How to champion an IT project solution
My latest Baseline column is now up: Last week, I talked about some of the reasons why large organizations often reject the best solutions for a troubled IT project: fear, pride, budget, and the...
View ArticleTradeoffs on buy vs. build
My newest Baseline column is up, talking about the dilemma faced in deciding whether to acquire software or build it yourself: The other day, an IT colleague of mine mentioned a conflict at a...
View ArticleTwo new columns up at Baseline
Obviously, I’ve been slow in posting here, since I’ve had two new columns go up at Baseline since I last posted. The first column, “Second Class Software Quality for Major IT Projects”, talks about the...
View ArticleActive risk management in IT projects
First, my apologies for the slow posting here and at BFWA.com over the past few months. It’s pretty bad when my last two posts have each covered my last two Baseline columns. But I’ve got some new...
View ArticleHanging on to your IT staff
I’ve written previously about the “Dead Sea effect“, in which your best IT engineers and managers leave over time, leaving behind an IT staff that is slowly becoming less competent and effective....
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Five books every IT manager should read…right now
My latest Baseline column is up, and it talks about why you should read these five books now, if you haven’t already. And if you have read them, you should probably re-read them. ..bruce..
View ArticleCoping with the economic downturn
I’m currently writing a series of columns for Baseline on how to deal with frozen or reduced IT budgets due to the current economic troubles. Here are the first two columns: Performing IT Project...
View ArticleFireflies, conveyor belts, and landfills
My newest Baseline column is up, and in it, I talk about technology lifecycles that can cause you grief: Each technology is on its own product lifecycle, which may or may not match with your...
View Article“Ground-truth documents”
A great post by Eric S. Raymond[*] (yes, that esr) on what he terms ground-truth documents: Here is an example: AIVDM/AIVDO protocol decoding. It describes the behavior of Marine AIS radios; I wrote it...
View ArticleA must-read for all software engineers and their managers
Thanks to Cat Mikkelsen [yes, ex-NeXT people, that Cat], I read this article. It’s written by Linds Redding, an art director and animator down in New Zealand who just passed away a few days ago. But it...
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Lies, Damned Lies, and Project Metrics (Part II)
[Part I is here.] In my previous post, I talked about the use of metrics in IT project management and the three qualities of an ideal metric: informative and preferably predictive, objective, and...
View ArticleLies, Damned Lies, and Project Metrics (Part III)
[Here are links to Part I and Part II] In the prior two parts (links above), I covered the ideal qualities of metrics (informative and, preferably, predictive; objective; and automated), and why it’s...
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Buying vs. building software applications: the eternal dilemma
Some years back, an IT colleague of mine mentioned a conflict at a corporation where he was working at the time. The corporation had a mission-critical application deployed across a large number of...
View ArticleGetting technology lifecycles in sync
Different technologies age at different rates. Understanding the variations is the first step to managing them. One of the great challenges you face as an IT manager is selecting the right technology...
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Do not defer the difficult in IT projects
When an IT project starts, those involved — both managers and developers — want to feel that they’re making progress. They also want to demonstrate that progress to those above them in the...
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Active risk management: doing IT projects wrong
IT projects are typically full of risks. There can be many human factors, many external factors, and many unknown factors, all of which can interact in unexpected ways. Because of that, it is critical...
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Active risk management: doing IT projects right
In a prior post, I talked about IT project risk management and gave a real-world example of doing it wrong, with the expected consequences. But some organizations do it right, and it’s worth looking...
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“The Real Software Crisis” [BYTE Magazine, January 1996]
[This commentary of mine, published in the January 1996 edition of BYTE Magazine (p. 218), used to be available on-line at BYTE.com, but no longer is, so I've re-posted it here. In the 17 years since...
View ArticleHow to retain IT talent with goal alignment
Back in 1990, I was hired by the principals of a start-up company (Pages Software) to build an engineering team from scratch to create a new product: a design-oriented word processor. For more than a...
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“Microsoft Windows Forever and Ever?” (Windows Magazine, June 1996)
[Here's another article I published back in 1996, this one predicting the problems that Microsoft would face as it continued to advance the Windows operating system. While I didn't anticipate in this...
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