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Application Development

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Sorting with Sound

By ⋅ August 23, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

via Geek.com – yes, I subscribe to stuff like this in my RSS reader … I thought this was interesting on two levels … The Engineering student within appreciates the differences in sorting techniques (although I think I could speed up that bubble sort …) I also think these videos provide a simple illustration of [...]

A Hierarchy of Information Requirements

By ⋅ May 9, 2010 ⋅ One comment

It’s a common problem statement – ‘I don’t have enough information to (run my business unit, manage this process, identify opportunities, etc.)’. The solution designer, when faced with a question like this, starts with a little detective work; the problem is too broadly stated.

Best Practices for Requirements Gathering Sessions

By ⋅ December 7, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

It’s been a while since I’ve led an interactive requirements session for an interactive application – but it’s kind of like riding a bike. After a few minutes, the old habits come back, and the iterative ideas and cascading creativity starts to flow. What has changed, however, is the application platform, the office environment, and [...]

Agile Methods in a Waterfall World: Speaking In Code

By ⋅ September 29, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

Starting up a new project, and I’m definitely having fun with it. At first glance, it looks like a fairly small, departmental application, but it is actually part of a web of disconnected processes and local databases (ie. “a mess”) that support some fairly important master data. Also, the folks I’m working with are much [...]

Why are those Old Programmers so slow in picking up on the Intarweb?

By ⋅ April 6, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

A significant difference between us old-line IT coders and the new graduates is the variety of our platforms and tools. I’m not talking about the large number of languages and tools learned over the course of a career – we all have a healthy collection of certifications and acronyms peppering the bottoms of our resumes. [...]

Tactics for Controlling Project Scope

By ⋅ January 5, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

I wrote about ways to “cheat” at project prioritization [aka trying to figure out what to work on next, when there is more demand (projects) than supply (people to work on them)]. One significant tool you have at your disposal is controlling scope – can you do 20% of the work to get 80% of [...]

Hidden Gold in Automating Recurring Processes

By ⋅ May 28, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

Here’s a typical IT scenario: each quarter, you need to check audit user access to a critical application. Your internal security standards require that you revoke access for those who haven’t been on the system for over 90 days. I’ve seen this before, and the process (at the time) had many challenges: It’s manual; we [...]

Strategies for Malware in Consulting Engagements

By ⋅ May 28, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

Last in a series on some practical legal mumbo jumbo (disclaimer: IANAL) for your Master Consulting Agreements (MCA). This one was particularly interesting to put in; it’s really interesting to see who catches it, but it was an amazing (in retrospect) observation that led us to include the language. The Trigger Event: A virus outbreak. [...]

Strategies for Risk Sharing in Consulting Engagements

By ⋅ May 13, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

I am late is responding to a comment on this post, first in a series about Consulting Engagements. Earlier this week it was Intellectual Property, with another good comment … so, why all the harsh language about protecting IP that I probably can’t commercialize? Ah – welcome to the world of Risk Sharing. The issue [...]

Science, with some elements of Art
Components, IT Responsiveness, and the Rosemont Horizon

By ⋅ June 22, 2005 ⋅ One comment

Technical people are often engineers at heart, and really want to see controlled processes in and around their computer systems. We see source code control, configuration management, and process documentation as ways to manage long term maintenance costs and deliver repeatable, reliable results from our systems. In the realm of ERP systems, this would seem [...]

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