Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
One of the benefits of being a regular on Tom Cagley’s Software Process and Measurement (SPaMCast) podcast is getting to take part in the year-end round table (episode 426). Jeremy Berriault, Steve Tendon, Jon M. Quigley and I joined Tom for a discussion of: Whether software quality would be a focus of IT in 2017 […]
People have a complicated relationship with the concept of cause and effect. In spite of the old saying about the insanity of doing the same old thing looking for a different result, we hope against hope that this time it will work. Sometimes we inject unnecessary complexity into what should be very simple tasks, other […]
Situational awareness, according to Wikipedia, is defined as “…the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status after some variable has changed, such as time, or some other variable, such as a predetermined event”. In other words, it’s having a […]
Amazon’s unveiling Monday of its new brick and mortar venture, Amazon Go is, rightly so, generating a lot of interest: The full strategy, as reported on the Verge is for three types of stores in a range of sizes: Of the three varieties of stores Amazon is considering opening, the convenience store model is the […]
Sometimes, what seemed to be a really good idea just doesn’t turn out that way in the end. In my opinion, a lack of a systems approach to problem solving makes that type of outcome much more likely. Simplistic responses to issues that fail to deal with problems holistically can backfire. Such ill-considered solutions not […]
My last post, “Defense Against the Dark Art of Disruption”, went into some detail about notable failures in customer-experience for 2016. This week, however, I ran across a counter-example (h/t to Tim Worstall) showing that a little social media awareness and a customer-centric culture can make magic: A baby products company is launching a special […]
My first post for 2016 was titled “Is 2016 the Year for Customer-Focused IT?”. The closing line was “If 2016 isn’t the year for customer-focused IT, I wonder just what kind of year it will be for IT?”. I am so sorry for jinxing so many things for so many people.🙂 So far, the year […]
In my post “Strategic Tunnel Vision”, I touched on the concept of capability. I discussed how focusing on new capabilities can crowd out existing capabilities and the detrimental effects of that when those existing capabilities are still necessary. I also spoke to how choices about strategic capabilities can trickle down to effect tactical capabilities. What […]
This week’s episode of Tom Cagley’s Software Process and Measurement (SPaMCast) podcast, number 415, features Tom’s essay on recognizing risk and risk tolerance, Kim Pries on change models, a Form Follows Function installment based on my post “All Aboard the Innovation Band Wagon?”, and Jon Quigley on requirements management. Innovation is the topic of our […]
This week’s episode of Tom Cagley’s Software Process and Measurement (SPaMCast) podcast, number 411, features Tom’s essay on Servant Leadership (which I highly recommened), John Quigley on managing requirements as a part of product management, a Form Follows Function installment based on my post “Organizations as Systems – ‘Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the […]
My interest in leadership, how it works and how it fails, goes back a long way. Almost as soon as I learned how to read, history, particularly military history, has been a favorite of mine. Captains and kings, their triumphs and their downfalls, fascinated me. The eleven years I served with the Henrico Sheriff’s Office […]
My previous leadership type, the Growler, was hard to classify as it had aspects of both pattern and anti-pattern. The Great Pretender, however, is much easier to label. It’s clearly an anti-pattern. Before entering the working world full-time, I worked in the retail grocery business (both of my parents also had considerable industry experience, both […]