A Hierarchy of Information Requirements

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.

Business Proposals and The Lesson of Jabberwocky

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 [...]

Technical Debt and the Cost/Benefit of Knowledge Retention

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

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

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 [...]

Location, Location, Location: Terminology Confusion in ERP Projects

Have you ever experienced the clash of terminology that results when supply chains are brought together, due to acquisition or merger? The typical scenario: different groups using multiple terms to describe where product is manufactured at and shipped from; folks use terms like “location”, “plant”, and “site” interchangeably, and confusion can result – are we [...]

PMO Nirvana is a Conversation, not a Schedule

We continue to iterate on our PMO processes – managing too few resources and too many project requests, an environment I have consistently seen in every IT group I have ever worked with. Our latest discussion concerned the concept of FIFO work on projects …
… when presented with five things to do, I will only [...]

KM Overcomplicates: Heisenberg Impact on a VBA Quickie

Got a simple request from one of the folks in Operations; we’re sending out Excel spreadsheets for some quick data gathering, might we do a little basic input validation before they send in garbage that needs to be scrubbed? This person is very sharp, knows a decent bit about what is possible, and this is [...]

Zodiac of Knowledge Capture

The start of a new year gives me a rare chance to measure my knowledge capture output over time. I maintain electronic journals for the various projects I am driving, business units and functional areas I support, and people I work with. This results in a hundred or so separate MS Word documents, with generally [...]

A Plea for Empathetic Communication

It’s impossible to over-communicate
Sounds a bit strong, but if you think through your real-world experiences, this shouldn’t surprise anyone. No matter how hard you try, your message will be missed by someone …
Problem: It’s all their fault!
Rely on Web 2.0, and …

… they won’t subscribe to the RSS feed; they don’t understand the concept, and [...]