Are you ready for the Olympics?

I have been following the Olympic games pretty closely since I was a child. Competition at this level has always fascinated me.

The US team is doing a great job competing with the world’s best athletes and that brings me to think about how prepared are we to compete on international level.

In today’s newsletter I will go over the checklist designed to help your software development organization successfully compete in the global marketplace.

In the last couple of years I’ve talked to hundreds of different software development companies, but the complaint that I am hearing is always the same: it’s becoming increasingly difficult to compete with off-shore development. I have one thing to say for this: competition is the only thing that drives innovation!

So, while our Olympic team brings the best athletes to Athens this year, you should think how your organization could compete in the global market place. I see it over and over again - our clients enter this competition and believe it or not, they win!

Consider this checklist as a conditioning exercise for your team and I will see you at the top with a gold medal!

Productivity Increase check list for a software development organization:

• Do you have metrics in place to measure the productivity of your team?
  If not, you have to get it soon! This is a great indicator of your progress.
• How long is your release cycle?
  If the answer is more then 3 months – you have a room for improvement.
  If the answer is 6 weeks or less, you are ready to play with the big boys!
• How long does it take your team to "bullet-proof" a build?
  If the answer is more than 5 days – again, you have a room for improvement.
  If the answer is 3 days or less – way to go! You probably have a good automation process already in place.
• Do you know what your test coverage is?
  Testing without knowing your coverage is like competing without keeping a score.

Main point is: your organization cannot successfully compete with the developers working somewhere in Belarus for less than $10 per hour unless you get creative and have your computers do the job! Even Belarus guys cannot beat a machine running the entire test suite nightly and not asking for $10 an hour!

My advice is: innovate and automate – let computers do the job! Competing will become fun instead of the unfair game!

I wish the US team great success at the Olympics and your software development organization all the best in staying innovative, efficient and competitive!

As always please follow this link to let me know what you think.