Grumpy Old Men of IT

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Latest — Sep 7, 2023

The Business of Tech

Introduction It is easy to assume that the so-called Big Tech companies are successful because they have the biggest budgets to employ the brightest engineers. But, as with most generalisations, the truth is more nuanced, hidden from view, and sometimes highly misleading. What makes tech companies successful is a combination

More issues

Give them wings!

In the previous article, Little Giants of Tech, I took a stab at arguing for the need for quick and decisive action to create a first-line management layer that will define whether a change driven by a senior leader of the tech organization will be even remotely successful. In this

Let's Talk about Tools

So many people have become so used to technology to solve problems that many still believe in the concept “for every problem, there is a tool to solve it”. It is, however, the apotheosis of short-sightedness, the nadir of logical thinking to believe that tools solve problems. The correct way

Little Giants of Tech

Mirror mirror on the wall, whose role is most impactful of them all? “What a dumb and easy question”, you may think. Yet the part of your thought that followed immediately, could be radically different from what the mirror might actually reply. Scores of mirrors would chant: “You, the CTO!

Look for the weirdos!

Looking back at a quarter of a century I spent in various parts of Tech, I see an ocean of mistakes I would not do today and some that I probably still repeat, but this time knowingly. This chunk of time spent also allows me to draw some observations and

HR is not what they want you to think

Let's set some basic assumptions before we dive into this rant. * People, engineers, human capital, are the most valuable asset any technology company has. There is no doubt that methodology and process come second after the core culture that is made of people. Waterfall or agile, XP or SAFe (God

Introducing: Grumpy Old Men

It is no longer in vogue to be a grumpy old man. Was it ever? Probably not. Many grumpy old men are not that old. And more than a few are not men, The fact is that many are grumpy for one of two reasons - they are either distressed

Coming soon

This is Grumpy Old Men, a brand new site by Grumpy that's just getting started. Things will be up and running here shortly, but you can subscribe in the meantime if you'd like to stay up to date and receive emails when new content is published!