Steve Neiderhauser

How to start small to make big changes

Making big changes to your development process creates chaos. I advise customers to start small and run a pilot team “process experiment” to understand the risks and challenges of the big change. In addition, the prototype or experiment helps the organization understand how the change affects day-to-day activities and management roles.

At the end of the timeboxed experiment, we collect the evidence and determine if and how to roll out the change to all the teams. To make big changes, reduce risk by exposing issues and creating some evidence-based support for the change.

Apple and Software Strategy

The software field has more great tools and techniques to deliver software than ever. These include Lean Startup, Continuous Delivery, AI, and many more.

When I’ve seen projects fail, it’s often because leaders use outdated project management approaches.

Lean Software Development offers approaches that align with modern techniques. Set-based design and options can be effective in a fast-paced world where agility needs to be built into products from the ground up.

Case in point — Apple built an option to switch computer processors into their Mac operating system. In 2009, Apple paired that option with set-based design to gracefully switch from IBM to Intel processors.