Components, IT Responsiveness, and the Rosemont Horizon

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 to be a common and well-regarded mind set; however, the businesses supported by these systems often demand information transparency, process flexibility, and quick turnaround of…

Challenges when demoing / training / pitching complex systems

Over the last few days, I've been in a few vendor demos, trading partner reviews, product pitches, and project discussions, all reviewing complex systems or processes, and tools / software / services to help out. Some important, common, and somewhat random issues kept popping into my mind, all about trying to have a discussion about complex systems / interactions ... Always be mindful that if something was easy, we probably would have done it already. Be alert for things that…

If you want to be more than a programmer, stop programming

A lot of talking with the team yesterday, and I have a sore throat because of it - but we covered some pretty key concepts, stuff that is hard to reconcile in many tech staffers' minds, but must be dealt with. One conversation covered this person's desire to be thought of / leveraged as "more than a programmer". "That's great!" was my response -"... then close the issues that are getting assigned to you - without programming!". Recently, I am…