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Shorter show and tells are better
The other week I was at a show and tell with—thankfully—not the usual suspects. The team and key stakeholders were present, but also some other curious people from around the organisation. There was a lot to cover in 30 minutes, so the team rattled through the material and there were a couple of brief questions … Continue reading
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A little while ago I was working with a team that had a lot of user research to do. Naturally, we only had limited time, so we needed to decide how to prioritise our work. This is how we did it. First of all we wrote out all the ideas we wanted to examine. Some … Continue reading
I’ve often said I like being proved wrong. It’s good to do things well or have great ideas, but when someone shows us a different way which is successful it can help change our outlook on things, and we learn something new. I remember one time I proposed a way of triaging bugs coming into … Continue reading
Last week, two days in succession, I had cause to solve a problem using impact estimation tables. Unfortunately this technique is not widely known, so I thought I’d have a quick pass at explaining it. For many more details—beyond the simplicity of the description below—you really need to see the work of Tom Gilb, who … Continue reading
Welcome
Hi. I'm Nik Silver. I've been leading software teams for years. My specialism is helping organisations work effectively with their technical teams, to deliver business value frequently and consistently. Take a look at my experience.
If you want to talk about turning talented people into brilliant teams then get in touch. I'm nik@niksilver.com on e-mail, and I'm @pigsaw on Twitter.
Recently spotted
- Future Cyberwar - Schneier on Security"A report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies looks at surprise and war. One of the report's cyberwar scenarios is particularly compelling. It doesn't just map cyber onto today's tactics, but completely reimagines future tactics that include a cyber component (quote starts on page 110)."
- Attacking Soldiers on Social Media - Schneier on Security"A research group at NATO's Strategic Communications Center of Excellence catfished soldiers involved in an European military exercise -- we don't know what country they were from -- to demonstrate the power of the attack technique."
- Attack of the week: searchable encryption and the ever-expanding leakage function – A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic EngineeringAn overview of encrypted databases and their problems.
- Cyber Risk Assessment: Moving Past the “Heat Map Trap” - The Protiviti View"Unfortunately, our observation has been that most cybersecurity professionals significantly overestimate the quality of their risk assessment programs. The common weakness? A reliance on what can be called “pseudo-quantitative” methods, in which risks, benefits and other factors are given labels or colors (such as red, orange, yellow and green) or rati […]
- Design Research From Interview to Insight: Part Two, Synthesising Insight"Once your research is complete and you’ve captured the main points from each activity, the next stage is to bring your team back together and start the process of synthesising."
