Change is Easy. Habits are Hard.

21 April, 2014
Change Management
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At technology conferences, vendor seminars, and user group, I enjoy the networking conversations - professionals looking to leverage each others' background, experience, and relationships, ostensibly to forward their own careers, but openly trying to solve a problem with a win-win for both sides of the connection. Inevitably, however, the conversations refine and regress down to a common theme - the classic oversimplification "change is hard". Much of the time, I'd wager that change in your organization is comparatively easy -…

Run to the Bad News

Cut to the chase! An effective style of communication is to "run to the bad news"; for time-starved stakeholders, this approach works by focusing the attention on the critical few decision points and issues.

My Ghost in the Machine, a Particular Shade (of Grey)

7 April, 2014
Out of the Box
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This story dates back to my college days, and I use it to illustrate the idea that IT people are not entirely comfortable with other functional areas of the business - and the "shades of grey" that mysteriously guide the thinking and actions of Sales & Marketing, Strategic Planning, and Upper Management (especially when those IT folks are fresh out of school). Ok, quick aside - it's been a few years since my undergraduate days, so if I get any…

Seven Links in the Data Value Chain

31 March, 2014
Master Data, Skills Development and Training, Visualization
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Deriving information out of raw data involves seven separate, dependent processes - the Data Value Chain. Your team needs to have a multi-layered ecosystem of skills and experience required to effectively extract the most value.

Why Bother Documenting My Solutions?

Interesting line of conversation around an internal Help Desk project ... "What exactly is the point of my help desk ticketing system?", posits the hardy IT Tech. "I, like so many other IT technicians, am expected to solve end-user problems quickly with my infinite knowledge of every potential PC / software combination, not to mention a dizzying array of specialty printers, alternative input devices, smartphones, and tablets. And I, like so many other IT technicians, realize that the most capable,…

The Cost of Poor Quality

10 March, 2014
Metrics, Supply Chain
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Think of these metrics as a quick way to “take the pulse” of your quality control and customer satisfaction efforts.

ERP Reference Calls, and my Top 3 Points to Ponder

3 March, 2014
ERP
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I still get pulled into conversations about ERP; there are plenty of businesses out there, of varying sizes, that can benefit from the structured process and transactional discipline. Reference calls on behalf of the vendor are great - I'm happy to take them, primarily because most vendors are OK with letting my team be frank. We'll talk about the software package you are buying, in whatever detail that can fit into the allotted time, warts and all. But more often…

A Simple Pattern to Drive Quality for Projects and Processes

It's not enough to capture Lessons Learned at the end of your projects; build in a process step to review Learnings from the past, to start new projects off right.

The One-Sided Journal Entry

"That could be fixed in the system", I said to the weary auditor, "with a one-sided journal entry". Her brow furrowed slightly. "A what?" "A one-sided journal entry. You know, add a debit amount to one account without crediting another." Her frown deepened. "I don't understand". "Well", I said, "this system normally doesn't allow a one-sided journal entry - or at least I don't know how to do it. But it should be possible, I've seen it in other systems."…

You Can’t Ignore This Any Longer

Cloud and open source have been around for some time - long enough for the term "cloud" to [finally] fade away as a differentiator (it's just assumed!). Still, some continue to dismiss these technologies for their corporate solutions - but it's getting tougher to just ignore this stuff ... Scale? Cloud provider Amazon continues to dominate the market, with five times the market share of all of their competitors combined. The breadth, depth, and scale of some of their customers…