I am in the middle of my umpteenth system replacement project. There are some universal assumptions that are endemic to the user community in every system replacement project. They are born of hope and frustration. They are almost universal. 1) The new system will do everything the old one does, only better. 2) The new…
IT Strategy
Decision Let-down
Leadership must recognize that momentum is lost when decisions are anti-climactic. As a leader, it is tempting to focus on the decisions as your primary responsibility – but that is only half of the problem. When decisions are not incisive, are not positive, result in no obvious actions or next steps – our responsibility is…
Packing The Box
Do you remember the last time you moved? Do you remember packing some boxes so full, that they were too heavy to lift after you were done? It happens. Especially books and vinyl records. When you are packing “regularly shaped” high density items, the volume of the box may be too large to contain the…
Customer as Boss
Periodically I have observed people complain about their employees or co-workers, and occasionally I have complained myself. Sometimes people at work act as if they are either ignorant of who their customer is, or as if they don’t care about their customer, it sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.
One Neck to Ring
This post is an extension of What Did The Boss Say. In that post, we explored why executives and managers tend to want a single point of control or responsibility, as well as some of the things that must be delegated to that single point. But there are disadvantages to the single point strategy.
Connecting the Boxes
2013 was the year that I finally decided to replace my ancient two channel sound system with a 5.1 channel home theater capable system. My old setup was very simple. A pair of ADS speakers that I had bought when I was in college (1981) and a Nakamichi receiver that I had bought shortly after…
Project vs. Product
Continuing down the path of understanding the differences between contemplation of project vs product as the center of our software universe. Here are a few pithy aphorisms: The resources expended during a project are the cost of the product created, not its value.
Product Centered Worldview
Agile thinkers focus on the product – and how we are intentionally adding value to a “software asset” and potentially how we manage our “portfolio” of software assets. Phase-Gated Delivery (some people call it waterfall) patterns allow us to “optimize” the work against the constraints – but do not allow us to optimize the value…
IT Staffing Strategy and Procurement
In between IT managers and the vendors they use for staff sourcing, there is an administrative organization. This organization is responsible for contracts and policies that support the hiring of contract staff. Some organizations house this inside of human resources, others inside of what would be a traditional purchasing or procurement department.
IT Staffing Sources and Process
In the application delivery domain, there are four basic sourcing models or patterns: Permanent – the team is composed of permanent employees Contract Staff Augmentation (onshore) – the team is composed of some mix of permanent employees and local contract staff hired by our managers. Outsourcing (onshore) – the team is composed of contractors from…