Motivating people for project managers

Image via Wikipedia Outside of the area of direct sales and many would argue to include that too, there has been a momentous movement away from good old fashioned man management techniques. (please read Man to mean both genders, this is an old term well worth revisiting). Some blame Matrix management, others blame the growing … Read more

How much damage can negative BIAS do to performance and quality of life?

Whether a manager, a sports person, an investor, or a dustman It is vital to understand our personal bias and manage it . Every decision we make requires some level of objectivity to stand a good chance of serving us well. “You’re faced with around 11 million pieces of information at any given moment, according … Read more

Two elections that few expected and a majority didn’t want – the information perspective.

Two groups of people mastered the truth about data, its interpretation and it’s presentation and two groups didn’t. The former of course are Republicans in US and Brexit’s in UK. The theories are not new, nor are they difficult to understand but executing on them might only seem an option to somebody with no other … Read more

IT investment for the small businessman and novice.

1. It investment should never cost you money, it is an investment and the ROI should be clear.
Build a business case professionally and then invest with confidence.
The question to ask is; who would you rather trust with your capital, your own business, some investment bank, or maybe a fund manager?

Contract negotiation and on we go

A shock for the project manager

In the last instalment we discussed the way in which a vendor had been chosen that near total disregard for the goals of the project in the course of making that decision. Now we will look at what happened after the decision was made.

Machine learning warts and all

I wont be long-winded about this, I’ll discuss it via email with anyone who is interested, but I’ll break with my usual mode and come straight to the point. A great many people who know little at all of machine learning  and even less about people and many more who are simply  oblivious to the … Read more

Is there a maturity model for corporate information and is it achievable?

I was recently asked to contribute to a maturity model for big data. Anyone who knows me will have guessed that I declined this, but it did get me thinking about the lack of a big picture understanding of the corporate information landscape and a framework to leverage. Given that so many of us operate … Read more

Managing requirement scope

Sometimes the definition of requirements and management of their delivery is described as Scope management.  Scope management is composed of five distinct phases: Scope initiation Scope planning Scope definition Scope verification Scope change control Scope initiation refers to the justification phase. This is when a Product management team create Market requirements and Product requirements documents … Read more

Requirements engineering strategy can make or break your project .

Part one – What would you like sir Part two – Requirements,tests, training, help files Part three – Why no project exists in isolation-what should be done Part four – Business rules, Process rules, Process, Data, different viewpoints Part five – Testing requirements is not optional Part six  -Requirements strategy can make or break your project If … Read more

Testing requirements is not optional

Part one – What would you like sir Part two – Requirements,tests, training, help files Part three – Why no project exists onin isolation-whwat should be done Part four – Business rules, Process rules, Process, Data, different viewpoints Part five – Testing requirements is not optional Part six  -Requirements strategy can make or break your project Yes … Read more

Why no project should exist in isolation and what needs to be done

Part one – What would you like sir Part two – Requirements,tests, training, help files Part three – Why no project exists onin isolation-what should be done Part four – Business rules, Process rules, Process, Data, different viewpoints Part five – Testing requirements is not optional Part six  -Requirements strategy can make or break your project How … Read more

Requirements, tests, training, help files – the connection?

If you began with a vague idea and kept changing things in the hope that you would eventually end up knowing what you wanted, then success is about as easy to find as the end of a rainbow.

Delivering the right project

Really! – Have you seen this new stuff?
This could easily have been Mick Jagger and Keith Richards after their first successful gig. In the modern world, it is more likely to be a hard working CTO talking to a COO about his systems needs