9/16 Post

Response to prompt 1:

When Ko states "even in software organizations, the point of the company is rarely to make software; it's to provide value", she is emphasizing that software isn't valuable by itself. The code and design patterns/technical features only matter to the extent of what they allow the users to accomplish. For example, Microsoft Word isn't valuable just because of the complexity of its codebase but because it enables users to write documents, edit text, collaborate, and share info efficiently. The user never interacts with the code directly, so what they see, and judge is the outcome. This distinction is important because it shifts the focus of software engineering away from being entirely technically based. In the case of Microsoft Word, its value could be measured by the number of active users, or customer satisfaction surveys. These provide insight into whether or not the software is providing users value effectively and whether people find it worth continuing to use. Similarly, a product like FarmData2 can be evaluated in terms of its actual practical outcomes. If the software is reducing the number of trips a farmer has to make to physically count crops, it provides value by saving time and work. This could be more specifically measured in hours saved, or more accurate data. This also helps explain why different roles exist in software organization besides just programming/engineering. Marketers and product managers will all play a role in ensuring the software delivers value by finding problems that the software can solve for the users. The engineers will only implement these solutions, but the value of their work will in the end be evaluated based on its practicality, not just because it is a well written piece of software.