Specialization in: coaching, training, mentoring, organizational assessments for all aspects of software development, and consulting on strategies & implementations of process improvement engagements. Expertise in all leading methodologies such as IBM Rational Unified Process (RUP), OpenUP, EnterpriseUP, and Agile approaches such as XP, Scrum, and DSDM.
Over 15 years of experience in guiding companies toward improving the implementation of new process solutions and technology, providing services as an agile coach, process mentor, and trainer. Organizational change management leader, working hand and hand with organizations in developing a strategy for implementing an improved process and the resulting organizational culture changes. Focus is the company’s Return on investment (ROI) and helps manage how much effective change a given organization can adopt at any given point.
Coached, mentored, and trained thousands of practitioners on all aspects of software development, conducted dozens of Conference presentations, authored many publications, sat on advisory boards, and chaired User Groups. Author of “Implementing the IBM Rational Unified Process and Solutions – A Guide to Improving Your Software Development Capability and Maturity, IBM Press 2007”. This is the book on how to implement & adopt RUP and make it agile, that was written at the request of the IBM Rational brand, and is based on more than a decade of real life practical experiences implementing, mentoring, and coaching on software development process engagements.
Invited by the IBM Rational brand in 2003 to become a member of the Methods Client Advisory Group (CAG), providing input and direction to the development of RUP and other IBM methods. The group consists of 20 selected individuals representing expertise from around the world. Program Director of the largest Rational User Group in the country, Co-Discussion Facilitator of the Rational RUP Discussion forum for IBM’s developerWorks, and a recurring member (1 of 4) of the Process and Portfolio Management Panel of Experts IBM Rational Software Development Conferences for consecutive years. Frequent speaker at industry conferences on topics related to software development best practices, effective coaching & mentoring, and organizational change management. Joshua has posted 7 posts at DZone. View Full User Profile
I recently finished creating the initial version of a process
for developing “applications” by people outside of the IT area. Almost
all companies have such development, where an end user develops
something that is used in the business, without the assistance of the
Information Technology area. This type of development can be called
“shadow IT”, “business as usual”, “end user computing”, dev on the
down-low”, but it does have its place. For example, there are times
when a complicated spreadsheet, with some minor VBA programming is
needed to calculate something that is going to be needed only for that
year’s close out. Having the IT department create an application using
the corporate standard process would add time, expense, and inefficiency
to something that is needed for a very brief moment in the company’s
life. However, these tiny little apps sometimes pose tremendous risk to
an organization if they are used to make business decisions and/or have
operational risk, reputational risk, or audit risk (to name a few) and
need controls to be in place to manage the risk.
What we found was that a minimal process that was very agile in its
approach that required the bare minimum amount of documentation added
very little impact, but now provides a comfort level to executive
management, internal audit, and external audit as well as putting some
structure around the risk management and mitigation.
This process is in the initial adoption phase and will be refactored
based on the results and lessons learned before it takes on program
level coverage. In future updates, I will blog the good, the bad, and
maybe even the ugly on how it continues to evolve in practice. Based on
initial results, I think that many organizations could benefit from the
approach we used…
