App Dev » Bob Lambert

A QlikView QuickStart: first steps for learning QlikView desktop

App Dev, Data Management, IT No Responses »

Jan 202012

QlikTech’s QlikView reporting and analysis tool is among a new class of Business Intelligence (BI) software tools. As Ben Harden reported in a recent blog post, BI vendors like SAP, Microsoft, and IBM have traditionally sold “to the IT enterprise, but companies like QlikTech and Tableau are targeting the business and bypassing IT. Their tools are quicker to stand up, more intuitive and don’t need the configuration, support, and hardware that the bigger players require.”

A Quick Overview

At first look QlikView is fairly accessible to those experienced with BI tools. A “.qvw” QlikView file contains three classes of user-facing components: a script-based data integration language that runs when the user requests a “reload”, a data modeling component that looks deceptively like a relational data modeling tool, and a familiar array of data visualizations: graphics, charts, lists, etc.

Double test efficiency and build app dev culture at no charge

App Dev, IT No Responses »

Dec 112011

What if you could double the efficiency of your software testing process, and substantially reduce errors found during the test, deployment, and maintenance phases, without purchasing any tool or method? The November 28 InformationWeek offers just that in a reprint of a recent Dr. Dobbs article on formal inspections by Capers Jones and Olivier Bonsignour. They call formal inspections the “defect removal tool of choice” and back up their claim with lots of hard evidence, but I think they are still selling short. Continue reading »

Abstracting and recombining all the way to the bank

Analysis, App Dev, Business No Responses »

Aug 302011

In the past I’ve never understood what people really mean they say “think outside the box” but Jim Harris, in a recent OCDQ blog post, helped me figure it out.

Mr. Harris ends with this provocative line: “the bottom line is Google and Facebook have socialized data in order to capitalize data as a true corporate asset.” The post starts with a cold war analogy and proceeds to describe how Facebook and Google have made big money as “internet advertising agencies:” offering free services with which users (like us) serve up personal data in return for use of the service, then selling advertising space based on our data (hopefully anonymized).

Get an early start for on-time data modeling

Analysis, App Dev, Data Management, IT, Project Management No Responses »

Jul 222011

I’m a data modeler, so I enjoyed Jonathon Geiger’s recent article entitled “Why Does Data Modeling Take So Long”. But why does he say it like it’s a bad thing?

Mr. Geiger’s bottom line is exactly right: “Most of the time spent developing data models is consumed developing or clarifying the requirements and business rules and ensuring that the data structure can be populated by the existing data sources.” On the projects he describes, no one took time before modeling to determine available data sources and identify business entities of interest, relationships among them, and attributes that describe them before database design started, so the data modeler had to do it.

Thoughts after agile training: strengthening values, reducing the cost of honesty, and growing apps

App Dev, Data Management, IT No Responses »

May 312011

I recently completed ScrumMaster training ably presented by Lyssa Adkins. Throughout the two-day class we appreciated Lyssa’s Zen-like, enabling, style. If her name is familiar, it’s because Ms. Adkins is the author of the book Coaching Agile Teams, one of the leading texts on the subject.

I’ve participated on agile projects, but so far only in a piggish/chickenish role, once in a three-week stint as a consulting architect and twice as the project manager serving as interface to the non-agile organization.

To me Ms. Adkins rocks at making students very introspective and critical of their past project experiences. These lessons stand out:

Continue reading »

Health care data security: how bad is it?

App Dev, Data Management, IT, Project Management No Responses »

May 182011

It is really bad, according to a recent survey by the Ponemon Institute (available here with registration). The white paper, entitled Health Data at Risk in Development: A Call for Data Masking, presents the results of a survey of 492 health care IT professionals on their companies’ practices regarding use of live personal health care data in application testing.

It makes a scary read. Here are the lowlights: Continue reading »

Building a writing culture in application development

App Dev, Business, IT, Project Management 1 Response »

Jan 232011

One of the key skills needed in today’s IT shop is communication, and one of the best ways to improve ability to communicate is to write blog posts and articles.

In spite of “IT guy” stereotypes, communication and analytical thinking about business are among the most important skills in application development. Developers, analysts, and managers require ability to interact effectively with business people, to conceptualize solutions that match business needs, critically evaluate those solutions, and effectively make the case for one of them. Of course this is true of the overall project business case, but more importantly it applies to the daily “IT guy” to business person conversations that happen throughout analysis, design, development, and testing. Continue reading »

Agile development: rugby analogy considered harmful

App Dev, IT, Project Management No Responses »

Dec 132010

Recently my friend Mark Hudson posted about the inappropriateness of the term “sprint” for an agile project phase, preferring the cycling term “interval.” That post really struck a chord with me.

As a rugby union fan and former wing/fullback I’ve always thought the whole rugby analogy was wrong. Agile development is continuous and fluid, yet the agile originators chose the word “scrum” for its daily standup meetings. In rugby union a scrum is a set play resulting from a minor penalty, like offside in American football or a foot fault in tennis. If you like the rugby analogy the right term would have been “ruck,” which is kind of like a scrum but part of the continuous run of play (in the other kind of rugby, called rugby league, the scrum has devolved into an almost meaningless stylized ritual – which I guess happens on some agile projects). Continue reading »

Use conceptual data modeling in requirements definition

Analysis, App Dev, IT, Project Management 1 Response »

Jul 162010

I’ve often thought that conceptual data modeling was an underused tool in the arsenal available to requirements analysts, and in a recent conversation I found that many were surprised that it would be used in the requirements phase at all. Checking the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK) I found data modeling listed among the tools available to requirements analysts to “to describe the concepts relevant to a domain, the relationships between those concepts, and information associated with them.” There’s also Steve Hoberman’s excellent book on the topic, Data Modeling for the Business, an introduction to data modeling aimed at a business audience. Continue reading »

Thoughts on the Jazz Process

App Dev, IT, Project Management 2 Responses »

Apr 212010

I always thought the analogy would be cheesy, but Adrian Cho’s “Jazz Process” is a carefully researched and well presented “framework for improving collaboration, innovation and agility inspired by the way in which jazz musicians deliver strong, innovative performances.” Mr. Cho, with deep roots in both jazz and application development, presents a method for app dev teams to work together the way jazz musicians do to “deliver on-time, high-quality performances that will attract and retain customers and do it all in real-time under continuous scrutiny.”

To put cards on the table, while Mr. Cho is a dedicated dual-career professional who plays jazz at the highest level, I’m a dedicated IT professional who spends some evenings as a serious amateur at local watering holes and private parties. To me, Mr Cho really nails it. He groups 14 principles into four categories on how teams can effectively work, collaborate, execute, and innovate together, bringing honed skills, “big ears”, trust, and commitment to deliver successful outcomes. Continue reading »

Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha