Agile Methods in a Waterfall World: Speaking In Code

Starting up a new project, and I'm definitely having fun with it. At first glance, it looks like a fairly small, departmental application, but it is actually part of a web of disconnected processes and local databases (ie. "a mess") that support some fairly important master data. Also, the folks I'm working with are much more comfortable in a "waterfall world", with formal requirements followed by code, test, and deploy. Lots of opportunity for process coaching and new methods -…

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Best Practices for Process Documentation: Iterations (2 of 3)

Last time, I wrote about checklists, and showed the example of the B-17 preflight. Simple, fits on a single page, and hits all the critical steps, in just the right amount of detail. Plenty of processes in the IT department are made That Much Better if they are accompanied by detailed, effective Process Documentation. Of course, that's all motherhood and apple pie - everyone agrees that the existing checklists are great. But how do you get started? I mean, assuming…

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Where to Start? (2 of 2) Metrics & Measurements

Bullet point #1 in your executive-friendly PowerPoint about "Achieving Operational Excellence in IT" covers Process and Procedure; so how do we measure our effectiveness? I'm a big proponent of Metrics and Measurements as well - but often times the biggest challenge is where to start? Measure the Unmeasured In most organizations (especially manufacturers!), the business has plenty of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that tell them how much productivity they are seeing, how much money they are saving, and how they…

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Where to Start? (1 of 2) Process and Procedure

If you need a one-slide, three-bullet, PowerPoint special for describing the basic tactics for "How to Achieve Operational Excellence", try these: Process and Procedures Metrics and Measurements Continuous Improvement The first two are nicely alliterative, but you might consider substituting Standards and Processes as your lead-off if we're talking about an IT, Finance, or Engineering department. Now What? Of course, now you have to generate the details; the "motherhood and apple pie" routine only lasts thru the first meeting. Here's…

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Don’t Accept Snap Answers Too Quickly

A few years ago, I was working on an interface project, and wanted to have the ERP system send copies of any and all transactions that have changed over the past few days. I've done this before on other platforms, so I asked the lead developer what I thought was a no-brainer request: Do the transaction files capture a date/time stamp somewhere in the record, each time the record is modified - DateLastUpdated, something like that? His answer came back…

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IT and the Business are Closer Than You Think

A few passing observations from the last few months; contrary to what many (IT/business) folks believe, they are just as good or just as bad in managing processes and projects as their counterparts in (business/IT). Problem Resolution is Everybody's Problem A few weeks ago I was discussing issues that came up with one of our systems, and the team was a bit dismayed that the user community was still finding errors (we should be trapping for that stuff!) I pointed…

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There ain’t much IT in IT Management

This morning, I caught myself looking back at the last week of meetings, e-mails, and conference calls, and I experienced a minor epiphany. If I published a detailed diary of the ebb & flow of proposals, debates, and commitments from the past few days, I could successfully deflate the management aspirations of 80-90% of the technical folks I know. Contrary to what many might think, there's not much IT in IT Management. Ok, that's a bit of an overstatement; I…

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Thoughts on Why Tech Folks Need to Sweat the Administrivia Details

As I've noted in the past, it really helps to understand the techies' way of thinking, especially when trying to get work done on tasks that are decidedly non-technical. Here's two more recent stories from work, both hinging on the common desire to just "git'er done". Why do we waste time removing obsolete code? Just hide the menu option ... A few months ago, we had a task to decommission a chunk of code that was calculating some elapsed time information…

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Marketing a Startup Business (3 of 3)

author's note: 3rd of 3 parts of an essay first published in 2000. Check out part 1 and part 2 ... jpm Address the Rest The elevator speech follows rather quickly from the executive summary. The power of this “sound bite” is in it’s clarity and consistency – make sure that everyone involved in the organization can deliver it the same way. Remember, in a small company, everybody is a salesman! Of course, the elevator speech should not be viewed…

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Marketing a Startup Business (2 of 3)

author's note: 2nd of 3 parts of an essay first published in 2000. Check out part 1 here ... jpm Starting in the Middle To get moving on step 1 – capturing the “vision” – we’ll start in the middle with the executive summary. This presentation will help gather the relevant “what”, “why”, and “how”, without going into too much detail or oversimplifying. A little structure now will allow you to quickly summarize the salient points into your elevator speech.…

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