... and suddenly you're not there any more." - The Ghost of Christmas Present, enjoying a memento mori moment A repeating theme in my feed reader has been the drive to "work different"; clunky grammar aside, we need to change the way we communicate and collaborate, increase our focus on innovation, and spend less time in pointless meetings. On that latter point, I read this article on my latest flight; Mankins talks about the galling amount of time spent in…
A few years ago, I was interviewing candidates for a systems analyst job, and trotted out one of my standard questions: Tell me something you have done that you are proud of. This particular developer called out her source code annotations (comments), and was rather specific about her own comment quality standards. But when I asked her if she likes to write documentation, she was quite hesitant - and that surprised me a bit, made me think. What's the difference…
For our back-of-the-napkin experiment in tracking the useful value produced by enterprise systems - our next step will move away from the technical tools for a bit, and take a look at results. Specifically, we want to understand who is "delivering the goods" - and some sense of their success relative to others. At first, the question sounds simple - how do you measure success? Metrics are a common element of any business activity, and people are often paid, and…
We're trying use metrics to visualize the correlation between system use and business results - any system, regardless of the platform / technology - and we'd like to draw the same picture of input vs. results for any system. I'm stealing some inspiration from Tufte here - let's keep the story simple, clean, and consistent, so my audience can focus on the question (WIIFM). And it's a meant to be a universal question - doesn't matter what system we are…
For years, web sites have been measured - and valued - by user traffic. Who is looking at this site? When are they coming, and how long are they staying? Driven by the advertising business model that values "impressions", web analytics have evolved in a number of ways; the interest has shifted from Passive to Active. Advertisers want to know who is clicking, selecting, comparing, buying, and abandoning. Games track Daily Average Users, Social Networks quantify contributions and visualize connections,…
Sure, I've been mobile for some time, but it's late spring in Chicago, and after such a hard winter, I am trying to take better advantage of the balmy weather and these newfangled mobile devices to get work done in alternative places, using alternative methods. The work is a bit different as well; I'm taking a hard run at some "digital strategy" topics, and forcibly breaking away from the manic focus on cost and productivity. Well, maybe "manic" is a…
There is a flaw in my simplistic story of the Three IT Archetypes - if/when someone points it out, I will openly admit it, but would also insist on a follow-up conversation. Strictly peer-to-peer [regardless of title], one part technique and one part philosophy - and preferably over a suitable beverage. The problem is the oversimplification - although the diagram hints at it, you typically need to point out that there will always be some overlap. eCommerce is a classic…
I'll tell you about this visualization from a recent internal conversation, but I may end up aggravating some career IT people out there. Yes, I have massively oversimplified things - but I'm trying to develop a broader understanding, and I think it's a good first step. The original question was "How do I manage IT?", but it quickly morphed into "how can I drive / derive value from IT?" (note the powerful difference that a single letter makes - derive sounds sustainable)…
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.
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,…