Outsourcing can be a good thing financially if done right. Thing is, this is often not the case. One area where outsourcing looks good financially, but too often does not work particularly well in daily life, is IT support. Case in point. I’ve been having an annoying little problem with an application the client wants me to use for a particular activity. So I call support. The first line help desk support person can’t do anything about it and logs…
The outsourcerer’s apprentice strikes again
Friday, May 18th, 2012 at
13:22
Know Like and Trust in Real Life
Friday, May 18th, 2012 at
11:00
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase Know Like and Trust and how important this implied dynamic is for building interpersonal relations on or off the Internet. Today I had occasion to ponder how we can boost know like and trust in real life. Read on. When I connect with someone on LinkedIn I will usually at least scan their profile. Sometimes I notice some interesting things. Today I found this little gem buried far down at the bottom of a…
How to model anything
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012 at
13:19
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I have seen some articles and blog comments going around recently about modelling; specifically about what can or cannot be modeled or what we should or should not model. This debate is disingenuous and largely unhelpful for the following reasons: It is meaningless without defining the term ‘modelling’ in the first place It is meaningless without defining the context for the modelling exercise It is meaningless without defining what we are trying to accomplish with the model If we understand…
The problem with problem solving
Friday, April 20th, 2012 at
13:51
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I have come across many different ideas about how to solve problems over the years. Usually, whatever flavour of the month served up as the latest revolution is nothing more than some repackaged variant of formal logic poorly articulated in mindless business and consultant jargon. It would be simpler and easier for everyone if we just taught formal logic properly in the first place so we could avoid all the mind numbing power points. We should be so lucky. And…
4 easy questions about how to prioritize
Wednesday, April 18th, 2012 at
12:42
Delivering projects is about making a lot of decision. To make good decisions, we need to know how to prioritize. Here are four easy questions to help making the right choices. It’s really all about classifications into Must Haves, Should Haves, Could Haves or Won’t Haves. Must Haves Must Haves are fundamental to the projects success. Can also be thought of as Will Haves. Should Haves Should Haves are important to the project success, but the projects’ success does not…
A note on the endowment effect and marginal utility
Tuesday, April 17th, 2012 at
15:34
Seth Godin has an interesting thought over on his blog about how people feel differently about different sized gains or losses. The point he’s making is that this is not linea. You’re not half as annoyed when you get a $25 parking ticket as you are when the fine is $50.An investment banker isn’t twice as excited about a $20 million bonus as she is about a $10 million one. via Seth’s Blog. This was expounded upon quite extensively by…
The future of project management software: the Microsoft view
Monday, April 16th, 2012 at
08:47
Found an interesting post in my RSS feed this morning. The piece is a lament by a Microsoft representative about, essentially, the slow rate of change in the adoption of and use of project management software, specifically MS SharePoint and MS Project and MS Project Server. All fine tools for their purpose, I’ve used them and usually use at least one in most projects. Here’s Microsoft on the subject: Project 2010 has been out since 2010 so that’s been out…
The 1 and only tip for managing millennials and everybody else while you’re at it
Friday, April 13th, 2012 at
13:14
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Once in awhile I come across something that makes me seriously wonder how we ended up in such a convoluted mess. The latest incident concerns an attempt to explain how to manage millennials in the work force. First let’s look at a definition: By most definitions, millennials were born between 1982 and 1996. These individuals’ personalities were shaped by the personal technology era combined with parental guidance that was nurturing to a fault (i.e., an “everyone gets a trophy” mentality)….
Brownie points – positive unintended consequences of documentation
Friday, April 13th, 2012 at
12:10
Documentation in projects serves many purposes. The most obvious is providing a record of discoveries and decisions. If we get praise for the quality of the documentation when judged on these benchmarks, that is great. Sometimes we get positive comments on the documentation for other reasons, which is an example of unintended consequences of documentation. On more than one occasion I have seen how well organized and designed documentation earns additional comments. This is, I think, is a demonstration that…
Simple framework for a basic industry analysis
Thursday, April 12th, 2012 at
12:41
An industry is a complex system involving many different companies, markets, competitors, customers, and products or services. Understanding these dynamics can be complicated and time consuming. Industry analysis models provide a means to manage that complexity by organizing the analysis and presenting conclusions in a coherent manner. Michael Porter’s 5 Forces analysis provides a useful framework for industry analysis. This is a big subject and Porter’s various books provide additional detail and guidance. In the following, I’ll provide a high…
How to present using Pechakucha
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 at
12:09
Pechakucha as a presentation technique was invented in Tokyo in and around 2003 by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Tokyo’s Klein-Dytham Architecture (KDa). The motivation was to find a way to easily time-bracket presentations made during meetings of a group of architects and like minded people. The frustrating experience was that presentations all too often suffered from frequent time overruns due to rambling presenters, poorly planned presentations and all the usual bad practices we have all seen. In an…
Eating your own dog food, drinking our own champagne
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012 at
12:09
You must have heard the expression “eating your own dog food”, or just “dogfooding.” See the block at the end for Wikipedia’s account of the origin of these expressions. You hear it mostly in software development circles, but it’s spreading outside that domain just a little. Anyway, there’s more. I was reading one of the bricks from SAP Press (Testing SAP Solutions) and skimming through the foreword I stumble across this little gem (p 22): “Drinking your own champagne.” I…
Do meetings get in the way of progress?
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012 at
08:32
On the way to work this morning, I was listening to a podcast from BBC’s World Business Review series. At one point a commentator spoke about meetings and how they may get in the way of progress, of getting the real, serious work done, The idea what that meeting may or may not affect brainpower (i.e., the capacity diminishes in the wrong kinds of meetings). On top of that there’s plain old boredom and the all so familiar urges to…
Choose the people you associate with whenever you can
Monday, April 9th, 2012 at
22:21
We cannot always choose the people that you associate with because we have relationships with co-workers, neighbors, bosses, and family members, which are part of everyone’s lives. But all is not lost. There are things we can do in all those other situations when we do have more control like leisure time. Our goal should be to spend time with people who represent good support role models. However, sometimes it is unavoidable to be in the presence of negative individuals…
Fixes are in progress for missing categories on posts!
Category assignments somehow got disconnected from all my posts. With almost 300 in the archives, fixing this will take some time as I also have to recreate the category hierarchy as I go along. In the meantime, use the SEARCH function (top right in header section). The categories in the left sidebar will show incomplete, but growing listings until I’m done with the reassignment.