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Too Many Secrets, Too Many Secret Keepers
I don't know about you, but I've begun to notice a pattern in the problems that we have in keeping our secrets lately. Three years ago, a US Army enlisted man stationed in Iraq downloaded 250,000 US State Department cables and then handed them over to WikiLeaks which in turn handed them over to the press.
Agile Maturity Assessments: Boon or Bane?
Circa 1990 (memo from the quality head): The lead assessor will be visiting our organization to check the maturity level this week. Please ensure documents are checked into the repository and folders named as per the standards. We need to get CMM Level 5 this year.
Circa 2010 (memo from Agile group lead): Please ensure every one completes the Agile maturity assessment as we need to understand the maturity levels of our teams.
Firmitas, Utilitas, Venustas
Good and Bad Leadership
Leadership per se is either effective or ineffective. There are no universal criteria for good or bad leadership, and the quality of leadership should not be confused with the motivation or objectives of the leader. Once leadership is deemed effective or ineffective, judgment about whether it is good or bad rests on an unpredictable mix of situational and subjective criteria. Like anything else, leadership comes with associated costs and unintended consequences. The limits of tolerable costs are largely determined by the value and priority of the leader's objectives.
Visual Discovery
Are You Relying on Data -- or Information?
Software As an Asset
In a recent Advisor I took the stance that nearly all software development is part of what we call an infinite game and therefore should be managed like a product rather than a project, which is a management approach for finite games (see "On Projects, Products, and Gaming Theory").
Complex Event Processing Heats Up
The CIO as the New Brewmaster of the IT Investment Portfolio
Measuring the value of IT is something that every CIO and IT customer has been asking how to do for years. The difficulty is that it's a very complex and sophisticated problem to solve, and it has typically been addressed by keeping a cap on IT costs and developing some business cases for large IT initiatives.
The CIO as the New Brewmaster of the IT Investment Portfolio
Measuring the value of IT is something that every CIO and IT customer has been asking how to do for years. The difficulty is that it's a very complex and sophisticated problem to solve, and it has typically been addressed by keeping a cap on IT costs and developing some business cases for large IT initiatives.
Realizing the Benefits of Agile Outsourcing
When my cofounders and I began in 2007 to create a software development services firm in Vietnam, one of our most powerful motivations was to create a shop that could support innovative projects. Outsourcing had historically been very much geared toward low-risk, low-innovation work at the large-enterprise level.
FEAPO Summit Report
Virtual Spaces and Distributed Teams
The NSA Surveillance Leaks
The past week has seen unprecedented leaks about the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the way it monitors the world's electronic information. The primary whistleblower has identified himself; he is Edward Snowden, who has been an NSA contractor through Booz Allen Hamilton and a former CIA technical employee.
Finding the Common Ground Between Customers and IT
There's a fundamental problem between the IT profession and its customers: there's an abundance of focus on the cost of the technology (the "T"), yet a dearth of focus on the value of the information (the "I") side of the equation.
Contrasting Efficiency with Effectiveness
Efficiency has been the mantra of systems approaches from early work on time and motion, through the business process reengineering movement, to the latest manifestation in Six Sigma. The organization has been seen as a machine or manufacturing process to be managed through the definition and measurement of defined outcomes. In consequence, method and tools have imitated the manufacturing process: defining output, managing process, monitoring for deviation.
Viewing Future Requirements
Ever since I began teaching IT at the university (in 1966, actually), I have wondered how best to prepare students for a professional life in computing. Of course, we called the field various things at different times and in different academic contexts: data processing, management-information-systems, computer information systems, computer science.
Contrasting Efficiency with Effectiveness
Efficiency has been the mantra of systems approaches from early work on time and motion, through the business process reengineering movement, to the latest manifestation in Six Sigma. The organization has been seen as a machine or manufacturing process to be managed through the definition and measurement of defined outcomes. In consequence, method and tools have imitated the manufacturing process: defining output, managing process, monitoring for deviation.
Book Review: Stories That Move Mountains
Mobile BI Products and Services Trends
Business Models and the Development of Mobile Apps
Mobile devices have become one of the most important platforms for the distribution and utilization of user-oriented software. Smartphone sales outnumber those of PCs, and application markets represent a primary channel for the dissemination of end-user software products, hosting thousands of apps and reporting millions of downloads per day. Handset terminals have experienced a shift from being simple communication devices to becoming high-end, multipurpose computer equipment.