While a lot of the design principles that we use in software can be found in other design disciplines, there is one very present in UX and graphical design that is very rarely discussed in software circles: consistency. It’s not because we weren’t trying. The system metaphor idea from XP and the conceptual integrity idea... Read more
This article was published first in Today Software Magazine, no 16. Below it’s the full version. The authors are Alexandru Bolboaca and Adrian Bolboaca. In 2001, a group of people unpleased about the state of software development gathered in a mountain ski resort from Utah. One thing leading to another, they started discussing about the industrial methods applied at the... Read more
Challenge the way you work. Stay happy & productive! Let’s continue to explore together how you can challenge the status quo and the way you work. After seeing 2 useful methods for the Product Owner | Business Analyst | Product Manager role, you will find in this article techniques you can apply if you are a Scrum... Read more
Making a new developer productive as quickly as possible is most of the times challenging for the product team. I’ve heard stories about new on-boarding team members needing up to several weeks, or even months, until they feel comfortable or knowledgeable enough about the project and the code. This shouldn’t be the norm. Situations like these are... Read more
As our team at MozaicLabs is growing, we felt the need to improve the way we define and communicate features entering the development phase. As new developers joined the team, it was clear that we needed a better process. The Product Owner had more analysis and testing work on her hands. The new developers needed a... Read more
This article was first published in Today Software Magazine, no 12. Below it’s the full version. The authors are: Alexandru Bolboaca and Adrian Bolboaca. The Problem Imagine the following situation: a team has developed for 6 months a great product that immediately sells. Users show their passion for the product by asking new features. If the team does not deliver the new features... Read more
Challenge the way you work. Stay happy & productive! My colleagues, advising or coaching teams to be happy and productive, listen and learn constantly about the challenges they have during the day-to-day activity. In the next series of articles, we share with you practical solutions to common challenges encountered when developing software products, as well as new techniques to help... Read more
How do you feel at the end of a product demo? Happy? Energized? Ready to celebrate? Does this feeling last? My colleagues and I have seen our share of Scrum Meetings. We wrote previously about the Daily Scrum, and decided to focus on demos this time. Many of the demos we’ve seen had issues, and some... Read more
J.B. Rainsberger and Alex Bolboaca, two experienced programmers, trainers and consultants, with more than 15 years in the software development field, took the stage and answered a series of questions about how to create better software design. Their live conversation meant sharing valuable insights and new perspectives with the audience. Below you can watch the last part of the series.... Read more
J.B. Rainsberger and Alex Bolboaca, two experienced programmers, trainers and consultants, with more than 15 years in the software development field, took the stage and answered a series of questions about how to create better software design. Their live conversation meant sharing valuable insights and new perspectives with the audience. This is the fourth part of the series. The previous parts are... Read more
J.B. Rainsberger and Alex Bolboaca, two experienced programmers, trainers and consultants, with more than 15 years in the software development field, took the stage and answered a series of questions about how to create better software design. Their live conversation meant sharing valuable insights and new perspectives with the audience. Below you can watch the third part of the Q&A session.... Read more
J.B. Rainsberger and Alex Bolboaca, two experienced programmers, trainers and consultants, with more than 15 years in the software development field, took the stage and answered a series of questions about how to create better software design. Their live conversation meant sharing valuable insights and new perspectives with the audience. Below you can watch the second part of the Q&A session.... Read more
In the tech industry, there is always a focus on building, innovating, improving. There is also room to learn more and get your daily ideas challenged. Recently, J.B. Rainsberger and Alex Bolboaca, two experienced programmers, trainers and consultants, with more than 15 years in the software development field, took the stage and answered a series of questions about how... Read more
A simplistic idea started spreading for the past years in Romania, and I’ve met it to a lower extent in other European countries as France, Germany, UK, etc. Companies noticed they have a developer crisis. The simplistic solution: the universities and the industry should produce more developers. I believe this solution to be completely off... Read more
Improvement ideas for future actions come from lessons learnt. Perfection game is one of the techniques used to express our opinions. It is a non-violent and action-focused technique, that can be used to get feedback. It can also be used as a retrospective technique or to help teams to self organize. Here’s how it goes: Each interested person... Read more
Recently we’ve proudly announced the launch of MozaicLabs – spin-off from MozaicWorks focusing on developing proprietary software products. As the MozaicWorks team has always been a team of practitioners, MozaicLabs focuses our doers efforts into bringing innovative products to market. Aiming to bring great value and delight to customers, we pay as much attention to the user... Read more
When adopting Scrum, a common concern for both teams and managers is “What do we do with the Team Leader role?”. We discussed this delicate issue earlier this year at the AgileWorks meetup in Timisoara. There were still unanswered questions after the first meeting, so we had to schedule another one. In this blog post, I... Read more
The past couple of weeks have shown that Usable Software Design is an interesting topic to many people. From exploring it, to exchanging ideas and even applying the principles behind it, I think we live very interesting times. Here’s a brief account on what happened: Johan Martinsson applied the principles of Usable Software Design with... Read more
The Mozaic Works coaches have many conversations with people who have burning questions about Scrum, either in community or during trainings. We’ve decided to start answering the most common ones in a series of “Burning Questions” blog posts. So here’s another burning question. This time it’s about managing Scrum: How Do We Make Sure All... Read more
The Mozaic Works coaches have many conversations with people who have burning questions about Scrum, either in community or during trainings. We’ve decided to start answering the most common ones in a series of “Burning Questions” blog posts. This blog post is the first. 1. How do I convince my team to buy into Scrum?... Read more
