How Software Development Metrics Can Improve Your Delivery Processes

Tasktalks is an engineering-focused podcast telling the stories of Tasktop’s engineering teams from internal practices to the day-to-day challenges they face. Imagine a world where there is only one way to develop software at scale. Imagine if everybody used the same tools, had the same team structure and processes, everything was done “by the book”....

Do you have “Dark Debt” in your IT organization’s culture?

Whether it’s buying a dodgy microwave meal from a gas station, kicking a sock under the bed during last minute clean before guests arrive, or cutting across the lawn to get to the front door faster, we all take shortcuts. But unlike enterprise-software delivery, these decisions rarely cause any collateral damage. The ramifications of taking...

Innovation Metrics: Benchmarking Success

Everyone likes to talk about innovation, but how do you measure it? How do you know whether or not your innovation program is performing well? And which innovation metrics will drive the right behavior to achieve your organization’s strategic goals? While I am a firm believer in focusing on outcomes in order to achieve both...

Strategic Planning at Work: Real-World Use Cases

Do you spend months developing your strategic plan only to have it become shelf ware – literally sitting on a shelf collecting dust? Or, despite your best intentions at integrating strategy and execution, do your plans and operations on the ground become disconnected at some point? Unfortunately, this is all too common. Of the 500...

Idea Diversity: Key to Building a Culture of Innovation

In her Huffington Post article, Tiffani Bova, Contributor Global Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce, touches on an important point made by Lisa Bodell, an award-winning author and CEO of Futurethink, that has a big impact on building a culture of innovation: idea diversity. As highlighted in the article, Bodell explains: “Innovation isn’t just...

Project Collaboration with ProjectPlace Helps Us Get Things Done

In the past, project collaboration hasn’t always been easy.  We were having to use multiple sites or applications to track projects. There would be content stored in different locations, many times with projects never being updated, which made it difficult to truly know the status of a project. We have previously used SharePoint and online...

The criticality of customer support in enterprise software delivery

In enterprise software delivery, customer support is the difference between investing in a product, and actually benefiting from a product – Laura Horner, Director of Sales, Americas East, Tasktop At Tasktop Connect last month, I had the opportunity to speak with a wide and diverse range of prospective customers. While “integration”, “DevOps” and “software value stream” were...

Establishing an Enterprise Architecture-to-Business Communication Framework [Infographic]

While traditional frameworks are great for enterprise architects, they aren’t getting the job done for the business. When enterprise architecture training is focused on modeling—rather than communication—it makes it difficult to work effectively with key business stakeholders and decision makers. If enterprise architects want to elevate themselves to key advisers to the business, they will...

From Dependence to Deliverance: How to Curb Your Spreadsheet Cravings

If you or a “close friend of yours” (read: you) is deeply concerned about what was once an occasional fondness for spreadsheets, but has now twisted into something between an unhealthy dependence to a raging addiction, then be assured you aren’t alone. In numerous enterprises around the world and across every industry, dedicated and hard-working...

How to Get the Most Out of Your One-on-Ones

One-on-one meetings are intended to focus on employee development in an individual sense by taking the time out for a performance review. Unfortunately, these meetings often get postponed, skipped or labeled as a lesser priority because they are usually unproductive. When there are meetings scheduled too frequently or people are ill-prepared, there can be little...