Wednesday, February 27, 2002

 
Posted by Mike Tarrani 6:54 AM
Sense & Sensibility. I recently discovered Jack Harich's home page, and was struck by two things: (1) the sensible approach Mr. Harich takes in a number of disciplines, including software reuse, processes, learning and knowledge management and best practices; and (2) an admiration for Mr. Harich's values.

I'm going to give a brief tour of the content that I especially liked, which is by no means everything on the site:

• Process: He has developed a Mini Process, that has undergone refinement, resulting in a version 2. Closely related is a Process Prescriptor page that is a highly configurable, modular approach that prescribes the optimal process components for each project anywhere in its lifetime. It fits one person on up.
• Architecture: Change Process and System Architecture, which is based on Mr. Harich's theory that software should be architecture driven. He starts with modeling the system architecture first, then works backward to the process needed to support changes to the system using that architecture. Supporting documents that he provides are continuous change architecture and change point theory (which is an element of a paper he wrote titled Configurability).
• Project Management: Among the pages are gems, such as Unpredictability, which is the minimal process necessary to achieve predictability in projects (and other initiatives), Optimizing Project Management (focused on software development), Structural Tension (one of the cleanest approaches to goal setting I've come across), and best practices.
• Miscellaneous: Visual Knowledge Structure Language (well thought out), Nature of Abstraction, Differences between procedural and object-orientation, concept maps and value-driven software evolution.

I could go on and on, but you'll have to check out this site for yourself. As an ending note, though, I do want to highlight one innovative tool that Mr. Harich has freely made available: Visual Circuit Board (VCB). VCB is a part oriented, scalable, visual tool assisted approach to software development consisting of reusable parts communicating through links with datatrons, like an electronic circuit board. VCB has a certain elegant simplicity that makes it highly intuitive, fast and fun. You can download VCB directly from his site.

The content on the web page is extraordinary, but not as extraordinary as its creator.