Doug Wagner, Author at Sunwapta Solutions

27 Sep 2011

Only 24 Hours in a Day? Really?

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:44:15-06:00September 27th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

Are there really only 24 hours in a day?

I am an eternal optimist when comes to thinking I can do anything; as much as I want. My brain tries come up with ways to get more time in a day. Maybe I can sleep a little less. Maybe if I work harder I can get everything done. Yet there is a price to pay. A trade-off for every choice you make. And there is always something more.

Still, there are only 24 hours in a day.

Work. Relationships. Health. Recreation. Hobbies. Self-improvement. You need to be balanced or you will eventually pay the toll […]

8 Sep 2011

Fueling the Myth

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-04T14:57:06-06:00September 8th, 2011|Categories: Doug's Blog, Software Development, Technology|

Computers are still harder to use than they should be.

I overheard a conversation between two young university students the other day:

Person 1: “I don’t know why people bother using Macs, they cost a lot more.”

Person 2: “They are easier to use and they don’t get viruses because they are more secure.”

My Recent Experiences (Part 1)

I recently shot and edited a dance video (see my last post for the link). I ran into to some issues that would have derailed a non-technical person.

The HD camcorders we were using had memory cards. Rather than use the USB […]

31 Aug 2011

Zumba – Do the Pause Entry

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:44:29-06:00August 31st, 2011|Categories: Current Events, Doug's Blog|

My wife recently decided to get some of her Zumba friends together and enter the Zumba "Do the Pause Contest". I ended up (long story) being part of the camera crew, director and video editor. There is enough involved in this process for a blog entry or two.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the resulting entry. (Note: Sadly, you need to log into Facebook to view the video.)

15 Aug 2011

Kanban – The Power of Focus

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:44:36-06:00August 15th, 2011|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Software Development|

I recently read "Kanban – Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Company" by David Anderson.

Power of Focus

The most important takeaway is the power of focus.

I don't think the author quite stated it that way. He basically presented numerous examples and statistical evidence to show that limiting work in progress lead to a more effective and predictable outcome for software teams; especially those working on maintenance or lots of little projects for different systems.

It seems the more work you have on your plate that you are trying to simultaneously juggle the less efficient people and teams are.

Kanban essentially proves what other […]

19 Jul 2011

Are You Working on the Business?

By Doug Wagner|2017-05-24T13:03:07-06:00July 19th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Working on the Business|Tags: business, business advice, business growth, business strategy, business success, Dysfunctional Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, leadership, small business, small business owner, strategy, success, Working on the Business|

What does working on the business really mean?

As a business owner (or entrepreneur) you spend a lot of time working to build your business. You are:

Finding new customers,
Keeping existing customers happy,
Providing your product or service to customers,
Hiring good people,
Retaining your employees,
Keeping on top of the finances,
Putting out fires,
And generally growing your business.

And many business owners can generate a lot of revenue and even profit doing the above. They may even significantly grow their businesses.

So isn’t that […]

6 Jul 2011

Timesheets Don’t Lie – The Power of Tracking Effort

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:44:48-06:00July 6th, 2011|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation|

Timesheets don't lie.

Sure people filling out timesheets can be less than honest, but more often than not, they are more inaccurate than dishonest.

Measure It To Improve It

I've come to the very firm conclusion that if want to achieve your full potential, obtain your peak performance or build a great company you need to measure where you and everyone else spend their time.

When you are doing your strategic planning, looking to improve your business, thinking to grow sales or just working to satisfy your existing customers; it is likely that free time is in short supply.

This means you will tend to be […]

28 Jun 2011

Top Challenges for Businesses – Top 5 List

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-04T14:58:43-06:00June 28th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

In my prior post I listed 15 business challenges and received another eight (8) and counting additional ideas from the crowd. When I wrote the list I purposely stated similar problems a few different ways to see if they would form “bunches” in the responses.

Based on preliminary feedback (I’ll post an updated list later in the summer), the following are the top 5 statements/challenges:

Hiring good people and long-term employee retention; having the right people.
The people in the business are so busy with serving customers and keeping the business alive they don’t have time to work on the […]

27 Jun 2011

The End Is Near!

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:45:01-06:00June 27th, 2011|Categories: Current Events, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

The forecast for today is fire. If we make it through that the rest of the week looks pretty good.

Are you accomplishing your most important work?

We are on our count-down to our product launch. We just need to make it through the next few weeks and focus on our most important work.

For us, the end is near… then things get going for real.

23 Jun 2011

Happy 11th Anniversary Sunwapta Solutions!

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:45:09-06:00June 23rd, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Doug's Blog|

Wow, 11 years.

As they say, I wish I knew then what I know now.

We started out as a software development consulting firm. We moved into building and managing hosted applications for our customers and their clients. Over 150,000 employees have had access to tools we have built at companies with pretty impressive credentials.

Then we built and sold our first hosted application (PenForms) obtaining well over 40% of the available market. Near as we can tell, we have the largest market share out of our competitors, largely because we had a good product and good customer service. The biggest thing we got […]

21 Jun 2011

Who Owns Quality In Development

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:45:15-06:00June 21st, 2011|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Software Development|

The simple answer: Everyone.

Actually this goes for any business. Quality is not a department or a person, it is something a company needs to live and breath from top to bottom.

It Starts With Development

The development team creates the code. If the software contains bugs, the developers created them.

If you are using third party libraries, developer may have inherited some bugs, but again, it is up to the developers to deal with them.

Quality is as much an attitude as a practice.

If you don't own the code as a team and own quality as a team; you won't have the right attitude to […]

dwagner

About Doug Wagner

My Recent Experiences (Part 1)

Power of Focus

Measure It To Improve It

It Starts With Development