Do you remember the first time a feature in an application surprised you? Have you ever thought, “Wow, that’s actually making my life easier?” I remember the first time I clicked on a phone number while browsing a website on a mobile phone and it opened the dialer. “All I...

Recently, my husband and I were eating lunch at our kitchen island on an unseasonably warm Saturday afternoon in February. We decided we should take advantage of the 45 degree day in the middle of an Iowa winter to go on a walk. We agreed that we’d head to a...

TLM Vision Source Allies partners with companies who want to adopt a long-term, strategic, methodology that aligns technology, services, and the management of the IT infrastructure to business objectives. Implementing a TLM process, beginning with a baseline of the current technology stack / Enterprise Architecture, leads to intentional cost savings and risk reduction...

The featured company is a globally distributed organization. Prior to its consolidation, IT services were site specific, resulting in inconsistent services and expectations across locations. With IT consolidation, we brought together diverse groups with no common culture. IT needed to have standards and ownership put in place around process and...

Recently Akrem and Erick presented Consulting 101, an annual presentation delivered at a Source Allies University event. We are publishing a three-part blog series that is a distillation of that presentation; Agile Crash Course, Team Dynamics, and Partner Dynamics. Part 3: Partner Dynamics When we work with our partners, our...

Recently Akrem and Erick presented Consulting 101, an annual presentation delivered at a Source Allies University event. We are publishing a three-part blog series that is a distillation of that presentation; Agile Crash Course, Team Dynamics, and Partner Dynamics. Part 2: Team Dynamics Successful teams are the ones that understand,...

Recently Akrem and Erick presented Consulting 101, an annual presentation delivered at a Source Allies University event. We are publishing a three-part blog series that is a distillation of that presentation; Agile Crash Course, Team Dynamics, and Partner Dynamics. Motivation Here at Source Allies, we want to set our teams...

On any given team, lots of time, effort, and thought goes into determining the team culture. This includes Agile practices and ceremonies, the discovery process, collaboration strategies, and communication with stakeholders. A high-priority project with a tight deadline can disrupt these routines. Some practices will need to be shelved until...

From Warren Buffet to Kobe Bryant, it has been said the absolute best thing for you to do as a professional is to invest in yourself. For some, that is reading about or researching a specific topic to learn something new. The goal is to get the learning juices flowing...

“Decide as late as possible” On the surface this principle of Lean Software Development would seem to suggest that we, as engineers, should put off as many decisions as possible till the last moment. This seems counterintuitive, as creating a working piece of software requires a great deal of planning...