I’ve started my career as a typical Software Engineer, messing up with C++ and Java code on B2B software (good time !). During that same time, I had the opportunity to see Lou Gerstner on stage as he was visiting our IBM campus. It was right in the middle of the e-Business period and Lou was here to explain us what e-Business was about and what it meant for us. It was one hour which changed my life. I was so impressed by the message, the clarity, the energy, the …

Damn ! I just realized that my latest article is almost 1 month old ! This is unacceptable for my trusted readers and as I spend a night in London I decided to share one of my latest read. I did read during the past months but for once, I indulged myself with some great science-fiction books I had in my stack: The forever war from Joe Hadelman (always trust a classic. This is an awesome read !), the Ophiuchi Hotline from John Varley and The Currents of Space from …

You’ve just started your new job as a QA manager, QA Director, Senior VP of Software Testing etc. Your title doesn’t really matter as long as your responsibility implies some of amount of management and responsibility for one or multiple products. There is no secret recipes to become successful in your new job but the first 90 days are an incredible opportunity for you to set the tone for this next move in your career. This limited window of opportunity should be used to create sustainable advantage to pave a …

For the past 3 years, I’ve been trying to build the best possible Software Testing organization For Experian Decision Analytics. During my vacation, I had a bit of time to reflect back on these 3 years and identify what building blocks were critical toward my initial goal. Trust me, it’s been a roller coaster ride but I’m feeling very proud of the team today and confident about the future. In this series of article, I’ll try to describe what I’ve done to build what I would consider a pretty damn …

My current test organization has to deal with different development processes. This is what happen when you start building a software test organization on top of a company which has had a strong acquisition strategy for the past 10 years. It didn’t necessarily had to standardize the development process as the various products were not  integrated together. Things get a bit problematic when you actually want to take advantage of this integration to build better solution. When you deal with origination, customer management, fraud, collection, decisioning, score card analysis etc. …

I finally had a chance to finish reading Richard Branson’s biography: Losing my virginity. After Jack Welsh, Branson was on my top 10 business leaders list and after reading his 600+ pages bio, he’s probably not far from the top. What an amazing read ! To my surprise, it really reads as a novel and has a very particular personal touch I appreciate. The most surprising of all for me is the fact that Branson was not necessarily promised to such success: Poor academic records, dyslexia, not a lot family …

“Management Time: Who’s got the Monkey” is probably one of the most popular management article published by the Harvard Business Review (PDF can be found here). It’s been written by William Oncken and Donald Wass in 1974. It’s been reprinted several time since then and the message is still very true. This is a must read for everyone who has trouble delegating and ends up doing their subordinates or peers work.
If you can relate to the following situation, you should definitely read the article:
Let us imagine that a manager is …

I’ve always picked up quite a bit of management and business knowledge by observing and talking to leaders around me. I’ve been fairly lucky so far and have been regularly surrounded by people who impressed and inspired me. They all helped me in one way or another to get better at what I’m doing.
Another way to get some inspiration and motivation is to read biographies about very successful people in whatever industry they are working in. Jack Welch, is one of these people and his biography Straight from the Gut …