Business Value

Five More Realities for Driving Business Value from Technology

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ January 31, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

Dennis McDonald’s recent post listed Ten Realities of Managing and Using Technology to Generate Business Value. I think a few of these items need some elaboration … Implementing a technology based solution without understanding the costs is a big mistake … and most projects only consider TCI – Total Cost of Implementation. This typically includes [...]

Defining the Business Value of a Project

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ October 25, 2007 ⋅ Post a comment

I’m following a project management meme lately; while freely admitting that I’m oversimplifying some complex topics, I will forge ahead with … project “value”. At work, we’ve been talking about the classic challenge of putting a business value on a project. I call it a “classic” challenge because it’s a basic requirement for every prioritization [...]

Yet Another Discussion on IT Chargebacks

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ October 7, 2007 ⋅ One comment

It felt anachronistic, getting into a surprisingly good conversation on the pros and cons of IT chargebacks this past week … We’re not seriously thinking about it (thank goodness), but a group of us did go through the intellectual exercise of discussing the good/bad/ugly of such an approach. Unfortunately, most of the “debate” focused on [...]

You can run but you can’t hide

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ September 5, 2005 ⋅ Post a comment

I sent out notes to folks talking about my new situation, and some came back with interesting comments. Here’s one from W, a brilliant guy with Big-6 background and plenty of business acumen. However, he (like me) is a coder at heart, and really wants to focus on the technology (not like me). More power [...]

Free as in … the Open Source Refrain – Improved!

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ July 23, 2005 ⋅ One comment

I’m not going to recount the history and foundations of open source software, just point out that the word “free” has long been a point of contention when folks talk about “free” software. For clarity, the open-source crowd will refer to … Free (as in Speech), meaning the user’s freedom to run, copy, distribute a [...]

Sell your Boss – Some Tech Observations

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ January 30, 2005 ⋅ Post a comment

Saw this great post from Hyatt (referred from this blog, definitely worth syndicating) re: how to get decisions / results out of your manager / boss. Great stuff, pay attention to the details here, all of it is right on. A few additions I’d make to the list … Keep it short – just like [...]