Webster & Associates LLC

On September 2nd, I’ll be speaking at a meeting of the Denver IEEE Reliability Society. It will be held at 5:30 pm in the Seagate Building in Longmont (CO), on Nelson Road between 75th Rd and Airport Rd.

Here’s my abstract of the talk:

INSIDE-OUT: Organizations too often treat software reliability as an ‘after the fact’ consideration, performing testing as a last step and then constraining it due to schedule and financial pressures. Webster will present a simple “inside-out” software lifecycle model where all software development activing (not just coding) takes place within a framework covering a broad spectrum of quality-related activities.

I’ll post the presentation slides (PPT, 340KB) here after the talk. ..bruce w..

Yes, it’s my latest Baseline column:

Last week, I talked about some of the reasons why large organizations often reject the best solutions for a troubled IT project: fear, pride, budget, and the ever-present internal politics. This week, as promised, I will talk about what it takes to champion the right solution. I can’t guarantee that you’ll succeed, but you will have a better shot at it.

Go read the rest of the column. And I promise some original postings here this coming week. ..bruce..

I have a new Baseline column up on the tendency of large organizations to reject the best solutions for a troubled IT project:

The consultants, usually with the help of the employees in the trenches, would use their time, effort, and expertise to analyze the system under development or in production. They would arrive at a clear, supportable, essential solution – technical, architectural, methodological, organizational, whatever. This would be presented to upper management…whereupon upper (or project) management would say, “No, we can’t do that.”

Sometimes, they would give no specific reason why the solution was not acceptable. Sometimes, they made it clear that it wasn’t the solution they wanted or that they felt was acceptable. If they did explain their rejection, it was usually in budgetary or political terms.

The investigating team would often then go back and look for an alternate (and less optimal) solution. If one was found, often that was rejected as well, and so on, often down to the least desirable solution. Barry [Glasco] said that he and another colleague, Chuck McCorvey, had gone through this so many times with one client that they joked about simply presenting the worst solution first, since it seemed to be typically the only solution the client would accept.

Go read the whole thing; comments are welcome here or there.  ..bruce..

According to this release over at Morgan Miller Blair, the California Supreme Court has completed the task of invalidating virtually all non-compete agreements within the state of California:

In Edwards v. Arthur Andersen, the Court examined an employment agreement between Arthur Andersen and one of its former tax manager employees, Raymond Edwards.  The agreement contained a typical non-competition clause, prohibiting Edwards from working for or soliciting Arthur Andersen clients for limited periods after his employment ended.  Edwards later alleged that the non-competition agreement violated Business and Professions Code section 16600, which states: “Except as provided in this chapter, every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind is to that extent void.”  The trial court ruled in favor of Arthur Andersen, but the court of appeal reversed, finding for Edwards.

The Supreme Court largely affirmed the ruling of the court of appeal, holding that the non-competition agreement was void.  The Court emphasized California’s strong public policy favoring open competition and employee mobility, and determined that non-competition agreements are permissible only if they fit within one of the statutory exceptions to section 16600.  Those exceptions authorize non-competition agreements in connection with the sale or dissolution of corporations, partnerships, and limited liability companies.  None of those exceptions were present in the Edwards case.

California law has long moved in this direction — non-compete agreements have always been hard to enforce in California, particularly in the technology industry — but the California Supremes have made it official and rather sweeping.

As the article goes on to point out, most companies are now left primarily with trade secret enforcement as a means of guarding against what they feel is unfair competition from former employees. However, that requires the company to take active steps to define and protect its trade secrets, including appropriate confidentiality and intellectual property agreements, as well as security measures (both physical and electronic). It also raises the perennial issue of what is a trade secret vs. what is domain expertise.

Hat tip to Mary Enmark at MMB.  ..bruce..

My latest Baseline column talks about the risks that follow a successful IT project:

But sometimes with projects that really shouldn’t succeed—that are attempting too much, too fast, with too many risks—enough things go right, particularly along the critical paths, enough superhuman effort is made by those involved, so that the project does indeed go into production on time and possibly even under budget. Upper management is thrilled; the development team looks great; and all’s right in heaven.

And that’s when the real trouble begins.

Feedback is welcome, there or here.  ..bruce..