Lessons learned in managing engineering team growth

Lessons learned in managing engineering team growth

Over the last couple of years the engineering team at Mendix has grown fast. Over the last 1.5 years the team has almost doubled and we are still looking for bright minds. There is a lot that can and will go wrong if you grow this fast. Here are my four most important lessons learned during the process (disclaimer: a lesson learned doesn’t necessarily mean that I execute it flawlessly.

Holiday: time to do some in-depth reading

A tale of a 7 year journey in developing software for the enterprise

Much is written about lean startups, agile software development, continuous integration or even continuous deployment. All with the goal to help us understand the dynamics of successful software companies and their development teams. I am inspired by these stories, they show me what the ideal situation is like, they challenge me to improve our current way of working. Today I want to give something back. I want to share with.

3 steps to free your business from the IT stranglehold (and vice versa)

3 steps to free your business from the IT stranglehold (and vice versa)

It’s not just IT that slows down the business. In a recent study 20% of companies reported they have NO innovation strategy and more than 50% of companies reported that their innovation strategy was mis-aligned with their business strategy and that their culture poorly supported it [1]. However, if we look at the IT side of an organization we often see the same kind of figures: 70% – 80% of.

The Evolution of PaaS in the Enterprise

The Evolution of PaaS in the Enterprise

This morning I was part of a panel at the GigaOM Structure:Europe 2012 conference in Amsterdam., titled: The Evolution of Private PaaS solutions. The abstract: Enterprises are starting to take interest in running PaaS solutions virtually, as app developers want to focus on building apps rather than dealing with infrastructure issues. Enterprises that use PaaS solutions almost always go down the private route. In this session we focus on private.

Enterprise Agile: extending the agile process outside development

Enterprise Agile: extending the agile process outside development

I previously wrote about Enterprise Agile, not because I just want to put the “enterprise” moniker in front of everything, but because I think there are some fundamental challenges in moving to agile software development practices within enterprises, as opposed to startups. This follow-up post is triggered by the following comment on my previous article about this subject: Where we are struggling as an organization is the whole enterprise adopting agile. Sales and.

7 ways a Platform can fuel the App Economy

7 ways a Platform can fuel the App Economy

Earlier this year a Technet sponsored study showed that in February there were roughly 466,000 jobs in the “App Economy” in the United States. This so-called App Economy had zero jobs just 5 years ago, before the iPhone was introduced. The term “App Economy” isn’t formally defined but is often used to refer to the economy that has been created due to the development and delivery of software applications for.

Will App Delivery PaaS make cloud more relevant to the business?

I finished my last blog post by introducing a Platform-as-a-Service subcategory called “Application Delivery Platform-as-a-Service“ as a way to distinguish platforms that focus on improving the entire application delivery lifecycle (and not just application development or deployment). I would like to clarify my views on Application Delivery and PaaS a bit more. My first attempt has been published on InfoQ yesterday. The short summary: business agility is key, so focus.

Enterprise Agile: 3 characteristics

Enterprise Agile: 3 characteristics

No, this is not a typo… I really mean Enterprise Agile, not the subject of some of my previous articles about Agile Enterprises. I hear you sigh: do you really need to put the enterprise moniker in front of everything? Although this is a fair question I think enterprise agile is not just a buzz word. Agile on a bigger scale, in a big enterprise, is different from agile in.

The Platform-as-a-Service for the Agile Enterprise

The Platform-as-a-Service for the Agile Enterprise

If you have been wondering why I was a bit quiet lately… it was for the good cause! Today we launched the third major release of the Mendix platform, which is quite a memorable moment. My team did an awesome job and when I look at the result I can only feel proud! As I have been sharing a lot of my thoughts last years, I want to take the.