The Challenges to Global Collaboration

There has been a lot of discussion lately on the web about how we're beginning to achieve the decades old goal of consistent global collaboration for innovation and problem-solving.  The celebration may be a bit premature, not unlike prior victory dances we engaged in related to: Cancer Research Flying Cars or Electric Cars for that matter Space travel AIDs Cures Big Data changing the world Artificial Intelligence and so on... We have had...

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Understanding Data Architecture

Someone asked me what at first sounded like a very straightforward question earlier this week; "what is Data Architecture" - or more precisely, what does it mean to you. Usually, I'm not usually at a loss for words when it comes to expounding upon IT Architecture related topics - but it occurred to me at that moment that my previous understanding of what Data Architecture really represents is or has been a little flawed or perhaps just outdated....

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The Value of Architecture Assessments

While many people are becoming somewhat familiar with IT or Enterprise Architecture, relatively few know much about Architecture Assessments. This is unfortunate given the significant value proposition such exercises provide. For example, had one or more Architecture Assessments been provided for Healthcare.gov during the course of the project; it is unlikely that the Obama administration would have been surprised by the current mess it's now facing. Problem...

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What Does an IT Architect Do?

This is an interesting question for anyone thinking about working as an Architect but also for anyone else working in IT because there isn't a consistent set of definitions regarding architects within the industry. Architects who do more or less the same things with the same skills could variously be referred to as: Enterprise Architects Solution Architects Project Architects IT Architects Technical Architects Data Architects Application Architects Business...

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The Real Problem with Healthcare.gov

The biggest story in IT this year is without a doubt, the rollout issues surrounding Healthcare.gov - a.k.a Obamacare. The story is both bizarre and quite familiar at the same time and does represent perhaps the first time that national politics has been so laser-focused on an IT project. Many people who have been introduced into the world of IT through this might think that the saga of Healthcare.gov is unique or somehow unusual - well, it is isn't....

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3 Common Cloud Challenges

Like all new technology trends, Cloud Computing brings with it both opportunities and challenges. Unfortunately, the current hype cycle across the IT industry hasn't done the best job of defining either very well (at least not yet). Most of the information out there tends to portray the Cloud as a the ultimate (latest) silver bullet technology. So, is it?  From my perspective - it could only be viewed as a a conditional, evolutionary improvement...

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Revisiting Agile Business Intelligence

The other day the TDWI (the Data Warehouse Institute) sent me a brochure highlighting Agile BI workshops and seminars. Here's how they define it: "Agile business intelligence addresses a broad need to enable flexibility by accelerating the time it takes to deliver value with BI projects. It can include technology deployment options such as self-service BI, cloud-based BI, and data discovery dashboards that allow users to begin working with...

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You Know You've been in IT too Long When...

Nothing says we can't be innovative and humorous... This is an Android we can believe in... You use a magic Quadrant to comparison shop. You refer to the wait staff as customer responsive service interfaces. You don't understand any longer how a Cloud could produce rain.  You're confused between Socialism and Social networks. You wish you were working on the Skynet project. You refer to your kids as 2.0, 3.0 and talk about your family...

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Top 5 Reasons IT Projects Fail

Last Fall, I wrote an article for Dice.com about the top 5 reasons ERP projects fail: that was in response to news of a specific project shutdown. However, the topic as to why IT projects in general seem to be so failure prone is worth exploring as well. As far as hard statistics as to how many IT projects succeed or fail; it's difficult to get a clear picture. Part of the reason this is the case is that often when a project is clearly going to...

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The Top 10 Tips for Team Leadership

There is a lot written about leadership and quite frankly most of it isn't too helpful. In some ways leadership is a fairly simple proposition as long as you approach it in a straightforward manner. Like most things, being an effective leader involves following a consistent and concise set of principles. I suppose you could list hundreds of these guidelines but the reality is you only need a handful – and of course only having a few ensures that...

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Redefining the Chief Innovation Officer

The role of Chief Innovation Officer has been around for more than a decade but it hasn’t been universally adopted yet across most organizations. In fact, there is quite a bit of confusion as to how the CTO, CIO (information officer), Strategy and Innovation ought to relate to one another. Many organizations combine all these roles within the Chief Information Officer job description. While combining the CTO and CIO roles together makes sense, adding...

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Joomla versus Wordpress

Deploying and maintaining websites used to be quite the ordeal, especially if you had content intensive requirements or clients who wanted to be able to update key design features such as navigation on a regular basis. While approaches for how to manage that process improved from the early 90’s through to early 2000’s there was still a great deal of manual coordination and update required. Changes in scripts deployed inline needed to be adjusted...

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Deconstructing Time part 7 - Mach's Principle

Before we introduce Mach or Relativity, let's step back for a moment and recap what we've covered so far. We began with a Use Case - how do we find coordinates in space-time? This is a Use Case that could be applied to Astronomy, to GPS scenarios, to writing Science Fiction stories or movies and potentially many to other situations.  We explained how we would take an outsider's perspective using what is a essentially an IT methodology for problem...

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