Digital Services

October 17, 2023

The Curious Case of AI Hallucination

So, earlier today, I was having coffee with a friend who’s a technology program manager at a large financial services firm and fellow nerd –...

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Digital Services

August 23, 2023
baseball batter

Considering SDET capacity – it’s rare to find pitchers that can also hit!

Several of our clients are currently working to improve development team efficiency by hiring Software Development Engineers in Test (SDETs), to drive a deeper level...

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Digital Services

May 30, 2023

The Next Frontier: Leveraging ChatGPT and Generative AI in Business – Promises, Pitfalls, and Practical Considerations

Today’s business leaders find themselves navigating a world in which artificial intelligence (AI) plays an increasingly pivotal role. Among the various types of AI, generative...

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Digital Services

March 29, 2023

Embedded Banking: The Future of FinTech Highlighted at Las Vegas Fintech Meetup

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the annual FinTech Meetup in Las Vegas, where industry leaders and enthusiasts gathered to discuss the latest...

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Digital Services

August 22, 2022

Data Science vs Business Analytics

Data science in simple terms takes large amounts of data and breaks it down to solve a problem or determine a specific pattern. Business analytics...

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Digital Services

April 26, 2022

A Closer Look at Cloud FinOps

When I was first introduced to Agile development, it felt like a natural flow for developers and business stakeholders to collaborate and deliver functionality in...

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Digital Services

February 14, 2022

What happened to my AWS Amplify Customizations? A new way to override resources

We’ve been using the AWS Amplify toolkit to quickly build out a serverless infrastructure for one of our web apps. The services we use are...

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Digital Services

January 31, 2022

Building and Securing Serverless Apps using AWS Amplify (Part 3)

Here is our final video in the 3-part series Building and Securing Serverless Apps using AWS Amplify.  In case you missed Part 1 you can...

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Digital Services

January 18, 2022

Building and Securing Serverless Apps using AWS Amplify (Part 2)

The video below is Part 2 of our 3-part series: Building and Securing Serverless Apps using AWS Amplify.  In case you missed Part 1 –...

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Digital Services

January 4, 2022

Building and Securing Serverless Apps using AWS Amplify (Part 1)

AWS Amplify is a set of tools that promises to make full-stack, cloud-native development quicker and easier. We’ve used it to build and deploy different...

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Digital Services

July 21, 2021

Have I Been Pwned

Background  We all are humans and tend to take the easy route when we come across certain scenarios in life. Remembering passwords is one of...

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Digital Services

June 28, 2021

Thoughts on: Why Distributed Software Development Teams Work Infinitely Better

Recently, I read an article titled, “Why Distributed Software Development Teams Work Infinitely Better”, by Boris Kontsevoi. It’s a bit hyperbolic to say that distributed...

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Digital Services

April 7, 2021

Going Serverless: A Case Study

Last year, we worked with experts from George Mason University to build a COVID screening and tracing platform called Pass2Play. We used this opportunity to...

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Digital Services

February 22, 2021

Peace-of-Mind in the Workplace

Small and medium sized companies are trying to return to “normal.” This short blog by guest blogger, Dr. Amira Roess, provides some guidelines. Dr. Amira...

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Digital Services

January 19, 2021

Lean Startup with a Twist!

CC Pace was recently featured in Agile Uprising’s Blog series.  Agile Uprising is a network that is focused on the advancement of the Agile mindset...

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Digital Services

December 7, 2020

The Pass2Play App!

As 2020 has unfolded, our development team has been working on a brand new app: Pass2Play!  Check out the video below to see all of...

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Digital Services

June 15, 2020

Evolving to Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) – Part 2

In the previous blog, I had provided insights on what ZTA is, what the core components that belong to ZTA are, why organizations should adopt...

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Digital Services

April 20, 2020

Evolving to Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) – Part 1

I have a deep interest in cybersecurity, and to keep up with the latest threats, policies and security practices, I became a member of ACT-IAC...

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Digital Services

February 11, 2020

App Modernization – And why it is necessary

What is App Modernization Legacy application modernization is a process to update existing and aging applications with modern architecture to enhance features and capabilities. By migrating...

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Digital Services

September 26, 2019

SaaS, PaaS, IaaS…Now what is RaaS (Ransomware as a Service)??

I recently attended a Data Connectors Cybersecurity strategies conference in Reston, VA. Companies practicing various security solutions had speakers’ sharing knowledge about security threats that...

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Digital Services

January 8, 2019

Automated Testing Keeps the World Turning 

I recently came across a blog written by a former developer at ORACLE.   The author highlighted the trials and tribulations of maintaining and modifying the...

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Digital Services

September 27, 2018

A Developer’s Perspective on Agile Retrospectives

At heart, I’m still a developer. Titles or positions aside, what I enjoy most is solving problems and writing good code to implement the solutions....

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Digital Services

July 31, 2018

Drawing the Curtain Back on the Magic Elixir – Part 2

Introduction In the last post, we looked at pattern matching and data structures in Elixir.  In this post, we’re going to look particularly at Elixir...

