// archives

Communication

Easier said than done – so to speak

RSS feed for this section
This category contains 8 posts

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 [...]

Underwhelming experiences with Google Wave

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ October 17, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Took some time today to work with the new communication meme – Google Wave. I wouldn’t call it a fundamentally new way to communicate – well, not yet. I think Google is safe to continue with a “preview” label – clearly not even “beta” yet. No horrible bugs – at least on the Windows platform [...]

Perfect IT

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ August 4, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

I once met with a rather thoughtful Project Manager to catch up on things. An interesting person to talk to – it’s the cadence and style of his chat, he’s a fairly laid-back guy. I asked where his Stress comes from – he shows no visible signs of any, and it made me Ponder. We [...]

Technical Debt and the Cost/Benefit of Knowledge Retention

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ July 27, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

A rather rigorous, Financial-sounding title for a high-concept line of thought …Thanks to Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror, for calling my attention to this article by Martin Fowler on Technical Debt:
Technical Debt is a wonderful metaphor developed by Ward Cunningham to help us think about this problem. In this metaphor, doing things the quick and [...]

Real Business Users and SharePoint

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ July 14, 2009 ⋅ One comment

Introducing buzzword-compliant technology like a wiki, or integrated collaboration spaces like SharePoint, will typically go well with a motivated audience like your internal IT department. But if you really want to understand how this stuff works, try it with “real people” – line employees in sales and marketing, operations, and finance.Sure, you’ve heard complaints from [...]

Over / Under Communication for Project Managers

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ June 29, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

It is often said that you can’t over-communicate, but I’m willing to bet most folks – and especially your project sponsors – underestimate the cost and effort of this critical component of project management. Consider this fair warning – and a good checklist for folks wanting to get into IT, project, or functional management. MediaTo [...]

Politically Correct Euphemisms in IT – Translated!

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ May 26, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

I recently attended a professional seminar, and noticed a propensity for politically correct euphemisms to describe life in corporate IT. This was a typical group of IT professionals, representing a variety of companies – small and large, public and private. As with most group meetings, we started with a trip around the table; quick introductions, [...]

The Law of Large Numbers – or, why Enterprise Wikis are Fundamentally Challenged

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ September 26, 2006 ⋅ 2 comments

Some will be taken a bit by surprise to read the title of this post; we have implemented a wiki in our group at work, and I have the evangelist role in promoting the tool. Still, a recent “event” brought home the fact that wikis are not the silver [...]

—