Easier said than done – so to speak
Marketing and IT may have strong opinions about each other - but there is value in understanding each other's point of view. Here are a number of hard truths that Marketing and IT have to realize and come together on.
Just an observation from the past week; I had a meeting with an IBM Sales Team, reviewing a range of products as they work to understand where IBM might help my business. I appreciate the fact that IBM has a wide selection of offerings, and we were doing an OK job of reviewing various families / groups of products ... until we got to something labeled Smarter Cities. This one piqued my interest - something potentially related to the products…
First in a series of posts on presenting a summarized view of Corporate IT using SQDC-style KPIs - a Lean Management-inspired way of speaking in a language your Manufacturing Operations teams will understand.
One of a series of posts on presenting a summarized view of Corporate IT using SQDC-style KPIs - a Lean Management-inspired way of speaking in a language your Manufacturing Operations teams will understand.
First in a series of posts on presenting a summarized view of Corporate IT using SQDC-style KPIs - a Lean Management-inspired way of speaking in a language your Manufacturing Operations teams will understand.
During a process review session this week, I got involved in a terrific conversation about Smart Part Numbers. You know what I'm talking about - those cryptic SKU identifiers so popular with the folks in the warehouse, on the shop floor, in production planning. There is logic and structure to the characters and the numbers, structure that codes identification and classification details onto those bin labels. We are having problems with item WC1-644-A019910 Oh, that's because the trim press is…
You are only as good as what you know, and half of what you know comes from books Truth be told, it's not an original thought - I heard it many years ago, but it rang true for me personally. I still have many of my old college textbooks - engineering volumes bound in impressive faux leather, including a massive, near-mint copy of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics - 60th edition (note: collectors, make me an offer!). Over the years,…
Hmm, not quite ... how about I Hate "the Business" More specifically - I really am getting uncomfortable with the whole "IT and the Business" meme: ... demonstrating IT alignment with the business ... IT's relationship with the business ... IT and the business need to work together / build partnerships ... the Project is made up of the IT team and the Business team ... and so on. It's an unhealthy mind set to get into; when corporate IT,…
On Documentation One recent afternoon I found myself in deep conversation with potential consulting partners, holding out for a difficult requirement: "Excellent Documentation". That's a tough one to quantify, let alone describe; why hold out for something at once critical and ineffable? Doesn't every project talk about the importance of providing documentation, yet rarely deliver it? Don't most people flip past the pages of detailed work process, going right to the keyboard to bang away, expecting tool tips and intuitive…
Sales and the Gantt "Why exactly does he want to meet again?" I could sense the exasperation in Karl's voice, faintly; the sales manager wasn't about to slip out of his professional demeanor over some perceived technical triviality. But for the fact that the request was coming from his newly-hired PMI maven, he probably would have found a convenient excuse to skip the invite. "I just don't understand why we need this meeting ... the projects are moving forward, we…