Tag: Professional Development
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Values and Behaviors of the Successful Agilist
Of course, any discussion of Agile values starts with the Agile Manifesto. The first sentence declares that Agile development is about seeking better ways and helping others. Then, as if espousing self-evident truths, the founders present four relative value statements. Finally, they emphasize appropriate balance, saying that the relatively less valued items aren’t worthless: implying…
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Escaping Teradata Purgatory (Select Failed. [2646] No more spool space)
Also see the related post More on “Select Failed. [2646] No more spool space” If you are a SQL developer or data analyst working with Teradata, it is likely you’ve gotten this error message: “Select Failed. [2646] No more spool space”. Roughly speaking, Teradata “spool” is the space DBAs assign to each user account as…
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The Faith of Tolerance
Yes this is a post about religion, so at the outset let me assure you that I won’t try to talk you into or out of any religion or otherwise. Nor will I reveal my beliefs. Instead, I will make the case that the beliefs of others are to be celebrated. To those thinking this is…
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Protect Your Culture: Screening for authoritarian project leaders
It’s fashionable today to talk about the risks of authoritarianism in the political sphere. I’m not going to speculate on that, but such talk got me thinking about the same tendencies among IT project leaders. What is an authoritarian personality? (Yes, that’s actually a thing.) Is it truly antithetical to a healthy project? If so, how…
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Tableau Startup: First Lessons Learned
As I mentioned in the February post, I’m new to Tableau, and as the tone of that post implied,enjoying it very much. Tableau is a robust and flexible solution for data delivery. Like Qlikview, which I worked with a while ago, it is supported by outstanding, and free, introductory training and a very active user community.…
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No Silver BI Bullet: Tableau Edition (It’s a good thing!)
For complex work, a very simple app requires a very smart user. That point was driven home to me in Tableau Fundamentals class this week. I don’t see that as bad news at all. Not so long ago I wrote a piece that attempted to inject a bit of reality into the claims then made…
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Assumptions: A Key to Technical Leadership
There’s an unfortunate and rather rude saying about assumptions that I’ve found popular among IT folks I’ve worked with. I say unfortunate because, to me, assumptions that are recognized early and handled the right way are a key to successful projects. Technical players who use assumptions well can help set projects on the right path…
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A Short List of Accessible Big Data Training Options
As you’ve read on this site and many others, the database world is well into a transition from a relational focus to a focus on non-relational tools. While the relational approach underpins most organizations’ data management cycles, I’d venture to say that all have a big chunk of big data, NoSQL, unstructured data, and more in their five-year…
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What is Big Data Creativity and How Do You Get It?
In a recent Smart Data Collective post, Bernard Marr cites creativity as a top big data skill, but what is creativity? His point is, since big data applications are often off the beaten IT path, big data professionals must solve “problems that companies don’t even know they have – as their insights highlight bottlenecks or inefficiencies in…
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Technical Interviewers: Seek Opinions Not Facts
Asking fact questions in technical interviews is like eating a donut, feels great at the time but not so satisfying later. Let’s say the interview consists of facts like this “softball question”: “What is the default port number for SQL Server?” The linked list of questions is a really good high level study guide for…