02 January 2007

Technology Management

How can we as the IT department of a large company support our business as good as possible? What's the current status? How did we get there? Where should we aim for tomorrow? Which technology should we select for our purpose?

There is a lot of questions and there is a lot of technology in a large company. Time goes by, and even more technology is added onto the bandwagon - it seems so overloaded sometimes. Wait a minute, is it? Are we heading for the right direction? The only way to find out that we start to manage it properly, on all necessary levels.

OK, the usual stuff, of course:
  • Vision
  • Strategy and goals
  • Planning
  • Strategy execution and tactics
  • Every here and then, rethink vision and strategy, and adapt, if necessary
That's the top down approach. This works if you have a powerful central organization structure. It's not worth the paper written on, if the company is decentrally organized. Nobody will care about your vision and the strategy to get there.

Should Software Architects write code?

Gregor answers this nicely in https://youtu.be/31qcPwAv8Zw . Yes, they should. But not to create production code, but to grasp the idea and ...