Developer on Fire
Episode 033 | Michael "Doc" Norton - Customer Value and Great Organizations
Founder and CEO of CTO2, a process and leadership consultancy to companies for whom software is a key strategy, Doc is passionate about working with teams to improve delivery and building great organizations. Once a dedicated code slinger, Doc has turned his energy toward helping teams, departments, and companies work better together in the pursuit of better software. Working with a wide range of companies including Groupon, Nationwide Insurance, and Belly, Doc has applied tenants of agile, lean, systems thinking, and servant leadership to develop highly effective cultures and drastically improve their ability to deliver valuable software and products.
Chapters:
- - Dave introduces the show and Michael "Doc" Norton
- - Doc's definition of value
- - The things that "light Doc up"
- - How Doc got started with software
- - Acquiring a mentor and the power of the mentoring relationship
- - Doc's story of failure, overlooking expectations of the customer - failure to recognize and have sensitivity for where they are
- - Doc's greatest success story, multiple teams in an agile operation working as advertised in the text book
- - Dave shares a story of being inspired and receiving great utility from Docs perspective and articulation on another podcast talking about agile metrics
- - How Doc stays current with what he needs to know
- - Doc's book recommendations
- - The things that have Doc most excited about his present and future
- - The greatest sources of pain in Doc's life and work
- - The things about which Doc like to geek out apart from software
- - Doc's prediction for the future of software
- - Doc's top 3 tips for delivering more value
- - Keeping up with Doc
- - Farewell
Resources:
- Doc's Blog
- Doc's Business
- Visual FoxPro
- Doc on .NET Rocks - Agile Metrics
- James Swanwick on Reading a Book a Day with the Tai Lopez Method
- The Lean Startup - Eric Ries
Doc's book recommendations:
- Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction - Steve McConnell
- Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship - Robert C. Martin
- Patrick M. Lencioni
- Dennis Bakke
Doc's top 3 tips for delivering more value:
1. Make sure you have all the different types of talent you need on the team to get all the work done - "the whole team approach"
2. Truly measure what you're doing and what you want to actually achieve
3. High level communication and transparency