Today we released our one-year anniversary episode of Improving Podcasts. It’s a huge milestone for us, 27 episodes released every other Tuesday with no missed weeks. It hasn’t always been easy to come up with content, but Mike and I have held each other accountable (Mike’s the one with the real discipline) and we’ve lived up to the challenge we set for ourselves. It’s been a lot of fun and some content has been outstanding (if I do say so myself) while some really hasn’t, but I think it was …

If you’re in Dallas, Houston, Austin, or Bryan/College Station (or within an hour or so), take advantage of Improving’s lunch and learns. We’ll come out and present to your team on a topic of your choice, free of charge. Our topics cover the latest in .NET development, Java, Object Oriented fundamentals, and, of course, lots of perspectives on Agile Software Development. If you need an easy way to expose your team to the latest in Agile development from the comfort of your own office, here’s your chance. Here’s a list …

On April 30, 2010 I did a couple of presentations at AgileDotNet 2010 in Dallas. Here are the slides and supporting code samples from those presentations.

Our marketing team here at Improving uses Scrum on a daily basis. The team recently wrote an article about their progress. It’s an interesting read and reminds me to look around for ways to improve by noticing ideas and practices that help solve problems in other areas and disciplines.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about when/why a company should outsource application development. Our Rural Sourcing offering at Improving is a perfect solution for companies looking to outsource custom development, but I wonder if I would be acting in my customer’s best interest if I were to council them to choose outsourcing a large, long-running development project to Improving rather than staffing up internally and executing the project in house. Here is a bit of the conversation I’ve been having with myself:
Outsourcing offers several clear advantages:

No hiring/onboarding …

A few years ago I worked with an organization to build computer-based-training modules to teach Java. My team and I worked with a professor from the Education Psychology department at Texas A&M to study how computer-based training could actually be effective. I think these ideas are equally as applicable to instructor-led training.
The challenge was to include content in the course if and only if it added discernible value toward the course’s objectives. To make sure the progress is discernible, we used a method of task-analysis to iteratively define finite activities …

I kind of like the term Rural Shoring. Sure there’s no shore, but that’s kind of the point. The sales pitch is built into the term (Rural Shoring’s Not Shoring)! The term is a little tongue-in-cheek, which appeals to me as a bit of a dig against offshore.
The most common term is probably Rural Sourcing. The term is ok, it is descriptive and makes a strong reference to offshoring, but it is more of a specialized type of outsourcing than a juxtaposition to offshore. I’d prefer something …

I’ve been on a few rural teams and seen a few more. The question I’ve run into several times regarding Rural Sourcing is…how many entry-level folks can we use and still be effective? Having led a team of WAY too many interns, this is a valid question. The tendency of management types might be to overload the team with interns to achieve the lowest blended rate… but you end up trading productivity and quality for cost, which is a losing proposition for everyone. I think there is a balance of …

There is an alternative to offshore software development that provides a lower total cost than traditional development in urban centers but without the communication, logistical, and quality problems of offshore. The alternative is Rural Shoring.
The cost savings is achieved by producing software in development centers outside urban areas utilizing less experienced, part-time talent. The talent could be students from local universities or community colleges, or individuals with potential as software developers who didn’t have the opportunity to go to college at all.
It’s a win-win for the workers, the software organization, …