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Toxic Leaders and Personal Simplicity

Vince Kellen, Ph.D. | Sep 5, 2009 1 Response

Sep 052009

“I didn’t take this position for the money,” he said looking at me somewhat smugly and for a very brief moment perhaps too honestly. “I did it for the power.” I remember the conversation well. It was about 15 years ago. As a consultant then, I was, from time to time, in the offices of business leaders who I was lucky enough to do business with. Obviously this was a case of a young manager impressing me with his new-found power. I could see the glint in his eye as he relished the chance to exercise power. As I sat there, I began to wonder. Has he been telling everyone his motives behind the advancement? …

Why It’s Important to Leverage IT Governance When the Chips Are Down … or Not.

Christine Generali | Sep 3, 2009 No Responses

Sep 032009

Senior Consultants Bob Benson and Tom Bugnitz are guest editors for an upcoming issue of Cutter IT Journal. Here is their Call for Papers, I hope you’ll consider submitting an article idea by September 10th. All organizations face difficult decisions in the current economic times like downsizing and cost containment. New technologies like the “cloud” force strategic decisions. Critical business and technical decisions have to be made for IT to contribute to organizational success and survival during the current downturn. At the same time, the economic situation makes resources much harder to find and justify. A risk is that current turbulence leads to blunt-instrument decision-making to deal with market and cost pressures. We believe organizations …

Visualize This!

Claude Baudoin | Sep 1, 2009 2 Responses

Sep 012009

A few days ago, a management consultant I follow on Twitter commented critically about a certain software vendor rating method, dubbed the “Magicke Quadrante” in this satire on the Web (shhh… like Voldemort’s, certain names shall not be uttered in this forum). He asked: “Were x and y coordinates so firmly etched in our brains that we can’t get away from it?”. It was hard to reply meaningfully in 140 characters, but I wrote: “it may be fairly simple: 1 rating dimension is rarely enough, >2 are hard to visualize, so we converge on 2, add thresholds = MQ” Not coincidentally, another Twitter correspondent pointed the next day to the “Periodic Table of Visualization Methods,” …

Where to find the Cutter Agile Team at Agile 2009: Days 3 & 4

Kim Leonard | Aug 26, 2009 No Responses

Aug 262009

My morning scan of the RSS feeds contained fewer blog posts from Agile 2009 attendees. This leads me to the conclusion that Tuesday night was a social one (and that the coffee stations had better be will stocked this morning!) Cutter folks are presenting several sessions over the next couple of days. Here’s where you’ll find them: Wednesday 8/26 11:00 am Rachel Davies & Johanna Hunt Telling Your Stories: Why Stories are important for your team Columbus GH 2:00 pm Christopher Avery & Ashley Johnson Coaching Success: Getting People to Take Responsibility & Demonstrate Ownership Regency B 2:00 PM Mark Levison & Linda Rising Learning: the best approaches for your brain Columbus GH Thursday 8/27 …

Cutter’s Agile team at Agile 2009: Days 1 & 2

Kim Leonard | Aug 25, 2009 No Responses

Aug 252009

It’s day two of Agile 2009 in Chicago, and we’ve gotten reports from our Agile consulting team of morning runs and cycling along the lakefront as well as consumption of classic Chicago pizza at Lou Malnati’s (I’m thinking the latter makes the former necessary!) Practice Director Jim Highsmith reports that he had 100 plus folks at both of his sessions (Advances in Release Planning and Zen & the Art of Software Quality) on Monday, a day that culminated with his election as President of the APLN. Congrats, Jim! Rachel Davies & Liz Sedley’s session, What Does an Agile Coach Do?, followed by today’s Top 10 Tips for Agile Coaches got great feedback, leaving folks anxious …

Cutter Blog on Top 200 List

Anne Mullaney | Aug 3, 2009 1 Response

Aug 032009

The Cutter Blog is again on Noop.NL’s list of Top 200 Blogs for Developers. Though it sounds like it’d be a list of really technically-focused blogs, it’s not. The blogs cover the broad topic of managing software development. Jurgen Appelo (@jurgenappelo) puts a lot of thought and work into pulling together this impressive list every quarter. Thanks Jurgen!

What’s New in the 2nd Edition of “Agile Project Management”

Jim Highsmith | Jul 27, 2009 3 Responses

Jul 272009

Agile Project Management, 2nd Edition, July 2009. by Jim Highsmith. Listen to a podcast interview with Israel Gat and Michael Cote later this week at http://theagileexecutive.com/. The new edition: Focuses on fundamentals of Agile project management, plus a new emphasis on issues impacting enterprise agility. Includes a new chapter Beyond Scope, Schedule, and Cost: Measuring Agile Performance. The Agile Triangle: Value, Quality, Constraints; what quality is and why it is important; outcome performance metrics; output performance metrics; shortening-the-tail. Revises agile values and concepts chapters to reflect three agile management values: Delivering Value over meeting Constraints (Value over Constraints), Leading the Team over managing Tasks (Team over Tasks), Adapting to change over Conforming to plans (Adapting …

One Small “Oops” for Amazon, One Giant “Holy #$@%” for Mankind

Ken Orr | Jul 23, 2009 1 Response

Jul 232009

“Hey, Honey, what happened to my 1984?” If you were one of the thousands of people around the world who were in the process of reading (or researching) George Orwell’s famous novel 1984 and woke up Friday, 17 July 2009, to find that it had somehow disappeared from your Kindle, take heart: this is not a bug; it is a feature — though a feature that Amazon, we are told, is in the process of reviewing and revising. That the book that introduced much of the world to the concept of centralized “mind control” was instantly erased on tens of thousands of “connected” devices is just too delicious to let pass — if there is …

How is IT governance management being applied? Help us find out.

Kim Leonard | Jul 23, 2009 No Responses

Jul 232009

Cutter Senior Consultant Bob Benson is researching how IT governance management practices are actually applied in organizations — and the effectiveness of those practices. We’re hoping you’ll let us know your opinions on this topic by participating in our survey. We’ll thank you with an immediate download of the Cutter Consortium article by Steve Andriole, New Governance vs. Organizational Terrorism“, when you complete the survey. If the IT Governance Survey isn’t a good fit for you, we’re also currently surveying on Software Project Requirements, and invite you to participate. Cutter’s constant flow of new research provides our clients with accurate forecasts about the business and technology strategies, tactics, and trends that will have an impact …

Another Inane User Interface

Claude Baudoin | Jul 17, 2009 1 Response

Jul 172009

I swear I won’t keep ranting about user-oriented design, but examples seem to stare me in the face these days. I was in Cleveland for a few days (don’t ask why), and looked at the fare machines on the Healthline express bus platforms. A few interesting discoveries ensued. The user interface consists of a screen, which is not tactile, and a few buttons placed on the side of the screen, similar to the last generation of ATMs. The first screen you see asks you to choose what you want to buy. The screen is not graphical, but character-oriented. It shows two lines of text, one for “Senior/Disabled Tickets”and the other one for regular fares. Next …

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General

Toxic Leaders and Personal Simplicity

Why It’s Important to Leverage IT Governance When the Chips Are Down … or Not.

Visualize This!

Where to find the Cutter Agile Team at Agile 2009: Days 3 & 4

Cutter’s Agile team at Agile 2009: Days 1 & 2

Cutter Blog on Top 200 List

What’s New in the 2nd Edition of “Agile Project Management”

One Small “Oops” for Amazon, One Giant “Holy #$@%” for Mankind

How is IT governance management being applied? Help us find out.

Another Inane User Interface

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