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Enterprise 2.0 Pilots

June 8, 2010 by Phil Simon
with 604 views
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Andrew McAfee started an interesting discussion recently with his post Drop the Pilot. McAfee makes no bones about the fact that he isn’t a big fan of pilots for Enterprise 2.0 projects. Both in the comments and in subsequent posts by people like Phil Green, many have weighed in with their thoughts on these type of pilot projects... [read more]

Overcoming the Barriers to IM Success: Learn from the Past.

May 12, 2010 by MIKE20 Governance Association
with 187 views
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The total annual cost of worldwide IT failures is $6.2 trillion dollars- a staggering amount-  according to calculations performed by Roger Sessions, enterprise architect and CTO of ObjectWatch.   How can organizations overcome these financially disastrous situations? Firstly, it’s important to note that... [read more]

The Technology Adoption Life Cycle

May 6, 2010 by Phil Simon
with 723 views
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I have spent time this week working on a new piece for Cutter on emerging technologies such as cloud computing and MDM. Interestingly, I returned to a tried and true concept: Technology Adoption Life Cycle (TALC). For those of you unfamiliar with TALC, Wikipedia defines it as a model that …describes the adoption or acceptance of... [read more]

Business Sponsorship

April 8, 2010 by Peter Thomas
with 193 views
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  Strong business sponsorship is generally cited as a major success factor for IT projects. From one perspective this is essentially a truism, but looking at the phrase from a different angle perhaps reveals something of interest – indeed perhaps it highlights a reason for some IT projects failing. Let’s look at a definition to... [read more]

Recently Read 02/10/2010

February 15, 2010 by Phil Simon
with 111 views
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A few highlights from the blogosphere this week: The Relational Database This is an interesting–if long–post on the future of the relational database. I found this line particularly provocative: Bugs in a properly designed relational database usually don’t lead to data integrity issues; bugs in a key/value database, however, quite... [read more]

The Practice Mentality

November 27, 2009 by Phil Simon
with 227 views
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I’ve always been a sports junkie and, in particular, a fan of SportsCenter.  Hey, we all need our escapes from the daily grind, right? While watching the Allen Iverson retirement announcement last night at a local bar, I couldn’t help but remember one of my favorite rants of all time: the infamous “Practice” monologue. Say what... [read more]

The Chopping Block: Three Questions to Ask When Considering Cutting Features from an IT Project

November 13, 2009 by Phil Simon
with 393 views
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I am often involved with projects that are running behind schedule and over budget. Such is life of an IT consultant, I suppose. In many instances, projects can recoup valuable time if non-essential features and functionality are removed from the immediate plan and postponed until a later time. This post explores the decision on what... [read more]

Blog-Bout: “Risk” versus “Monopoly”

October 13, 2009 by Jim Harris
with 120 views
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A “blog-bout” is a good-natured debate between two bloggers. This blog-bout is between Jim Harris and Phil Simon, where they debate which board game is the better metaphor for an Information Technology (IT) project: “Risk” or “Monopoly.” Why “Risk” is a better metaphor for an IT Project By Jim Harris IT projects and “Risk” have a great... [read more]

Five Parallels Between Golf and IT Projects

October 12, 2009 by Phil Simon
with 78 views
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On my recent trip to Las Vegas, I was able to play a few amazing courses, including the TPC at Las Vegas. As is standard these days, I played very poorly. On the way home, I was tired, hurt, frustrated, and hungry. I started thinking about parallels between golf and IT projects. Both activities look simple from afar. They are not. Golf... [read more]

“Why do CFOs and CEOs hate IT? - ERP” - Thomas Wailgum at CIO.com

April 27, 2009 by Peter Thomas
with 200 views
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This is my second article in response to pieces by Thomas Wailgum at CIO.com (you can read the first one here). In Thomas’ latest piece, entitled Why CFOs and CEOs Hate IT: ERP, he touches on an area of which I have lengthy experience, ERP. I spent the first eight years of my career working for a a software house, whose central product... [read more]

Recipes for success?

April 22, 2009 by Peter Thomas
with 251 views
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I should acknowledge that I am indebted to a conversation that I had with John Collins on his blog, Views from the Bridge, for some of the themes I discuss in this article.  IntroductionTowards the end of a recent article on perseverance I referred to people’s desire to find recipes for success. Here’s what I said: Sometimes we want to... [read more]

Tactical Meandering

March 25, 2009 by Peter Thomas
with 163 views
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  tactics /táktiks/ n.pl. 2 a the plans and means adopted in carrying out a scheme or achieving some end. (O.E.D.)   meander /miándər/ n. 1 a a curve in a winding river etc. b a crooked or winding path or passage. (O.E.D.)  I was reminded of the expression “tactical meandering”, which I used to use quite a bit, by a thread on the... [read more]

A more appropriate metaphor for business intelligence projects

March 18, 2009 by Peter Thomas
with 142 views
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A traditional metaphor for IT projectsIT people are familiar with a number of metaphors for their projects. The most typical relates to building; IT projects are compared to erecting a skyscraper. The IT literature is suffused with language derived from this metaphor. We build systems. We develop blueprints for them. We design... [read more]