IBM is a company with RUP best practices. Its VP talks about developers productivity and more…

IBM has plenty of application development tools at its disposal, including those from its own Rational Software line and Rational Unified Process. But tooling and process can only go so far to assure code quality. System scores application developers based on the volume and quality of their work. Today we representing the interview with IBM’s VP at global business services division Pat Howard.

SoftElegance is a company with RUP as a core software development process and we are attended at Rational Unified Process best practices, news, and useful facts.

Pat Howard led application development at IBM, where he was responsible for delivering applications across all of Big Blue’s brands and overseeing its global development teams. On the talent front, he helped implement a system for analyzing individual application developers based on the volume and quality of their work.

We are based on NetworkWorld’s “How IBM started grading its developers’ productivity“.

Interview

Pat Howard, Vice President in IBM’s global business services division.

“If you’re writing something in Java, is the code itself structured in a manner that is compliant with what is recognized as an industry best practice? That’s the type of science that Cast helps produce”.

“When you think about a software developer, and you think about that talent, what are they interested in doing? A lot of them want to write software. That’s why they went into the profession. But they also want to be known as the best software developer on the planet Earth”.

“Essentially it permitted our people to walk around with a scorecard. They could begin to earn points, based on the results or the value they were driving for the business”.

“Somebody can enhance their reputation within the community based on results that they’re delivering”.

“This is never intended to be a penalty conversation, we’re in a continuous learning environment, and if everybody feels safe around that point, it can be better integrated.”

Thanks to Ann Bednarz.