Most Recent Articles

Bootstrap Market Research: Master Data Management (What, Who, How)

I've been asked a lot of questions about "Master Data Management" over the past few weeks - what does it mean, who does it, and what are some tools and metrics that organizations are using to reign in this important aspect of ERP and analytics systems. I started reaching out to the folks in my professional network with some results, but I thought I might be able to leverage LinkedIn and Twitter to get input from far and wide. This…

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Hands-On Project: Offsite Strategy

When I talk about having an "offsite strategy" meeting, I'm looking to get out of the office and have some good, "strategic" conversation over a cup of coffee or a beer. Back when I worked for a software development company, we did our best design work at a hot dog stand in Des Plaines, IL; since then, I've always found it more fun to conduct some "bidness" in the proper atmosphere ... This was the germ of an idea that…

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Collaboration “in the Wild”: Some Observations

An Enterprise 2.0 dream scenario: implementing a complex project across multiple sites, in two different time zones, with a large team (well over 100). The team was reasonably savvy with collaboration tools; core team members were quite comfortable with Instant Messaging, and we have been relying on SharePoint for many months. A centralized, coordinated document repository; a single source, very public bugs/issues list - the foundation was in place for some time, so our "go-live weekend" experience was pleasantly predictable…

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Underwhelming experiences with Google Wave

Took some time today to work with the new communication meme - Google Wave. I wouldn't call it a fundamentally new way to communicate - well, not yet. I think Google is safe to continue with a "preview" label - clearly not even "beta" yet. No horrible bugs - at least on the Windows platform - but some obviously missing features. And, I am not all that impressed with the basic idea - it's just a mashup of Google Docs,…

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Introducing … Google Wave

Thank you for signing up to give us early feedback on Google Wave. We're happy to give you access to Google Wave and are enlisting your help to improve the product. To accept your invitation, sign into Google Wave at the following link ... Well, maybe not the most exciting email I've received over the past few years, but it was nice to get the [sorta] early notice. I'm definitely in the second wave, but I'll not look a gift…

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A Company is like a Sphere

Where do these great analogy ideas come from? Full credit - I got this one from a speaker at the SAP Research Center in Palo Alto, last spring. A company is like a sphere. As it grows, volume increases much faster than surface area, and the larger a company gets, more people get embedded and hidden from the end customer than are on the fringe, in customer-facing roles. As a general rule, this is a bad thing. Well, maybe a…

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Frustrating Paradox: Simple and Difficult

I think this is one of those fundamental concepts that, once it is pointed out to me, become self-evident and obvious (ie. why didn't I think of that). I'm curious if other people agree ... When something is simple to describe, it is difficult to create. When something is difficult to describe, it is simple to create. I've seen these principles illustrated in different areas of business and technology; understanding this relationship can relieve frustration and provide hints on where…

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Training and Learning: A Different POV

The topic was training users for an upcoming project rollout, and the debate (as always) roamed back and forth between "traditional" (classroom training, scripts & workbooks) versus "experiential", pairing existing users with their counterparts (who are new to the system), walking through the basics (screen navigation, terminology, and step-by-step instructions for the most common required tasks). Training methods are a common area of debate and discussion with system implementation folks, and I can make a great case for any and…

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Perfect IT

I once met with a rather thoughtful Project Manager to catch up on things. An interesting person to talk to – it’s the cadence and style of his chat, he's a fairly laid-back guy. I asked where his Stress comes from - he shows no visible signs of any, and it made me Ponder. We ended up talking about golf, IT Projects, and the “Search for Perfection” in our work. So, what is “perfection” in the IT world? Is it…

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Technical Debt and the Cost/Benefit of Knowledge Retention

A rather rigorous, Financial-sounding title for a high-concept line of thought ... Thanks to Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror, for calling my attention to this article by Martin Fowler on Technical Debt: Technical Debt is a wonderful metaphor developed by Ward Cunningham to help us think about this problem. In this metaphor, doing things the quick and dirty way sets us up with a technical debt, which is similar to a financial debt. Like a financial debt, the technical debt incurs…

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