5 Things You Should Do Better with Each Passing Project
Project management is a great blend of the old and the new. Each new project sees you have to learn new processes and systems as well as deal with new people, which keeps it fresh and interesting. However, a lot of the tasks remain the same each time, which stops you from feeling overwhelmed with each new piece of work. This also means that you can expect to progress in your skill levels on certain tasks with each passing project.
The Year in Tech Quotes
"I just figured two's better than one. Seriously, it's a large company. We have a separation of responsibilities." ... With 2013 coming to an end, IDG News Service took an annual look back at quotes from news stories over the last 12 months. Here are a handful that stuck with us through the year
Thousands delayed after flights grounded at UK airports
Problems began when the control centre’s computer systems failed to automatically switch from night to day operations, forcing flight controllers to carry out the procedure manually. ... "We experienced a technical problem in the early hours of this morning, which means that it hasn't been possible to reconfigure the voice communications system to split out the sectors for the busier daytime traffic in some areas of the UK enroute airspace.
Never Stop Expecting More from Your Unstructured Data
Keyword technologies use probabilistic algorithms that focus on matching and are not able to make sense of the exact meaning of each word in search. Today’s businesses are dealing not only with traditional structured data, but more and more with the unstructured data (text, email and documents and more) that fill our databanks, file sharing systems and CRMs. Analysts rightly wonder how they can effectively relate the structured with the ever growing volume of unstructured data for something meaningful.
Three Ways to Say No to a Reference Request
If you find yourself in the unenviable position of being asked for a reference letter you have no interest in, or ability to write, there is a way out. In fact, there are three ways out — three excuses that are perfectly suitable. They include: 1. Not being willing or able to spend the time; 2. Not knowing someone well enough; and 3. Not being able to provide a glowing review
International Rescue - Recovering a Failing Project
Communication is key – across the team, with the external suppliers engaged to assist and most importantly with the impacted business areas. We had some tense conference calls throughout the recovery but being able to demonstrate a risk based plan to address the issues and clearly communicating it, and progress against it, bought us the time we need to succeed.
How can you adapt ITIL to be used in the Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is here and being used by organizations to allow them to be more fleet footed in time to market, and nimble in aligning to changing business needs when it comes to delivering the services to the business and its customers. From a service management perspective it makes no difference wether the service is delivered from the “Cloud”, an in house hosted infrastructure or a combination of both. You still need a framework for managing service delivery and ensuring services.
Study: Data Center Downtime Costs $7,900 Per Minute
The study reveals that even more significant costs are incurred by organizations with revenue models that depend on the data center’s ability to deliver IT and networking services to customers. The highest cost of a single event in the study was more than $1.7 million. These industries saw a slight decrease compared to 2010 costs, while organizations that traditionally have been less dependent saw a significant increase.
Is Poor Quality the Antihero of Data?
Perhaps poor quality is data’s antihero — a central character lacking some of the conventional heroic attributes but nonetheless benefits the greater good, albeit not always by the most noble means possible. After all, without poor quality there would not be, according to Gartner research, a market for data quality technology projected to produce $2 billion in constant-dollar revenue by 2017. Which is not to say that all you have to do is throw technology at poor quality data, but it is one of many essential aspects of data quality best practices.
Tokyo Has Plans to Be Asia’s Tech HQ – But Are They Enough?
“Tokyo’s high status in Asia is threatened as we face a situation where foreign companies increasingly move to other Asian cities,” project director Noriko Adachi told the newspaper. To encourage more to come back to Tokyo, the initiative will offer free Accenture consulting and advisory services; up to 5 million yen (about $50,000) in subsidies; the use of a Business Development Center peopled by bilingual staff to provide extra support;
Quote for the day:
"There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience and that is not learning from experience." -- Archibald McLeish
Project management is a great blend of the old and the new. Each new project sees you have to learn new processes and systems as well as deal with new people, which keeps it fresh and interesting. However, a lot of the tasks remain the same each time, which stops you from feeling overwhelmed with each new piece of work. This also means that you can expect to progress in your skill levels on certain tasks with each passing project.
The Year in Tech Quotes
"I just figured two's better than one. Seriously, it's a large company. We have a separation of responsibilities." ... With 2013 coming to an end, IDG News Service took an annual look back at quotes from news stories over the last 12 months. Here are a handful that stuck with us through the year
Thousands delayed after flights grounded at UK airports
Problems began when the control centre’s computer systems failed to automatically switch from night to day operations, forcing flight controllers to carry out the procedure manually. ... "We experienced a technical problem in the early hours of this morning, which means that it hasn't been possible to reconfigure the voice communications system to split out the sectors for the busier daytime traffic in some areas of the UK enroute airspace.
Never Stop Expecting More from Your Unstructured Data
Keyword technologies use probabilistic algorithms that focus on matching and are not able to make sense of the exact meaning of each word in search. Today’s businesses are dealing not only with traditional structured data, but more and more with the unstructured data (text, email and documents and more) that fill our databanks, file sharing systems and CRMs. Analysts rightly wonder how they can effectively relate the structured with the ever growing volume of unstructured data for something meaningful.
Three Ways to Say No to a Reference Request
If you find yourself in the unenviable position of being asked for a reference letter you have no interest in, or ability to write, there is a way out. In fact, there are three ways out — three excuses that are perfectly suitable. They include: 1. Not being willing or able to spend the time; 2. Not knowing someone well enough; and 3. Not being able to provide a glowing review
International Rescue - Recovering a Failing Project
Communication is key – across the team, with the external suppliers engaged to assist and most importantly with the impacted business areas. We had some tense conference calls throughout the recovery but being able to demonstrate a risk based plan to address the issues and clearly communicating it, and progress against it, bought us the time we need to succeed.
How can you adapt ITIL to be used in the Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is here and being used by organizations to allow them to be more fleet footed in time to market, and nimble in aligning to changing business needs when it comes to delivering the services to the business and its customers. From a service management perspective it makes no difference wether the service is delivered from the “Cloud”, an in house hosted infrastructure or a combination of both. You still need a framework for managing service delivery and ensuring services.
Study: Data Center Downtime Costs $7,900 Per Minute
The study reveals that even more significant costs are incurred by organizations with revenue models that depend on the data center’s ability to deliver IT and networking services to customers. The highest cost of a single event in the study was more than $1.7 million. These industries saw a slight decrease compared to 2010 costs, while organizations that traditionally have been less dependent saw a significant increase.
Is Poor Quality the Antihero of Data?
Perhaps poor quality is data’s antihero — a central character lacking some of the conventional heroic attributes but nonetheless benefits the greater good, albeit not always by the most noble means possible. After all, without poor quality there would not be, according to Gartner research, a market for data quality technology projected to produce $2 billion in constant-dollar revenue by 2017. Which is not to say that all you have to do is throw technology at poor quality data, but it is one of many essential aspects of data quality best practices.
Tokyo Has Plans to Be Asia’s Tech HQ – But Are They Enough?
“Tokyo’s high status in Asia is threatened as we face a situation where foreign companies increasingly move to other Asian cities,” project director Noriko Adachi told the newspaper. To encourage more to come back to Tokyo, the initiative will offer free Accenture consulting and advisory services; up to 5 million yen (about $50,000) in subsidies; the use of a Business Development Center peopled by bilingual staff to provide extra support;
Quote for the day:
"There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience and that is not learning from experience." -- Archibald McLeish
