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On the weekend of March 22-23, a group of educators, their students, and industry professionals came together at Calvin College’s Prince Center for the Michigan Celebration of Women in Computing or MICWIC. Along with my colleague Carl Erickson, I had the privilege of attending this event and getting to know some of the best and…
In a previous post, Tear Down the Walls! — Shattering Team Boundaries, I discussed the boundaries (or silos) that traditional teams often end up segregating into, especially when deadlines are looming. The project I am on has many teams scattered across multiple physical locations (even continents), and teams are frequently under separate silos of management. Epic-level…
We’ve always made project management an important and inseparable part of our development and design services. When Atomic Object was younger, we would tend to focus on the technical aspects of project management — story estimation and prioritization, velocity, burn charts, etc. This made us very good at the predictive or quantitative aspects of project…
At Atomic Object we say that we hire generalists. I work with people who I think of as generalists. I self-identify as a generalist. But how general can you get, practically? Well, it’s all relative, of course.
Atomic Object has been making speculative development investments, or “spec dev” as we call it, since 2003. We give up some project revenue in exchange for equity, a royalty, or a revenue share in a new company. By taking on some of the market risk alongside our partners, we are exposed to the potential upside…
As I continue to develop in my career, I also enjoy regularly taking time out to connect with, mentor, and be inspired by the next generation of software professionals. Speaking to college classes and student groups is always a great experience, worth the time and effort spent. Students represent the future of our industry, and…
Atomic is offering six months of free space in our Detroit office to an early-stage company. Eligible companies are invited to apply before January 10, 2013. We will announce the winning company on January 18, 2013. Detroit’s growing density and investment in technology and innovation made the city an ideal choice for Atomic’s second office….
Before continuing to write about the specifics of managing software projects, I want to double back around to explain the most valuable things that must be done in any company attempting to run multiple projects at the same time. Below are a few examples of such companies and the difficulties that may be experienced. A…
When solving internal business needs, should you buy an existing software solution or build a custom solution? The biggest advantage of custom software is the ability to innovate and invent. That’s why custom software is commonly created for new products and innovation projects. But if you’re looking to leverage software for a common operation or…
In my last post, I described how I was re-schooled in the basics of project management with the discovery of critical chain methods. We got amazing results by applying critical chain to our traditional software development projects: We challenged ourselves to find ways of delivering faster. This drove us to think backwards from the deliverable…
Carl is the president and co-founder of Atomic Object