Stories
The collected insights and culture of SDG.
Pause, plan, proceed
by Jon Helmberger | insights | March 24, 2020The process of planning is just as important, if not more important than the plan itself.
The Agile Mindset: Expanding One’s Horizons
Have you ever been on a project and heard someone say, “I’ve finished what was assigned to me and there is nothing else assigned in the sprint, so I’ll need something else assigned to me….” Unfortunately, it’s heard on projects more often than one would like. Many...
Looking For Ways to Support Local Organizations?
Second Harvest HeartlandSecond Harvest Heartland At SDG we enjoy giving back to the community and one way we do this is by putting our money where our mouth is. This Give to the Max day we are doubling our employees’ donations to Second Harvest Heartland. Second...
Why You need a Front End Developer (Instead of Another “Full Stack” Dev)
The Spectrum of ScaleYour company is six people working in the basement of the founder’s house. The “CTO” is also going to have to configure the server, write requirements, debug CSS, do UAT, make Costco runs for snacks and Red Bull, figure out the financials and make...
Defining Our Own Technology Map
Introducting the Tech DNABased on our experience, sdg’s consultant-led learning communities gather each year to define our organization’s technology DNA.Synthesized from ExperienceOur DNA is a reflection on our ecosystem –what people are doing in the modern enterprise...
Life After Infopath
It comes as no surprise that Microsoft is sunsetting InfoPath. It was made with very good intentions which made people aware that you could move on from paper forms to create digital forms online as well as automate your business processes (workflows). It did,...
Metatesting: A Pattern Based Approach to Testing Java Programs
This post will describe how to achieve 100% code coverage within a typical JPA domain model with an incremental cost of a few lines of code per class and absolutely no need to update the tests when changing the model classes. If there’s one thing that we can be better...
A Millennial’s Take on the Life of a Software Developer
Why is a so-called millennial’s take on life as a software developer a topic worth thinking about? What is different about my professional career compared to my older *ahem* more experienced colleagues? There must be a reason that my generation is the topic of so much...
Defining A Digital Brand
In 1899, two lawyers unwittingly jumpstarted one of biggest marketing campaigns in the history of advertising. These lawyers successfully proposed a contract to buy Coca-Cola syrup for bottling at a fixed price - forever. This negotiation would ironically strong-arm...
Teamwork: A Partnership Between Teammates and Leaders
INSERT teamwork cliche hereWe’ve all heard the clichés such as, “There’s no ‘I’ in TEAM,” or “We’re all stronger than the sum of our parts.” Some leaders will throw around trite expressions, while others will simply throw a bunch of people in a room and tell them to...
Spring and Mockito – Happy Together
Open-source mock testing meets the application framework of choice
Being Good at Being Wrong
You're a technical wizard, HarryAs a software consultant, it’s expected that you bring a certain degree of technical expertise to the table. This is a reasonable assumption based on the fact that consultants gather experience from many projects across various...
The SDG ESOP: From Shocked to Excited
At our company meeting last November, SDG’s owners announced that we were becoming 100% employee-owned by way of an ESOP, or Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Essentially this means that over time, full ownership of SDG will be transferred to employees through stock...