Category Archives: IT

Management By IT Crowd Bosses

Posted on July 9, 2009 by John Hunter

The IT Crowd is a great BBC show on an IT support office in a large organization. The IT staff are knowledgeable and tired of dealing with foolish users of IT. And you wouldn’t want to watch for any customer support tips (though companies like United Airlines might do just that). Anyone involved in IT know Internet Explorer 6 is not an acceptable tool in this day and age. But some IT departments don’t let that stop them from forcing … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Psychology, Respect | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Computer Network Operations Center Failures

Posted on July 3, 2009 by John Hunter

Obviously many businesses are now dependent on computer Network Operations Centers (NOC). Some of these data centers can cause millions of dollars in lost sales each minute if they fail. So sound engineering, including off-site redundancy is critical. Authorize.net is a recent example of such a failure, Authorize.net Goes Down, E-Commerce Vendors Left Hanging Payment gateway service provider Authorize.net has been down and out for several hours… That has big implications: since the service is used by tens of thousands … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Economics, IT, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , ,

Google Innovates Again with Google Wave

Posted on June 25, 2009 by John Hunter

Google Wave is a new tool for communication and collaboration on the web, coming later this year. They are developing this as an open access project. The creative team is lead by the creators for Google Maps (brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen). A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. You really have to watch to understand what it is. This is a long webcast … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Google, IT, Management, Process improvement, Software Development, webcast | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Top 10 Reasons Why Employees Leave in IT

Posted on June 23, 2009 by John Hunter

Some of the problems expressed in the post linked to are specific to IT, and some are more important in software development (where as I have said before employees have higher expectations of management than most employees do), but many have truth for many employees. A good manager can create an environment where these problems are eliminated or reduced. Top 10 Reasons Why Employees Leave in IT No prioritization on items therefore constant interruptions in projects are the norm leaving … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Software Development | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Joel Spolsky Webcast on Creating Social Web Resources

Posted on May 4, 2009 by John Hunter

Joel Spolsky webcast on creating Stack Overflow (with the goal of providing answers to professional programmers) using ideas from anthropology. Once again he provides great information. This is particularly interesting for software development but also just a good presentation for understanding the importance of customer focus and systems thinking. What they focused on and did: Voting – Reddit… (see our management Reddit) Tags – lets you see what you want and to block tags you don’t want to see. Editing … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Software Development, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Build Your Business Slowly and Without Huge Cash Requirements

Posted on April 12, 2009 by John Hunter

Get Rich Slow by Josh Quittner At no other time in recent history has it been easier or cheaper to start a new kind of company… These are Web-based businesses that cost almost nothing to get off the ground … The term ramen profitable was coined by Paul Graham, a Silicon Valley start-up investor, essayist and muse to LILO entrepreneurs. It means that your start-up is self-sustaining and can eke out enough profit to keep you alive on instant noodles … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Competition, Creativity, Innovation, Investing, IT, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , ,

Checklists in Software Development

Posted on April 7, 2009 by John Hunter

Verify your work with checklists WHO has recently shown that surgical deaths can be reduced by a third when hospitals follow their Surgical Safety Checklist. The checklist is very low tech. It includes questions like whether the patient has been properly identified, whether the proper tools are available, and whether everyone knows what kind of procedure is about to be done. If a checklist so simple can save so many lives, I thought the technique could surely help us do … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, IT, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Software Development | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

The Importance of Making Problems Visible

Posted on April 2, 2009 by John Hunter

Great, short, presentation webcast by Jason Yip showing the importance of making problems visible. Anyone interested in software development should watch this, and it is valuable for everyone else, also. Great visuals. Related: Future Directions for Agile Management – Agile Software Development Slideshow – Leading Lean: Missed Opportunity – Information Technology and Management – Curious Cat Micro-financiers – posts on project management – Toyota Institute for Managers

Posted in IT, Lean thinking, Management, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

What Managers can Learn From Open Source Project Management

Posted on February 23, 2009 by John Hunter

What managers can learn from Open Source by Murray Cumming Motivation: People work on open source projects because they enjoy it. These happy developers are productive developers. Managers of open source projects must ensure that the developers feel valued and fulfilled. They must minimise the tedious aspects of the work to ensure that development remains interesting. Otherwise, projects fail. Although money can provide some incentive it does not provide as much. Managers who say that money is the greatest motivator … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, IT, Management, Respect, Software Development | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Newspaper Innovation In Kansas

Posted on January 29, 2009 by John Hunter

The newspaper industry is facing challenging times. One success story is the Lawrence Journal-World in Lawrence, Kansas. I first heard about their efforts years ago: Watchful Eyes on Kansas Media Innovations, NPR, 2005 Many media companies hoped that convergence — combining television, print and online resources — would help them survive. Instead, many companies have lost money on online journalism. In Lawrence, Kan., Dolph Simons’ Journal-World newspaper has taken ambitious news-gathering approaches to local issues. The Newspaper of the Future, … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Deming, Innovation, IT | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

What to Wear to an Interview

Posted on January 3, 2009 by John Hunter

Response to What to Wear for an IT Job Interview?. Is this just a huge bit stereotypical? Who can blame them for not wanting to bother with their wardrobes? Fashion is fickle. Fashion is expensive. Fashion requires imagination and inspiration, and let’s face it, after a long day spent debugging code or trouble-shooting computer problems, there’s not a lot of creativity left for clothing. But if there’s one professional occasion when a tech worker should think fashion first, it’s the … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, IT, Psychology, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Information Technology and Business Process Support

Posted on December 3, 2008 by John Hunter

I moved from management improvement work into information technology work (where I continue to practice management improvement). Many IT practices follow quality management guidelines well (agile software development for one). I have found it far easier to design and provide software solutions than convince people to change their processes directly. I found it funny that as I delivered new IT solutions, in which was embedded a redesign of the process, those changes were often accepted without any significant debate. But … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, quote, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Lame Move by Google

Posted on November 2, 2008 by John Hunter

Google does great things and makes good decisions most often. However a recent move on their part has ended very lamely. As part of what their 10th anniversary celebration they provided a search of the 2001 index (the oldest index they could find to search now). This was extremely cool. Now if you go to find it so you can try it out you will be disappointed. Search for it on Google you will find a link to Google Search … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Google, IT | Tagged , , , , ,

The Software Engineering Manager’s Lament

Posted on October 23, 2008 by John Hunter

The engineering manager’s lament by Eric Ries: In teams that follow the “pick two” agenda [quality, time or price], which two has to be resolved via a power play. In companies with a strong engineering culture, the engineers pick quality. It’s their professional pride on the line, after all. So they insist on having the final say on when a feature is “done” enough to show to customers. Business people may want to speed things up by spending more money, … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , ,

Making Life Difficult for Customers

Posted on September 27, 2008 by John Hunter

Companies seem to think technology is an excuse to provide bad service. Or maybe they don’t need any excuse at all to do so, based on how often they provide bad service. My latest experience with lame pointy haired boss technology came while looking to watch a football game online. Years ago you could listen to any Wisconsin Badger game over the internet – very simple, no special software (just the simple free Real Audio plugin). In subsequent years (just … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Management Articles, Posts…

Posted on September 4, 2008 by John Hunter

Reddit is a web site that ranks web pages by user votes. If you login and vote yourself they will develop a pattern of what you like and can show you a list of the pages you are likely to enjoy. I believe this is done by matching your likes and dislikes with others. When showing you a list of recommended links it gives some importance to up votes by anyone and more priority to up votes by those that … Continue reading →

Posted in curiouscat.com, IT, Management, Management Articles, Tags | Tagged , , | 1 Comment