recession is pushing businesses to cut the cost of their software portfolios, but most companies overestimate the savings that offshoring can deliver, as presented by CIO.com. On the other hand I firmly believe it is possible to save costs if you follow the proper approach.

Many companies are having hard time in the light of the economical downturn. Investments are postponed or cancelled at all. People get fired. How to be of help in such a situation? Knowing that cost saving is a subject that many managers love today we will have a look at what are the available cost savings options in the software area.