I’ve written before on how the most important thing that a CTO/CIO deals with is the proper allocation of resources. I’ve discussed how doing proper resource allocation isn’t just a matter of deciding exactly what Sam or Mary will work on this week, but actually figuring out the whole project portfolio, including sustainment activity, […]
Trust. It’s important. And a company typically instills a huge amount of trust in its IT department, particularly (as is often the case today) if that IT department is responsible for the operation of systems (such as web sites) that contribute significantly to the bottom line.
I’ve been at the helm of several IT departments […]
Here’s a post of a type I rarely do: a reaction to an item recently posted to the Internet. Specifically, a day or two ago, Steve McConnell’s firm Construx, Inc. released their update of McConnell’s list of classic software development mistakes. This survey and its results is worth everyone’s time to read (and […]
What does IT do, anyway?
Well, among other things, IT spends money. In many modern companies, the expenditures made through IT are among the highest in the company, second only to salaries and marketing.
What does that mean? It often means that when cost-cutting time comes around (as it tends to do, in cycles, at […]
I saw a license plate recently that read DWYSYWD. I puzzled over it for a while (Google wasn’t handy), and then it suddenly flashed on me: Do What You Say You Will Do. I’ve since learned that this is a well-known phrase, used by people such as Colin Powell, among others.
How does this relate […]
I wasn’t ever a very good bridge player, and it’s been decades since I played. Hence, using this analogy may be stretching matters, but as is typical, I took away some key metaphors from my time with the game. One is the squeeze play, where you force your opponent to discard a vital […]
This may be the hardest posting to write so far, but it is a necessary bookend to my other recent posts about hiring. It’s hard to write because actually firing anyone is hard: it’s emotional and full of moments of self-doubt, before and after. And I can only scratch the surface of the […]
I made two really bad hiring decisions in a row a few years back, and I have to admit that it shook me for a while. I won’t go into details about why these two hires were horrendous (although I should note that the problem was not because the requisite technical skills were lacking), […]