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Digital Services

June 26, 2018

Drawing the Curtain Back on the Magic Elixir – Part 1

Introduction Last June I took over an Elixir based project that involves a central server communicating with various devices over a TCP/IP network.  This was...

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Digital Services

May 10, 2018

Social Contracts and the Agile Team – Part 2

In part 1, we discussed how a new team could help lay out the foundation of a social contract between itself and the larger organization. ...

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Digital Services

April 10, 2018

Social Contracts and the Agile Team – Part 1

It’s a scenario we’ve all been a part of before.  To shake things up, your Agile teams are being restructured.  After the initial shuffle, the...

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Digital Services

March 14, 2018

VSTS DevOps 101: Continuous Integration (CI) with Automated Builds

Introduction This is the second in a series of posts about our experience using Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) to build a deployment pipeline for...

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Digital Services

February 6, 2018

VSTS DevOps 101: Configuring source control and IDE

Introduction This is the first in a series of posts about our experience using Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) to build a deployment pipeline for...

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Digital Services

January 4, 2018

2018 New Year’s Resolution: More Exercise and a Healthy Diet of… Test Automation

‘Agile’… ‘Lean’… ‘Fitnesse’… ‘Fit’… ‘(Win)Runner’… ‘Cucumber’… ‘Eggplant’… ‘Lime’… As 2018 draws near, one might hear a few of these words bantered around the water cooler...

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Digital Services

October 30, 2017

Agile – What is holding us back?

Thoughts on Agile DC 2017 In early February of 2001, a small group of software developers published the Agile Manifesto. Its principles are now familiar...

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Digital Services

September 20, 2017

Revisiting the Lessons I Learned as an Intern – 20 Years Later as a Mentor

Boy this summer flew by quickly! CC Pace’s summer intern, Niels, enjoyed his last day here in the CC Pace office on Friday, August 18th....

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Digital Services

August 21, 2017

Do More With Data Using PowerApps

PowerApps Basics PowerApps is one of the most recent additions to the Microsoft Office suite of products. PowerApps has been marketed as “programming for non-programmers”,...

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Digital Services

July 17, 2017

Applying Agile to Data Warehouse Design

I’m in the process of reading a book on Agile database warehouse design titled, appropriately enough, Agile Data Warehouse Design and by Lawrence Corr. While...

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Digital Services

June 20, 2017

Intro to DevOps

Is your business undergoing an Agile Transformation? Are you wondering how DevOps fits into that transformation and what a DevOps roadmap looks like? Check out...

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Digital Services

April 10, 2017
ball

Don’t be a Lollygagger!

I have enjoyed using analogies between baseball and software development in a few of my previous blog entries, so with Major League Baseball’s season underway,...

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Digital Services

March 29, 2017
geese

A DevOps Reflection

Recently, I was part of a successful implementation of a project at a big financial institution. The project was the center of attention within the...

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Digital Services

February 16, 2017
book

Planning for Agility

“Your Majesty,” [German General Helmuth von] Moltke said to [Kaiser Wilhelm II] now, “it cannot be done. The deployment of millions cannot be improvised. If...

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Digital Services

January 23, 2017
agile board

Agile and the Art of Sailboat Maintenance

“Once I started looking around behind the port frames, I figured I could just….” And so began a summer of endless sailboat projects and no...

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Digital Services

November 8, 2016

Applying Agile Techniques in New Environments

Outside of my work at the MSRB for CC Pace, I enjoy working with community organizations in Fairfax County.  After eight years of running the...

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Digital Services

September 15, 2016
In-house Outsource

In-house vs Outsource

Picture this: you’ve recently been hired as the CIO of a start-up company.  You’ve been tasked with producing the core software that will serve as...

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Digital Services

August 10, 2016
To Mock Cartoon

My Thoughts on Mocks

Up, down, Detroit, charm, inside out, strange, London, bottom up, outside in, mockist, classic, Chicago…. Do you remember the questions on standardized tests where they...

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Digital Services

June 24, 2016
Scales

Uberfication – Is it for your Start-up?

Uber. Eight years ago, the company did not exist and the word was simply a rarely used adjective of German origin meaning “ultra”, like an...

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Digital Services

May 25, 2016
Piggy

What is “Team Energy” and Why Should Management Care?

In my personal experience working on various software development projects, the concept of team energy often appears to be either undervalued or benignly ignored by...

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Digital Services

May 9, 2016
take a risk

Shared Risk is Required for Success

Building a new software product is a risky venture – some might even say adventure. The product ideas may not succeed in the marketplace. The...

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Digital Services

March 1, 2016
Loudoun

Tech Startups and Agile

Recently, I attended a meetup for Loudoun’s Tech Startups in Ashburn, VA. It was a great opportunity to discuss ideas in various stages of development,...

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Digital Services

February 9, 2016
Rings

And now for something completely different…

At CC Pace, our Agile practitioners are sometimes asked whether Scrum is useful for activities other than software development. The answer is a definite yes....

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Digital Services

January 25, 2016
Scale

Build or buy? Code or re-use?

