niksilver.com
Latest Post
Follow the business strategy
Many years ago an experienced consultant was telling me about a company who was asking for his help. “They told me they wanted to develop a digital strategy. But they don’t need a digital strategy,” he said, “They need a business strategy.” I’ve always remembered this distinction between a business strategy and a more localised, … Continue reading
Featured Posts
This week I came across a real world example of an uncertainty that became more polarised—an event caused the outcome to be more likely to go to one extreme or the other, and less likely to be middling. I realised it when someone asked if I thought David Davis’s resignation was a good thing or … Continue reading
The other day I came across an interesting collection of visualistions around risk and uncertainty. It was produced by Nico Lategen as a demonstration, and his example was Brexit. (Clearly a favourite topic for those of us interested in uncertainty.) Initially my interest was around his scale representing sovereignty. This reflects what I’ve written about … Continue reading
A few weeks ago Theresa May talked directly about Russia’s attempts to undermine democracy in the UK. It does this by planting “fake news” in social media, as well as direct cyber attacks and influencing individuals. Yet I also heard a claim on BBC News that one government source said there was no evidence that … 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
- Goodbye Microservices: From 100s of problem children to 1 superstar · Segment Blog"It seemed as if we were falling from the microservices tree, hitting every branch on the way down. Instead of enabling us to move faster, the small team found themselves mired in exploding complexity. Essential benefits of this architecture became burdens. As our velocity plummeted, our defect rate exploded."
- Axiologik | Turning The Tides – 8 Key Areas Of Exploration For Leadership Grappling With Struggling Programmes"...a fair chunk of our work is helping clients understand where transformation programmes are struggling and then working closely with them to establish and execute recovery plans. Typically, the challenges we find clients facing boil down into 8 key areas and we thought it may be of use to list those out..."
- Why the fuss about serverless? – Hacker Noon"If it helps, serverless is roughly where Infrastructure as a Service (e.g. cloud) was in late 2007. [...] If you currently have regrets about not moving fast enough back then, just know you’re about to make the same mistake again."
- How Adobe productivity increased after an executive leaked HR plans to press - Business Insider Deutschland"Rather than rely on the human resources team to conduct sessions or base compensation off of feedback from those sessions, the new system asked leaders throughout the company take charge of the process and compensate employees based on things like performance."
- New information about cyber risk is alarming | Norman Marks on Governance, Risk Management, and Audit"Six in ten (56%) report that their organisation has suffered a ransomware attack in the last 12 months, compared to under half (48%) who said the same in 2016. Of those whose organisation has suffered a ransomware attack in the last 12 months, they have had to defend against five ransomware attacks during this period, on average."
