A big challenge in the IT business is the relationship with the rest of the business. I have always suggested to IT people that they consider their view of the people in the personnel department. Likely the rest of the business may view you the same way. So what do you do to improve t

Here is a modern data management challenge that Harvey solved manually many years ago.  Technical journals were a very important way of keeping up to date.  Harvey read or scanned many journals.  We had a library of journals that was the envy of most.  When Harvey

We have all been involved in big projects that never were successfully implemented. Ever wonder why?    I think that the principle reason is that these projects involved significant change and most people would rather spend money than change. If you recall my item

A consulting firm called RHS&A. came up with an approach to organizational change which we used in much of our work at Gellman Hayward and have carried through to Project X. Most people and organizations have a great reluctance to change. In order to help them change, one approach

In my search for the meaning of life, the universe and everything, I must keep reminding myself that things are not always as they appear.  This fact is really evident in business and I refer to them as the "hidden factors".  These are the items that people do not

Welcome to the 9th Episode of Coffee Conversations with Stephen Hayward of Project X. Today I welcome back Jim to join me in a discussion on Metaphors and Technology.  In a post we did a couple of weeks ago and again this week, we endeavoured to use metaphors to help ground the variou

I was doing an interview with a female enigineer named Susan and took her into Harvey’s office for him to meet her.  During the interview, Susan developed hiccuos.  Harvey said he could help her.  He gave her a glass of water and he told her to drink the whole thi

I mentioned previoisly how important high quality documents were for us at Gellman, Hayward.  However to our great frustration, we would do a high quality report for a client and recieve high praise but nothing would change.  In the mid 70’s Harvey discovered an articl

I heard a rumour last week that there may be a reunion shaping up.  I will update everyone here as things progress. Update:  It appears to be June 15, 2006 is the date at the moment.

Harvey believed that every document we produced must error free and high quality.  In the days of the typewriter, that was no mean feat.  We did not even have snowpake on our letters or published reports.  To get the firm to get to that level and when you asked for two