Interesting Article: The Rolodex days are over; the ExecDev is born

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Remember when you used to have a Rolodex on your desk that was packed full of business cards, scribbled-out-then-updated address cards, and maybe a few hand written reminder notes with birth dates and special occasions listed?

What caused the demise of the Rolodex days in your world?

Was it your mobile phone, Outlook, a CRM tool, or some combination of these?

Just as our personal contact management tools have matured in the past two decades, so has our software development industry. Today there are extraordinary tools that allow us to more easily keep track of all of our important information, and the important people, who are on our software development teams.

The Cultural Shift Linking Executives and Developers

As an Executive and/or Product Owner, you are likely familiar with the terminology DevOps. Great progress has been made, both in teaming and tooling, and DevOps is made easier with Visual Studio 11. Now more than ever before, Developers are able to link with IT Operations staff through Visual Studio 11 capabilities.

But what about linking Executives and Developers? ExecDevs, if you will. The ability to finally bridge the gap between Executives and Developers is a noteworthy development that we’ll see come from using Visual Studio 11, bringing a full end-to-end story to the table. Let’s face it … there’s almost always a gap between developers and executives, right? Not being technical myself, it’s sometimes challenging to find ways to see progress, understand constraints, and steer direction when something is heading down the wrong path. It’s hard to do much until it’s too late – the product has been built and the money (time) has been spent. The technical language and tool interfaces have made it difficult for Executives to have a role in the end-to-end development process.

For those who read this post and choose to use Visual Studio 11, you have the power to fix this (more on company environment and team culture in later posts)! I can enthusiastically share that the ExecDev tools like Microsoft’s Feedback Client and Reporting Tools will change the way you think about software development. You’ll also change the way you communicate with your development teams. Microsoft’s ExecDev tools are tailored for you, the Executive/Product Owner! It’s about time, right?!

To read more, go here.