program-management

How can a software agency deliver quality software/win projects?

I currently work for a bespoke software agency. Does anyone have any experience of how to win well priced work? It seems there is so much competition from offshore/bedroom program teams, that cost is extremely competetive these days. I feel that it is very different compared to a software product company or an internal it department, in...

Best way to deal with 'bad apples'?

In Jeff's latest post on Coding Horror, he talks about the "bad apple" effect: What [the research] found, in short, is that the worst team member is the best predictor of how any team performs. It doesn't seem to matter how great the best member is, or what the average member of the group is like. It all comes down to wha...

Program Manager vs. Software Architect

What are the differences between a program manager and a software architect? ...

Do most software companies employ program managers?

According to Joel's post, a program manager is responsible for: Designing UIs Writing functional specs Coordinating teams Serving as the customer advocate, and (jokingly?) Wearing Banana Republic chinos I'm curious to know if most software companies have program managers or similar positions that fill the above responsibilities. In m...

Program Manager vs Product Manager

What is the difference between a Program Manager and Product Manager? Is there actually a difference in the roles/responsibilities or our the terms mostly used interchangeably. ...

How bad is SLOC (source lines of code) as a metric?

We are documenting our software development process. For technical people, this is pretty easy: iterative development with internal milestones every four weeks, external every 3 months. However, the purpose of this exercise is to expose things for our project management in terms that they can understand. Specifically, these non-tech...