Stories by Matthew Heusser

Interactive Software, Usability Top Innovations at Oredev

Innovation can come from anywhere. Contributor Matthew Heusser learned this in a recent trip to a developer conference in Sweden, where a game of Asteroids you play with your eyes and lessons from Hollywood on user experience caught his attention.

Written by Matthew Heusser24 Jan. 13 14:21

How Royal Caribbean Cruises Manages IT on a Floating City

Royal Caribbean Cruises deploys and uses software to manage a fleet of 30 of the largest ships in the world. Every week, data for thousands of guests is offloaded alongside luggage and souvenirs. Find out how Royal Caribbean manages data on land and at sea now--and what its plans to do in the future.

Written by Matthew Heusser03 Jan. 13 14:56

Open Space Conferences Show Why Smaller Can Be Better

Big conferences take you to Las Vegas, feed you well and feature keynotes in lavish ballrooms. Smaller events may lack the glamour but offer much more camaraderie. The end result is a much more productive use of your time, a more valuable group of new colleagues and a more robust to-do list.

Written by Matthew Heusser02 Jan. 13 15:36

Coworking Offers Employees More Than Office Space

Coworking promises to improve productivity while improving work-life balance. Whether you're an enterprise with remote employees who want a professional work environment or a start-up firm too small for your own office, you can benefit from coworking.

Written by Matthew Heusser05 Dec. 12 19:42

How Mobile Apps Developers Can Best Target Geolocation

Geoloqi, a scrappy software development startup in Portland, Oregon, claims to be re-inventing the way companies build location-aware applications. Here's the story behind the company and geolocation technology.

Written by Matthew Heusser20 Nov. 12 13:48

Behind the scenes with Groupon's developers, talent scout

Groupon had 117 employees in 2009; three years later, that number is 13,000. CIO.com set out to discuss the state of software development at the dealmaker and find out how it is changing as the company scales to global products with a local presence.

Written by Matthew Heusser02 Oct. 12 12:50

How to secure your future with robust risk assessment

Richard Gardner, CEO of Modulus Financial Engineering, offers his advice on how to avoid, prevent and mitigate the risks associated with high-volume automated software -- and the employees who wrote the code.

Written by Matthew Heusser11 Sept. 12 14:25

Software testing lessons learned from Knight Capital fiasco

Knight Capital lost $440 million in 30 minutes due to something the firm called a 'trading glitch.' In reality, poor software development and testing models are likely to blame. Here's what your company can do to avoid similar embarrassment and huge losses.

Written by Matthew Heusser14 Aug. 12 20:48

How the Kanban method changes software engineering

From humble beginning on an internal project at Microsoft, the Kanban method for software development quickly grew to spawn blogs, books and conferences. CIO.com loo the essentials of the methodology, identifies its pros and cons and provides guidelines for its adoption.

Written by Matthew Heusser30 July 12 14:18

Rapid application development the Zappos way

Billion-dollar online shoe store Zappos, and CEO Tony Hsieh, embrace the motto of Delivering Happiness. Living up to that means maintaining a reliable website and giving employees free reign to solve problems. CIO.com recently visited Henderson, Nev. to see how Zappos develops software.

Written by Matthew Heusser07 June 12 14:39

How to advance lean software development (beyond the 'Toyota Way')

The Japanese word Muda loosely translates as waste. The core element of lean manufacturing is to eliminate waste--or, in more North American terms, to "cut the fat." While applying lean concepts to manufacturing may seem straightforward, there is little agreement on what that term even means for software, or if it applies.

Written by Matthew Heusser22 May 12 09:39

Using pair programming practices in code inspections

This leaves us with two options: Radically change the code review process or change goals and expectations from defect removal to something more effective. Ultimately, both options may be part of the answer-that is, considering a pair programming approach and adopting a more flexible testing process.

Written by Matthew Heusser10 May 12 04:51

Rethinking software development, testing and inspection

Setting the Scene--Where Formal Inspections Were Born: The early 1970s were a bit like the old Monty Python Skit "The Four Yorkshiremen," having a reel-to-reel tape drive was "luxury" and most people still had physical punched cards.

Written by Matthew Heusser02 Feb. 12 03:52
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