Senior IT managers starting a new project often have to answer the question: build or buy? Meaning, should we look for a packaged solution that...

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Digital Services

December 17, 2015
minecraft scene

An Hour of Code, Minecraft Edition

Recently, I had one of those rare moments when my son, a 3rd grader, seemed to understand at least part of what I do for...

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Digital Services

December 8, 2015
vision

The Product Vision Statement – When the Vision Becomes Reality

You are embarking on a new software development project. Presumably, if it’s a Scrum project, a team is assembled, space and workstations for the team...

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Digital Services

November 19, 2015
green monster

The Creature from the Pit

Like Martin Fowler, I am a long-time Doctor Who fan.  Although I haven’t actually gotten around to watching the new series yet, I’ve been going...

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Digital Services

October 28, 2015
graphic devops

Agile 2015: DevOps and Craftsmanship

In my last post, I talked about the interesting Agile 2015 sessions on team building that I’d attended. This time we’ll take a look at...

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Digital Services

August 20, 2015
4 team members

Agile 2015 – Team Building Sessions

I used to attend Agile conferences pretty frequently, but at some point I got burned out on them and the last one I attended was...

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Digital Services

August 17, 2015
screenshot2

The Science of Programming

In Diamond in the Rough I talked some about the similarity I found between David Gries’ work on proving programs correct in The Science of...

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Digital Services

August 10, 2015
Agile 2015

Solving Wicked Problems with Agile

Notes from Agile 2015 Washington, D.C.  Having lived in Washington DC area for over 25 years, my experience caused me to presume that the majority...

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Digital Services

July 22, 2015
log in

Forgotten: Why won’t my ASP.NET site remember me?

We recently ran into an issue with ASP.NET authentication that I thought I would share. The Setup  We’re running an ASP.NET MVC 5 web application...

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Digital Services

June 23, 2015
dvd

Feature YAGNI

As a developer, I tend to think of YAGNI in terms of code.  It’s a good way to help avoid building in speculative generality and...

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Digital Services

June 8, 2015
clock

I signed up for Agile, but it sure feels like waterfall. What can the Scrum Master do about it?

In previous installments in this series, I’ve talked about what Product Owners and development team members can do to ensure iteration closure. By iteration closure,...

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Digital Services

May 27, 2015
diagram bases

The “Agile Business Analyst” – The “Jose Oquendo” of Your Scrum Team (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this blog series, I presented a high-level summary of the many different opportunities that Business Analysts (BA) can pursue in an Agile...

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Digital Services

May 21, 2015
software dev

The Nature of Software Developers

I once read a book, which shall remain nameless, that seemed to have a quota of illustrations per page: an average of one-third of each...

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Digital Services

May 13, 2015
woman type

I signed up for Agile, but it sure feels like waterfall. What can the developer team do about it?

If you’ve been following this series of blog posts about why so many Agile projects seem to deteriorate into waterfall, you know that I believe...

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Digital Services

May 4, 2015
baseball player

The “Agile Business Analyst” – The “Jose Oquendo” of Your Scrum Team

As I write this blog entry, I’m hoping that the curiosity (or confusion) of the title captures an audience. Readers will ask themselves, “Who in...

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Digital Services

April 27, 2015
graphic

By the Book

I found Mike Cohn’s posting Don’t Blindly Follow very curious because it seems to contradict what many luminaries of the Agile community have said about...

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Digital Services

April 21, 2015
Ceca Foundation

A Platform for Celebrating Caregivers

For the past 3 months we’ve had the pleasure of working with a charitable organization called the Ceca Foundation. Ceca, which is derived from “​celebrating...

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Digital Services

April 15, 2015
dice

I signed up for Agile, but it sure feels like waterfall. What can the Product Owner do about it?

As I mentioned in the introductory post in this series, an issue I frequently see with underperforming Agile teams is that work always spills over...

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Digital Services

April 6, 2015
road sign

I signed up for Agile, but it sure feels like waterfall. What happened?

Occasionally, as part of our strategic advisory service, I work with clients who don’t want custom application delivery from us, but rather want me to...

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Digital Services

February 18, 2015
Team

Product Demos – Not Just for the Customer Anymore? (Part 2)

In the first installment of this blog entry, we laid out a scenario which portrays an unhappy software development team. It has become obvious that...

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Digital Services

February 9, 2015
close up defect

Product Demos – Not Just for the Customer Anymore? (Part 1)

One of the basic Agile tenets that most people agree on – whether or not you’re an Agile enthusiast or supporter – is the value...

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Digital Services

February 2, 2015
TDD

TDDIY

I like to attempt minor DIY projects around the house because 1) it saves money and, 2) it’s enjoyable to solve technical issues that don’t...

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Digital Services

January 6, 2015
diamond rock

Diamond in the Rough

Ron Jeffries recently posted an article on writing code for “The Diamond Problem” using TDD in response to an article by Alistair Cockburn on Thinking...

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Digital Services

December 11, 2014
bugs

Counting Bugs

A couple of years ago I started hearing more and more debate about whether the work to fix bugs that got past the customer’s acceptance...

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