Better Software Conference & EXPO 2007

The Web has enabled pervasive global information sharing, commerce, and communications on a scale thought to be impossible only ten years ago. At the same time, the Web dealt a setback in the user interface experience of networked applications. Only now are Web standards and technologies emerging that can bring us back to the rich and robust user experiences that were developed in the desktop client/server era before the Web came along.

As always, the snake oil bandwagons are circling your organization. But unlike snake oil, a purported health supplement of old, modern organizations bet their success on technologies with often equally dubious claims. Did your organization jump on the CORBA bandwagon? It's now dead. How about outsourcing? Have you discovered all the hidden costs and quality problems yet? Perhaps you were mesmerized by Extreme Programming-a fading religion that once had many believers but few actual practitioners.

As agile software development methodologies take hold in the mainstream, organizations are finding that working with outside consultants poses a new set of challenges. In some instances, consulting organizations are able to work within an agile framework quite well. But in other situations, working with a consulting company can be more challenging than the project itself. Connecting outside consultants to your inside processes must be done.