Agree with you. Have been a software engineer myself for 20 years (and also had, in the past, studied a lot of design and process books in my free time). Yeah, I also think this person's comment is not right. In fact, the second and third points in the list ("the hardest parts of the system are building the right thing," and "The best software engineers think like designers") are directly addressing the fact that devs first need to figure out what to build before they even write any code.
Yeah, in fact, one big tweak I'd make to this list is on item #17 ("Keep your processes as lean as possible"). Yes, it should be extremely lean, but the requirements phase should be a necessity for all development. One of the first steps in development should be a thorough collection of info on the task at hand: talk to the users, the business people, the former engineers, and anyone else that has any connection to the change you're about to make. You'll solve dozens of problems before you even write a single line of code.
Yeah, agile overall is how we should work, but personally, think requirements is the one step that needs to be emphasized and even defined in greater detail. I know this doesn't directly tie to "adding value" but solving the correct problem for your business almost always adds value.
Yeah, in fact, one big tweak I'd make to this list is on item #17 ("Keep your processes as lean as possible"). Yes, it should be extremely lean, but the requirements phase should be a necessity for all development. One of the first steps in development should be a thorough collection of info on the task at hand: talk to the users, the business people, the former engineers, and anyone else that has any connection to the change you're about to make. You'll solve dozens of problems before you even write a single line of code.
Yeah, agile overall is how we should work, but personally, think requirements is the one step that needs to be emphasized and even defined in greater detail. I know this doesn't directly tie to "adding value" but solving the correct problem for your business almost always adds value.