Takashi Sato

Message

"Do the right thing, Do things right"

This is a phrase used by Professor Warren Bennis, an American management scholar, to describe the difference between a manager and a leader. When I joined my previous job at an IT manufacturer (more than 30 years ago), my seniors taught me to "do the right thing, do things right" by comparing this phrase to software development. At that time, in order to create large-scale software with a large number of people, we had to make sure that the software was "correct", i.e., that the objectives were clear and that we could check whether they were achieved. In other words, it is very important in software development to find and correct the wrong parts as soon as possible to reduce the amount of backtracking and to ship good quality products.

In my previous job, I have been involved in many IT projects in a wide range of fields, from basic software development projects for large general-purpose computers to social infrastructure systems for finance, medicine, government and municipal offices, and national projects of a certain ministry, based on software production technology, project quality management technology, and organizational development process improvement technology. I have keenly felt the difficulty of "making the right thing, making it right.

"The Age of Digital Transformation"

In recent years, we have been living in an era of digital transformation, and in particular, the rapid development of cloud services and AI machine learning has had a major impact on the software development field. The diversification of customer value and the emphasis on speed have changed the way we develop, such as thinking while creating and trying out.In a society saturated with the use of IT for existing business operations, customers themselves may not be able to see what the "right thing" is or where the value lies in order to seek more value.

Since the purpose and goal of what the "right thing" is are not clear, it becomes difficult to "make it right" and even more difficult to determine whether what is made is right or not.

"Learn and use technology correctly to overcome the chaotic and uncertain times."

In this era of change, I believe there are two important qualities that software development engineers should have.

The first is to "learn the technology correctly. For example, programming language technology has made remarkable progress, and it is now easy to create AI machine learning modules with a short Python code (although it goes without saying that tuning for accuracy improvement is not easy).Therefore, I think it is more important than ever to keep up with the speed of technological evolution, and to master the technology correctly and quickly.

The second point is to "use the technology correctly.We are living in an era of chaos and uncertainty for engineers, as the purpose of what is the "right thing" to seek is becoming unclear, and AI machine learning is creating things for which the answer is not 100% correct. The correct and appropriate use of technology requires a very high level of situational understanding and judgment.For example, IoT systems have more complex interfaces and function sharing among nodes, and it is important to place software correctly and appropriately in each part of a large-scale system. Also, in AI machine learning, the quality of the training data prepared in advance is more important than the algorithm.With cloud services, it is necessary to run a fast value improvement cycle while operating the service.

In order to use the technology correctly and in an optimal situation, it is becoming more and more important to pay attention to the surrounding areas and enhance our perspective. We need to be careful not to get carried away with technology and do self-satisfied work without considering what the other party wants to do and what the overall situation is.

"Toward a brighter future."

As symbolized by the subtitle of the IT Human Resources White Paper 2019 (Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan), "Digital Transformation Starts with People," society's expectations for IT human resources continue to rise, and the fields in which they can play an active role are expanding.

Let's work together to learn technology correctly, use it correctly, and become wonderful technicians who will be appreciated by our customers. Let's challenge new things greedily toward a bright future.