The Balanced Analyst Programmer

I’ve been asking myself a question lately:

“What is it that makes some programmers more effective than others?  Not quicker, not more technically elegant or advanced, just more effective.”

I think it all comes down to balance – having a mix of skills that make you accessible to the business world whilst keeping a foot planted firmly in the realm of software development.  In a lot of large corporations these days the need for this balance is reduced (well at least it seems to be), as the analyst programmer has been broken apart into two distinct entities; that of the business analyst and the applications developer.  However, the company in which I work this is not the case, and my team of developers is engaged (through myself) directly by the business to design and deliver software solutions – be they large or small.

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