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My blog is now being shared via Twitter (@Doug_Sunwapta).
9
Apr 2010
8
Apr 2010
Useful Software – From Drums to Real Collaboration
Way back during the Greek and Roman empires, if you were part of the forced labour (slave) on a galley ship the business rules and communication structure was pretty simple. The drum would beat and you would row. If you didn't bad things happened to you.
Since then we've moved from farming, to factories to information workers. Ships have moved from human propulsion to sails and now diesel engines.
When you move past one person on a project, the number of communication paths (links between people) grow quickly. With two people there is one bidirectional path, with three there are three, but with 4 […]
6
Apr 2010
Employee Slotting Tools
Your company has just announced it is merging with another company. This isn’t just a small acquisition, it is big.
The problem is:
- You have to merge two or more data sources,
- You have to slot all the employees into the new organizational structure and pay scales,
- Both companies have different performance measurement metrics,
- The review means sharing data and slotting decisions across an international HR and management team,
And it has to be done in a very short time frame (yesterday usually).
Someone is likely to suggest using Excel.
But splitting data in Excel and merging it later is a big headache. But […]
4
Apr 2010
Optimizing Developer Productivity
In my last post I made light of the constant desire of (some) developers to want the latest and greatest in hardware; it can never be good enough. Smart managers know there is a balancing point between having the right tools to increase developer productivity and throwing money in the wind.
So exactly how do you justify and quantify the benefits of using faster tools in development?
The Business Case
Part of a manager’s role is to make the most profit for the company as possible while keeping customers happy. The other part of their role is keeping developers as productive as […]
1
Apr 2010
New Developer Computers
Productivity is frequently an argument made by developers to get the latest and greatest computers.
This is what our developers tell me we are using now.
This is what they want (a supercomputer and monitors for every window they might want open). Everyone else is using this and it even supports pair programming.
I suspect we will have to compromise; and balance productivity gains with cost. Sorry guys.
29
Mar 2010
Using the Last Roll of Toilet Paper
Have you ever gone into the washroom to do your business and been surprised at the end to find out someone used the last of the toilet paper (and there are no extras in the washroom)?
Surely someone must of noticed that the roll was at the end. Why didn't they go get more (reactionary)?
Even better, why didn't someone notice that they were loading the last roll and go get more (proactive) before it was all gone?
How many areas of your business are like this?
Do you wait until the customer notices something or do you deal with it just before the […]
26
Mar 2010
Good Code Today, Legacy Code Tomorrow
We recently came across a few potential clients with applications built around the turn of the millennium. These are business applications so presumably they have a team that is also supporting them.
We are talking Visual Basic 6 and Active Server Pages with DCOM.
Back in their day, these applications may have been well written code.
Now they want to migrate these applications to the latest .NET Framework, etc.
Back when we first moved to .NET Framework 1.1 coding best practices were quite a bit different than they are in .NET Framework 3.5 and soon, Framework 4.0.
Moving from VB and ASP to .NET put […]
24
Mar 2010
“Do What I Did and Get Rich” Books
I picked up a book recently about how now is the time to cash in on your passion; how to use social media to promote your personal brand.
Essentially the premise of the book is:
- Pretty much everyone should quit their job,
- Discover your passion and blog (text, video or audio) about it, no matter what the passion is,
- Build your personal brand through social networking site,
- Work hard and hustle,
- Opportunities and cash will start rolling in due to the magic of the Internet, and
- If I did it, so can you, "I guarantee it".
Everyone can make a great living doing this? Guaranteed? What a […]
22
Mar 2010
Agile Landscape (and Garden) Development
There are two main approaches to building out a nicely landscaped yard:
- Waterfall – Large up front design and implementation by a contractor (whether or not an actual waterfall feature is included in the garden),
- Agile – Iterative, incremental and continuous improvement of a design and implementation.
The "Waterfall" approach is typically taken by people who:
- Like having a garden but don't want to be a gardener (insta-garden),
- Have a significant amount of money and want the work done quickly,
- Like to plan everything out on paper beforehand, and
- People starting with essentially a blank slate (new home).
Planning out the hardscape (structural) parts of the landscape requires some […]
20
Mar 2010
Spring Is In The Air?
Today, Saturday the 20th of March was the first day of spring. It was a beautiful sunny day; warm with a light breeze; just what you picture when you think of spring.
When you are living in Calgary (or most of Canada), winter is usually cold and dark with the sun much lower on the horizon. Some people suffer from depression in winter caused by the reduced sunlight. However, I suspect much of the depression is actually caused by realizing your favourite hockey team might not make the playoffs.
So spring brings optimism. (Football will be starting up soon; maybe they will do […]