Communication

SQDC for Enterprise IT – Cost, Next Steps (3 of 3)

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ April 20, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Cost At once the most and least understood, the Cost section is what everybody focuses on (specifically: cost reduction!) but also what controls our ability to do more project and support work with the resources in Enterprise IT. The sample graph show 13 months – we are including Dec 2012 just to get a decent [...]

SQDC for Enterprise IT – Quality, Delivery (2 of 3)

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ April 14, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Second in a series of posts on presenting a summarized view of Corporate IT using SQDC-style KPIs; in this post, I’ll explain the metrics we use to express Quality and Delivery. Quality I’ve seen a range of KPIs in the Quality column on different manufacturing plants’ SQDC boards, but nothing as consistent as the Safety [...]

SQDC for Enterprise IT – Introduction, Safety (1 of 3)

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ April 11, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

For the last few months at our Executive Staff Meeting, I’ve been presenting a summarized view of what is happening in IT – and stealing ideas from the many Daily Management boards that I’ve seen during my visits to the plants. I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback on the SQDC graphics that I’m using; [...]

A Practical Reason for Moving Beyond Smart Part Numbers

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ March 28, 2013 ⋅ 2 comments

During a process review session this week, I got involved in a terrific conversation about Smart Part Numbers. You know what I’m talking about – those cryptic SKU identifiers so popular with the folks in the warehouse, on the shop floor, in production planning. There is logic and structure to the characters and the numbers, [...]

Reading for Understanding – Business

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ January 20, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

You are only as good as what you know, and half of what you know comes from books Truth be told, it’s not an original thought – I heard it many years ago, but it rang true for me personally. I still have many of my old college textbooks – engineering volumes bound in impressive [...]

I Hate the Business

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ February 19, 2012 ⋅ One comment

Hmm, not quite … how about I Hate “the Business” More specifically – I really am getting uncomfortable with the whole “IT and the Business” meme: … demonstrating IT alignment with the business … IT’s relationship with the business … IT and the business need to work together / build partnerships … the Project is [...]

How to Draw an Owl

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ November 15, 2011 ⋅ One comment

On Documentation One recent afternoon I found myself in deep conversation with potential consulting partners, holding out for a difficult requirement: “Excellent Documentation”. That’s a tough one to quantify, let alone describe; why hold out for something at once critical and ineffable? Doesn’t every project talk about the importance of providing documentation, yet rarely deliver [...]

A Nice Knock-Down Argument

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ April 20, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Sales and the Gantt “Why exactly does he want to meet again?” I could sense the exasperation in Karl’s voice, faintly; the sales manager wasn’t about to slip out of his professional demeanor over some perceived technical triviality. But for the fact that the request was coming from his newly-hired PMI maven, he probably would [...]

The Hegemony of Large Numbers – Ignoring Common Sense

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ February 28, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Ok, maybe I’m stretching the meaning there, but that’s a cool sounding title, and what I see as an interesting phenomenon. People get excited about Large Numbers, and think they have meaning and importance simply because they are Large Numbers. Big Errors For example – years ago, when an application manager was whirling around the [...]

Business Proposals and The Lesson of Jabberwocky

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ March 28, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

When someone asks my opinion on their writing, I’ll get fairly detailed; I’ve noted in the past that there is a lot of power and influence in the written word, and it’s fairly important to get it done well, or your project proposals just never seem to get off the ground. This particular proposal suffered from [...]

Communication

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