2013-06-29 Saturday - A solid beginning foundation for a Mobile Strategy

[image source: Amazon.com]

Mobile Strategy: How Your Company Can Win by Embracing Mobile Technologies 1st Edition (2013)
https://www.amazon.com/Mobile-Strategy-Company-Embracing-Technologies/dp/013309491X/
 

My Book Review: 

 A solid beginning foundation for a Mobile Strategy

If you are a bit bewildered by what it means to implement a Mobile Strategy, then this book offers a solid conceptual foundation upon which to establish the beginning of a Mobile Strategy.

The first pleasant surprise on reading this book was the realization that Dirk Nicol  (Program Director for IBM Mobile Strategy and Production Management) wrote this with a true intent to educate, and while he could have used this as a platform to promote an IBM-specific agenda - he did not. Instead, he brought his obviously formidable depth of expertise - and lays out a framework for evolving a Mobile Strategy that can be applied to businesses both large and small.  No mean feat, that.

Who Should [Really] Read This Book?
- IT Executives pondering a mobile strategy
- IT Managers being tasked to implement a mobile strategy
- IT Business Analysts that need to understand the subtle transformative power of mobile to business processes, and its unique development processes

What this book is not:
- It is not an introduction to the mechanics of implementing mobile applications
- Although it touches on technical concerns, it does not intend to be an introduction to mobile technical specifications

Chapters include:
1 - Introducing Mobile Enterprise
2 - Defining Business Value
3 - Mobile Business Challenges
4 - The Mobile Framework
5 - Mobile Development
6 - Mobile Security and Management
7 - Mobile Business Transformation
8 - Planning a Mobile Project
9 - Social+Cloud+Big Data+Mobile
10 - International Considerations
11 - Case Studies and Mobile Solutions
12 - Moving Forward

Full Disclosure: I was provided a free copy of this book by Pearson Education to review

2013-06-26 Wednesday - Design and Code Reviews

Recently I've been helping a large enterprise development program provide guidance to multiple teams of developers (100+ developers) via design and code reviews.

I've enjoyed the opportunity to lead these discussions - and focus on encouraging, nurturing, educating, and mentoring - versus the less productive and negative connotations of review-as-blame, as is often the unintended result of how reviews are perceived by developers.

For each build within a sprint, I typically review a SVN Diff file, and release notes - which allows me to focus on what has changed.

Although I usually don't limit my findings or comments to just the Diff details - it helps me focus and optimize the time I spend preparing for the review meeting itself (which is usually time-boxed to 30 minutes).

My first priority in the review is to identify critical sections that need refactoring (either due to observed defects, or known issues that will arise from a maintenance perspective, or inherent limitations in the implementation of the code that will affect the desired functionality)

My second priority in the review is to identify recommendations for improving the design of the solution so that it is maintainable, testable, and extensible.  "Elegance" is a subjective term, but it is the essence of what I strive to communicate.

The third priority in the review is often to help developers learn to identify anti-patterns that can be re-mediated to improve the overall performance and robustness of the code.


If your organization might benefit from having an outside independent 3rd party provide Design and Code Review feedback, please contact me to discuss your program needs.


A useful Big-O reference for developers::
http://bigocheatsheet.com/

(more to be added this weekend when I have more time to continue this post)