Need uber-guru types who are willing to challenge the existing groupthink on design and architecture, especially on TDD and emergent design and pair programming anti-pattern” – job post at Monster.com 2/9/2010
I stumbled upon that quote following links on the role of the architect on an agile project. Maybe one important role of the architect is to help the team avoid groupthink. Continue reading »
In a previous post I posed this question: “more people are followers than leaders, so isn’t it more important to cultivate effective followership than effective leadership?” In reality the distinction between leading and following isn’t very interesting. The goal of each member of a group should be to contribute to individual and shared goals in a balanced manner and promote the dignity of group members. In every group effort, whether business, charity, sports, or anything else, everyone leads and everyone follows.
I recently read Testimony, Solomon Volkov’s controversial publication of the memoirs of Dimitri Shostakovich, the great 20th century Russian composer. There were three different individuals in the book who demonstrated three different ways of “leading”, or behaving with character within a group. (See the note at the end of this post on the question of authenticity) Continue reading »
Here are three things to remember when putting together a BI business case:
Excerpt from "Show Me the Money: A DM/BI Business Value Primer", Bob Lambert and Tri Truong, Information Management Special Reports, March 24, 2009
In a recent article at Information Management, Maria Villar and Theresa Kushner offer 4 Steps to Create an Effective IT and Business Partnership, a very useful list of ways to ensure “strong partnership between IT and business”. To the authors this partnership “is the most important, and often overlooked, component to successfully managing critical business data. Undertaking business intelligence, data quality or an enterprise data management [program] without full cooperation and collaboration between IT and the business is a formula for frustration.” The authors suggest these four steps: “know your partner, develop a relationship, define roles and responsibilities, and establish open, regular communication channels.” I recommend reading this article because IT folks (like me) seem tempted to neglect the habits that enable building a solid relationship with business people. Continue reading »
“When you are in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It is only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else.” – from Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
Whatever project management approach a team uses, sometimes everything falls apart, commonly due to work piling up at the end, but sometimes due to a key individual leaving, or a pivotal assumption no longer holding true, or many other reasons. When that happens, the project can become like a whack-a-mole game, with leads working from issue to issue as they pop up faster and faster. Continue reading »
A recurring theme in the literature on IT over the years has been frequent failure of IT projects. Most studies lay the bulk of the blame on requirements (examples here and here). One way to improve accuracy and fit-to-purpose of requirements, and thereby promote project success, is to include data analysis as well as process analysis in the requirements plan.
I’ve cited here the need to start data interface analysis early to avoid budget and schedule blow-ups when, as a result of not thinking early about interface complexity, data integration work turns out to be bigger and nastier than anticipated. Continue reading »
In a recent very thoughtful post on data quality, Paul Erb plays out an analogy comparing data users with Don Quixote and data quality professionals with Sancho Panza, then reverses the analogy to cleverly coin the “Sancho Panza” test of data quality professionals. He encourages data quality professionals promoting the critical role of data quality to apply a what would Sancho say test to ensure that they are aligned with the needs and interests of data consumers. Continue reading »
In a new post at Insurance Networking News Ara Trembly provides a balanced perspective on IT/business misalignment (Business/IT Misalignment: Whose Responsibility?). He describes the problem as cultural, more amenable to relational than management solutions. His conclusion sums it up: “Take a geek/suit to lunch today!”
To me (speaking as an IT professional) IT should take the initiative to solve the problem. Continue reading »
Excerpt from "Show Me the Money: A DM/BI Business Value Primer", Bob Lambert and Tri Truong, Information Management Special Reports, March 24, 2009
Before starting the Business Intelligence business case, the BI advocate should do the homework required to ensure its success, including these essential steps:
1. Know the organization’s goals and objectives.
2. Identify a BI champion.
3. Identify and work with BI stakeholders.
4. Identify an application with tangible business value.
5. Define and quantify a quick win prototype project. Continue reading »
History is littered with IT application projects that end late, go way over budget, or abandoned altogether. I was fortunate enough to see one work out really well (almost – please read on). It was no mistake. It came down to a simple method advocated by a gentleman named named John Carpenter.
The project was an HR management software conversion from one commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) package to another. The company concerned was conservative about spending money. A previous business case had proposed a similar project. The problem with that business case was that the benefits were really tough to conceptualize, so the cost/benefit analysis relied on soft benefits like “improved access to information” and “more consistent reporting data”. The folklore was that the CFO had physically thrown that business case out of his office. Continue reading »