Category Archives: Thoughts

When it comes to predicting the desired outcome of a major initiative, the answer to the following question is easy isn’t it? Process or No Process? Process of course! Right? So why do people complain about processes, and even more so when those processes are strictly enforced? We’ve all been in the situation where a process requires us to perform tasks that don’t seemingly impact the success or failure of a project. Even worse, sometimes these required tasks can delay a project and do not directly contribute to the project’s success or even add value to the final product as defined by the stakeholders. >>More>>

Walking home from work you look around and every job looks more appealing than yours. You are in a dead-end role. You don’t like what you are doing. You are bored. Now this can go one of two ways. One way is to start thinking of the reasons as to why you are in the state you are in – any reason that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with anyone or anything else. The other way is to start thinking of what YOU can do to get yourself out of this rut. You start thinking of a game plan. >>More>>

You have just spent months designing, building, and testing your application. System test is complete and your testing team has declared you are bug free. You deliver the product to your client and set them loose on User Acceptance Test, confident it will go very smoothly leading to a product that is delivered on-time, within budget, with a high degree of quality. You and the testing team declare the Quality Assurance phase a success. Then the call comes. Your client is irate, claiming the product is filled with errors and not at all working as the requirements intended. >>More>>

It happens time and time again on IT initiative after IT initiative. We spend millions of dollars to develop a world-class application. Project managers, solution architects, developers, testers…all of the appropriate resources are fully engaged on the project. Programmers work ‘round the clock to get that last piece of code working and migrated to production. And then the project team claims success. >>More>>

I am a big fan of the movie, “A Few Good Men”. It’s cheesy at times, perhaps a bit over-the-top at other times. But there is a whole host of quotes that even people who haven’t seen the movie can recite. “You want answers?….I want the truth….You can’t handle the truth”. Good stuff for sure. But one of the more provoking parts of the movie is when certain members of the Marine Corps recite the order in which they prioritize their actions and pledge their allegiances. It goes in this order, “Unit, Corps, God, Country”. >>More>>

It happens all too often. It starts out with a meeting invitation that contains nothing more than a meeting title and maybe an attached document. The invite list looks long enough and diverse enough to be the roll call at the United Nations. As the meeting begins, everyone sits there looking at each other before the meeting organizer begins a discussion. People continue to trickle into the room, and each time they do, the meeting organizer recaps the discussion that has taken place thus far. A few minutes into the discussion it becomes apparent that very few participants had reviewed the document attached to the invite prior to the meeting. >>More>>

Harsh words, perhaps. But seriously. Enough is enough. The American economy is struggling mightily. Unemployment is soaring, which means a greater tax burden is being placed on those who are working. Companies are cutting costs, trying to do more with less. Yet the most troubling factor of all, is that many people who have jobs who have the capacity and who have the intelligence and ability are still not delivering. >>More>>

Even with the economy in a state of constant struggle, technology is still moving at a pace far greater than any of us could have imagined just a few short years ago. Some highly quoted person once said, “the only constant in life is change”. That is certainly the case with technology.
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Tenure-based reward structures at companies are common. Many companies have base eligibility requirements in order for someone to be “promotion-ready”. Common requirements include things like “at least 2 years at the current level” and “at least 1 year in the current position”. The spirit of these requirements is well-intentioned, i.e. mandatory experience level, time for appropriate seasoning, etc. But like most requirements of these sort, they leave room for improvement. >>More>>

Imagine if you were in the market for a new home, and you elected to utilize a realtor to show you around. You give the realtor your parameters, e.g. north of Main but south of Maple and east of Elm and west of State. You give them the high end of your price range and you’re off and running. Or so you think. How would you feel if your realtor intentionally excluded homes within your price range and within those parameters? How would you feel if you found out later that it was because the realtor had made arrangements to only show you homes from particular builders and particular selling realtors? Even worse, what if you found out later that the best homes for the value were the ones that were excluded from your viewing? >>More>>