I would like to set out a challenge for all consultants regardless of your particular area of expertise.  Whenever you are asked to help a client on some problem, I challenge you to leave the client more equipped and more confident to deal with the next similar issue that arises.

What does an organization do when it is dissatisfied with the way things are going and wants to make a change?   Most managers face this dilemma and often need help.  I think this subject is not simple and needs careful consideration.  One thing I think that is ver

I had a conversation the other day about the IT Department.  He is the head  of a division manufacturing rubber products for other products.  He was saying how frustrating it is to communicate with IT people.  They really do not speak in a language you can understa

Surprise, no CoffeeCAST today as I am off on holidays.  So I thought I would cobble something different together. I have had the great fortune to be working with some great guys on a bunch of projects over the last 9 months.  Somewhere along the line in a late night session I played a

When we are dealing with a complex subject like data warehousing and most complex IT areas, I think that returning to the fundamentals of the discipline is really helpful.  One often gets mired down in small details and forget about the principle of good design.  A good desi

I was reminded this week about the value of what we do in Information Technology. The Value to the Customer. In the world of data warehousing this is often confusing.  Is it the IT project that our data supports, the marketing or operational group that leverages our IT system or

Welcome to the 38th CoffeeCAST with Stephen Hayward of Project X Ltd.  We are on the road this week, having jumped to Ottawa and Montreal on a three city tour.  It is cold and sunny and having some fun. Today I would like to Charles to the CoffeeCAST.  We are sitting here late at the

One of the interesting things about social computing and it’s evolution is the applicability in the Enterprise.  As organizations grow, the ability to communicate ideas and learning becomes more difficult. The web has done wonders in enabling this sort of shared conversatio

There was a joke going around that said you hired a consultant to tell you the time, he asked for your watch, told you the time and kept your watch.  Whenever I heard that I added that before I left with their watch I taught them how to tell time.  There is always a message

Another approach to desk checking is code reviews and design reviews.  Both these practices are a great help to the project when they are done with a spirit of ego-less inquiry.  I believe we would save a tremendous amount of time in rework and bugs if we did more design rev