Author: David Viñuales

Mobile Payment: NFC, Google Wallet, and Square

David Viñuales Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I was thinking about Square’s business model, a company focused on mobile payments. I became interested on the subject, and I knew that I would finally end up writing a short article about this.

At the moment, I see different ways for mobile payment. The most important and surely with more investment is the NFC (Near Field Communication) and applications that use this technology (of course we are talking mostly about Google Wallet). Then there’s Square, a software based one, which is already established and maybe temporary with a more dominant position within the U.S.

A little about NFC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_field_communication)

Briefly, NFC is a wireless technology that allows encrypted communication … Read the rest!

Being a Software Development Manager

David Viñuales Leave a comment

Looking for its best definition, the one that most caught my attention was that the Software Development Manager is “everything else“.

The main concern when considering a Software Development Manager is: Should have more technical skills? Must have a Project Manager profile? The answer may vary depending on the IT organization, size or type of business, but if it’s really technical or manager is rather irrelevant.

Ideally, should combine technical expertise, with planning and resource management, to bring projects to success.

The main difference compared to the Project Manager would be that the Development Manager shouldn’t only ensure to reach the end of the project in a given or estimated time, but also how you get to … Read the rest!

About Scrum Meetings

David Viñuales 5 Comments

Implementing Scrum in a business is not an easy task, sometimes it may be a hard and long road. It involves a change that usually affects much of the company, and change management is always traumatic.
I would also like to point out that it isn’t a methodology only for software development projects.

The most common process is to adapt the concepts and practices of Scrum gradually based on the real needs of the company or department.

In this post I want to talk about the Scrum Meetings, part of Scrum practices in a Sprint (or iteration).

Usually, in my experience with Scrum, meetings are the easier concepts to implement. Receive good feeback in short term, could be considered as … Read the rest!

Improving your team performance

David Viñuales Leave a comment

Managing teams, humans, is a difficult kind of art. And getting the most out of them is an obsession for every responsible or team leader.

Surely, a certain economic raise often provides comfort and rewards the work of people, but it’s not all about money.

Responsibilities, work ethic, dedication, motivation, are usually not directly connected only with salary. To reward effort, building self-esteem, confidence, increase enthusiasm, could help to achieve maximum performance and get out the passion of a team.

These practices could help you to get the full potential of your team:

  • Give freedom: As far as possible, giving freedom would make everyone to work the best they know. From a set of minimum “best practices”, given freedom allows
… Read the rest!

Desintermediación y venta directa, el futuro del comercio?

David Viñuales 1 Comment

Hace unos minutos leía un tweet de Nacho Somalo, Presidente de Alice Europa y gran conocedor del comercio electrónico en este país, en el cual se hacía eco de una iniciativa de Coca-Cola por la cual enviarán sus productos a domicilio.

“A domicilio, de la fabrica a tu casa” reza en el blog. Ahora ya no será necesario ir a comprar una Coca-Cola (o cualquiera de los refrescos de la compañía) al Mercadona, por poner un ejemplo, sino que te lo envían a casa, y además te ofrecen ofertas especiales para el cliente, y servicios añadidos.

Es un proyecto piloto, y para unas determinadas zonas de Madrid (solo implicada Casbega, supongo), pero el cambio que supone a mi parecer … Read the rest!