Comments on: No silver bullets. Really!

By: Trying out The Pomodoro Technique : Victor Stanciu

Trying out The Pomodoro Technique : Victor Stanciu — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:56:57 +0000

[...] of all, it’s not a silver bullet. There are no silver bullets. It all boils down to your own resolve in sticking to a pattern and work in a less chaotic manner. [...]

By: IT tall tales and why they’re told, or, why I stopped going to conferences

IT tall tales and why they’re told, or, why I stopped going to conferences — Fri, 07 May 2010 01:43:01 +0000

[...] Let’s look at an example, in the form of a recent article about the fabulous success of Agile approach at eBay. Read the article; you won’t find a single wisp of a thought about any downsides, any blemishes, that occurred along the way. It was all golden, apparently. You see only references on how “to out-think and out-execute the competition”; or, “deliver useful information in days instead of months.” Can you say “silver bullet”? [...]

By: The IT project failure dilemma: how to get early warnings

The IT project failure dilemma: how to get early warnings — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:38:36 +0000

[...] But it’s obvious that projects still can fail, even when they use those techniques. People, after all, are fallible, and simply embracing an approach or methodology doesn’t mean that all the right day-to-day decisions are guaranteed or that every problem is anticipated. Once again, there are no silver bullets. [...]

By: Must-read books on the human factors of IT — part 1, the 70s

Must-read books on the human factors of IT — part 1, the 70s — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 04:43:10 +0000

[...] later (1986), equally seminal essay, “No Silver Bullets” (see my post on this: “No Silver Bullets. Really!“), as well as some added chapters that revisit the assumptions of the first [...]

By: Peter Kretzman

Peter Kretzman — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:06:09 +0000

Thanks to all for your insightful comments.

Rose, I’ve actually already written about ROI fairly extensively — but curiously, also along the lines that it is, in and of itself, not a holy grail either. That said, it’s better to see firm numbers based in fact than some of the outlandish and optimistic claims that are made for some of the memes that I discuss in my post.

By: Rose

Rose — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:03:48 +0000

There isn’t a silver bullet and people do go crazy trying to find that one magical solution. Metrics and ROI are key. Here is an interesting article discussing the fuzzy-ness of seeing the ROI with SOA and Enterprise 2.0 http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/lawson/the-human-condition-causes-metric-problems-for-soa-enterprise-20/?cs=38139

By: Mark W Schumann

Mark W Schumann — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:15:33 +0000

Peter, you write insightful stuff so often that there is now a "Kretzman" tag on my blog. No, seriously. I started a really long comment here, but it turned into its own entry on my own blog. To prevent my comment from being nothing but an endeavor in blog-shilling, let me say here that my favorite insight of Brooks's paper is the distinction between accidental and essential complexity. Brooks argued, in 1987, that "accidental complexity" was nearly a thing of the past. It's true! As a developer, you hardly ever have to mess around with peripheral stuff that simply gets in the way and doesn't work... not like a logistics manager who deals with warehouse people calling in sick, or like a construction supervisor who gets stuck with a batch of substandard materials. Software is a really clean industry that way. If something doesn't work, it's probably because that's the job, not a distraction from the job. As a result, everything we do is problem-solving, which is inherently unpredictable. I adore your closing paragraph.

By: Eric D. Brown

Eric D. Brown — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:14:35 +0000

Great job Peter.

I’ve been known to fall into the trap of ‘if we could only do X….’ with ‘X’ being whatever the new approach is, we’d be more successful.

I usually catch myself before getting too far along this path of thinking but still the fact that I let the ‘new approach’ or ‘new technology’ catch my interest as a panacea irks me.

Great stuff here and a great reminder that the ‘right’ approach is different for everyone and may involved many approaches combine.

By: The silver’s all around you « Critical Results

The silver’s all around you « Critical Results — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:09:21 +0000

[...] Mark W. Schumann This is a response to Peter Kretzman’s coherent and insightful blog post, “No silver bullets. Really!” You should go read that first. I’ll [...]

By: jfbauer

jfbauer — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:13:17 +0000

Getting IT delivery right “… requires leadership, detail-oriented personnel, skillful practitioners.” I couldn’t agree more with the pragmatic view that cuts through the bright, shinny new methodological approaches to curing IT proverbial cancer.

But there sure seems to be money to be made building the next bandwagon and jumping on early … great article!