The essentials of project management in under 500 words
No silver bullet
Software is in everything and we and our businesses depend on it more and more. Yet Software Quality is not rising, so we have rising numbers of failure incidents and out-of-control costs in maintaining software. What should you do about it?
When you need IT advice
When you ask for advice from an IT specialist, often the response is too technical, too closely tied to a commercial product, or simply off the mark because the underlying problems are management problems. Who can you turn to for useful and practical advice?
Risk Management in IT
Risk management is a key area for financial leaders. When we look at IT development projects, we’re usually focused on opportunities rather than risks. But IT investments have risks beyond security and privacy issues. Project failure can lead to losses even beyond the intended investment. Here are seven ways to look at IT development projects from a risk management point of view.
How can IT management fail to understand business goals?
“Now more than ever, IT must invest the time to understand specific business goals and translate IT metrics to reflect an impact against these business goals. Often there is a gap between what IT reports and what is of interest to the business.” — An Introductory Overview of ITIL V3, itSMF, 2007, p. 38 There’s […]
Metrics of Success in Development – Part 3
Today we’ll finish the list of ten questions that can give you a quick measure of your development group or department. The purpose is two-fold: to let you see how you measure up compared to other similar departments, and to suggest ways in which you can think about the stresses in your department. Let’s launch […]
Metrics of success in development – Part 1
How do you find out if your development organization is functioning well? Naturally, if you are getting products out on time, consistently, and the world around you is happy with the results, you have nothing to worry about. But what if there ARE complaints? Can you determine whether you’re hearing gripes that have little to […]
Constant Reinvention = Survival
Nothing lasts forever. Even the best-conceived business strategies eventually become constraints on growth. Consider Dell. “Dell succumbed to complacency in the belief that its business model would always keep it far ahead of the pack.” But the competitors got better while Dell failed “to invest in new business lines, talent, or innovation that could provide […]
Shifting the focus to longer term
Startup organizations are typically unsustainable and barely stable, because: 1. The pressures to develop and market a first product require taking some expedient shortcuts, such as hiring the most capable, but not necessarily the most team-oriented individuals; placing all priority on getting a workable product out the door, rather than building the product for maintainability […]
What is Product Marketing’s role in development?
A colleague asked, “Do you believe Product Marketing could be the bridge between the Engineering and R&D organizations? It seems to me that market requirements are the other piece to incorporate there and Product Marketing could add that to R&D’s specs before working with Engineering to determine what’s feasible and on what time schedule… What […]