Another month, another presentation - something I am trying to do more of this year, somewhat to the detriment of my blog post frequency. However, I may have one or two new posts to put together based on the content of this deck. Here's a link to the slides I am presenting this week (Thursday 14 Mar 2013) in Rolling Meadows, IL and next week (Thursday 21 Mar 2013) in Chicago. The title is The Internet of Things - part…
My last entry on design for a bit - just some thoughts on the added complexity when designing applications for multiple client devices. Fast Changing Device Landscape The "last mile" of user/computer interaction has seen a number of exciting innovations over the past year or so. Phones are getting physically smaller, yet have bulked up their connectedness and capabilities - and the shrinking screen, now touch-sensitive, has blown up into the ubiquitous iPad and a host of next-gen touchscreens. Yes,…
Like a technical peanut butter cup - two great skill sets that go great together. What really happens when artists and coders mash things up? Intuitive Interactions: Are application developers adept at effective design? I think, as a group, no - witness all of the effort put forth to wrap "user friendly screens" in front of ERPs major and minor. Visual Basic, PowerBuilder, SQLWindows, and their ilk spawned legions of wanna-be UI designers, presented with a multitude of gadgets, and…
Lots of conversation at work these days about PMO, resource prioritization, and reducing cycle time for IT projects. I feel a series of posts coming on ... IAPL, we launched a project to bring test discipline to our technology efforts. The team was writing standards and guidelines for test scripts, implementing integrated testing tools supplied by the ERP vendor, and adding steps to our project methodology requiring test scripts for all system changes. As the project dragged into a fourth…
Businesses large and small, private and public, for-profit and not, commonly control critical business processes using the EIE platform (which means Everything in Excel - always good for a laugh in your next PowerPoint - jpmacl). Folks in the business get used to the power and control they have with spreadsheets, and who can blame them? Excel is … … fast and flexible … easy to learn Everybody has a copy I don't have to go through IT Remember, most…
Ok, don't freak out now ... All I want to point out is that the apparent need for screen prints of every step in the process is a bit overdone, especially when we're talking about technical documents. Screen prints / images in the documentation typically means the electronic documents get unmanageably huge, even if you shrink the .JPGs, and few people know how to do that. Plus, you indirectly commit yourself / your organization to a huge maintenance burden. because…
At a vendor presentation recently, I saw something funny on a slide of "best practices" for implementing supply chain planning in SAP: Avoid ZAPO and ZATP ... which means Avoid customizing ATP and APO functions in SAP <aside> A bit of tech humor there; the convention for naming customized code in SAP is to prefix with a Z. Most platforms have unique styles for calling out their customizations. For QAD (written in Progress/4GL), the accepted prefix is xx_. On AS/400…
Trying to provide a simple, flexible search capability for your organization's reams of historical documents? Using a project process that generates the typical stacks of documents, databases full of status reports and issues, and other "stuff"? It's important to think about the knowledge we are generating, and the best way to capture that knowledge – and not worry too much about how we’re going to search through those deliverables. There is no one way to capture / store different kinds…
Over the last few days, I've been in a few vendor demos, trading partner reviews, product pitches, and project discussions, all reviewing complex systems or processes, and tools / software / services to help out. Some important, common, and somewhat random issues kept popping into my mind, all about trying to have a discussion about complex systems / interactions ... Always be mindful that if something was easy, we probably would have done it already. Be alert for things that…
Rothman suggests we use the term Defect, not Bug - as if Defect is a more honest / real word, and Bug is somehow more evasive, non-descript. Au contraire - my guess is that Ms. Rothman does not have a programming background! When you say to a Programmer that their software has a bug, they typically take great offense; I remember how fast a consultant turned from smooth professional to defensive techno-geek the instant I suggested their work product had…