Eat up

I feel like a shark!  "Chomp!"

Social movements and organizational change are difficult to measure, and it is particularly hard to do in the world of business.  The business press concentrates on investing and accounting.  Since the beginning of the agile reformation, those of us involved in the change have openly wondered if we are making an actual difference.  As 2018 begins, it looks like agile is becoming mainstream and successful.

In 2011 a famous editorial appeared in the Wall Street Journal, It was titled, “Software is eating the World.”  The principal thesis was for companies to succeed they have to behave more like software companies.  It was a daring argument.   The seven years which followed have vindicated that notion.  Google, Tesla, Amazon and a funny project called Bitcoin are dominating headlines and the business community.

Tesla is still struggling to meet its production commitments and Bitcoin, to me, feels like a blue sky stock but what all of these firms have in common is a willingness to innovate, iterate, and move fast to satisfy customer demand.  Even companies who lost their way are embracing blockchain technologies, cloud computing, and rapid software development. 

It is satisfying to know that my career choices have mirrored changes in the business.  While business is changing business leadership is struggling to keep up.  Organizations charts still matter in many places.  Command and control measures which existed for years are difficult to discard, and inertia prevents most organizational change.

It has created a quandary and spawned an entire industry of coaching and consultants, who are attempting to show others how to do business with the agile paradigm.  What these coaches discover, is a business is a social construct along with a business entity.  The ego of a director may be more important than the needs of the company.  Board members excuse a lousy quarter because they golf with executives.  Whole industries condoned sexual harassment and assault as long as the abusers generated revenue.  

Which is why I find the turnaround at Microsoft so fascinating.  They went from a sales culture under Steve Balmer to an engineering culture under Satya Nadella.  After product failures like Zune, Vista, and Windows Phone, the organization decided to place its future in the hands of a software engineer who felt building better products was the path to commercial success.  It is a gamble which has paid off handsomely.

Microsoft has embraced Agile, and it is paying enormous dividends.  That is why this week an article appeared in Forbes called, “Agile is eating the World.”  The reformation is growing, and the success is getting noticed.  It is a satisfying development to me.  I am no longer a lonely missionary in the wilderness, but a professional at the table is making a difference.  It is nice to see the times change.

Until next time.

The Passion of Microsoft

This was the moment Microsoft learned to change.

Technology is a weird thing.  It creates heated passions and religious devotion.  I am not immune to these passions.  This week I wanted to talk about Microsoft and what I see from the outside is it is becoming a more agile company.

When I first became a technology professional, in 1998.  Microsoft was divisively referred to as the “Evil Empire.”  Internet explorer has won the browser wars, Visual Basic 6 was about to debut, and my company was scooping up copies of Windows 98 like no tomorrow.  It was before the dot com crash and it was a great time to get into developing software.  It was also the start of Linux movement and a general sense of discontent in the developer community.

This discontent came from projects in the enterprise sector getting more bloated and companies like Microsoft not being responsive to developers who wanted to improve their skills.  I think the final straw came with the release of the Apple iPod device.  This music player took the technology world by storm and it made Apple and substantial amount of money.  When Microsoft decided to release its Zune music player an entire two years later, it was too little too late.  I loved my device but it never had the wide appeal of the iPod.

By 2012, the Zune was discontinued and Microsoft was going through numerous changes.  They were now losing the browser wars to Google Chrome.  The Android operating system threatened to shut Microsoft out of the mobile phone market.  Finally, as PC sales slumped people were openly asking if Microsoft would survive.  Notes of the company’s death have been greatly exaggerated.

In a little over three years, with a new CEO and its focus on agile practices the company looks like it is turning around.  The focus from sales and marketing to engineering is refreshing to me.  I am looking forward to the release of Windows 10 and hope that the company continues its efforts to build more loyalty to the people who help build their brand.  As someone who has been building with Microsoft for over fifteen years, I have no illusions about the company’s shortcomings but it is nice to see an organization fix itself.

I am starting to feel more passion for Microsoft and I am not afraid to say so.

Until next time.