I've had a wonderful idea for a business. Each of my users is invited to send me things in the mail things like pictures of their kids or notes about what they are doing. I then scan in these notes and pictures, print out everyone's updates in a big paper …
Part 4 of a 4-part essay
In the first 4 parts of this essay, we covered how company culture affects the solutions people choose, that Capital One excells at innovation but is poor at reuse, and that reuse is important. Bringing this together, I think we need to change the …
Posted Thu 31 May 2018 by mcherm in Software Development
Part 3 of a 4-part essay
In the previous essay in this series I pointed out that Capital One is good good at innovation, but isn't particularly good at reuse... so what? Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, maybe this isn't such a big deal! If the cost of being good …
Posted Wed 30 May 2018 by mcherm in Software Development
Part 2 of a 4-part essay
For the past several years I have worked at Capital One, which is one of the larger financial institutions in the US. As an organization, it lies somewhere between being a bank and being a tech company. And Capital One is really good at …
Posted Tue 29 May 2018 by mcherm in Software Development
Part 1 of a 4-part essay
Company culture is an interesting thing. Especially in the world of technology companies, everyone seems to agree that it is a very important thing, few seem to know how to create or influence it. Some researchers like Edgar Schein have attempted to quantify it …
Posted Mon 28 May 2018 by mcherm in Software Development