Porter’s Competitive Analysis

This is another blog in my series on planning.  Michael Porter’s books on Competitive Strategy are a business classics and really have some good models in helping to analyze your situation in your business environment.  As Senge says, the ability to have good mental mo

Centralize versus Decentralize

Most organizations struggle with the centralization versus decentralization regularly and make changes frequently.  Often the IT organization is a central part of the discussion, if you pardon the pun. In several consulting assignments we have worked through this issue with organ

Reframing to Make Things Positive

I think we all need to set a strategy for ourselves to reframe things to the positive.  When things happen that you might want to complain about allow yourself to bitch for a moment and then ask how can I see this differently.  Is there a lesson in this experience? If everyt

Marketing Yourself

In discussion recently I was talking to somebody about marketing yourself, particularly early in your career.  One problem is that has early in your career you lack experience.  I think one can compensate with enthusiasm.  If I was selecting a person for a project and I

Outside the Box is NOT Outside the Corporate Structure

Thinking or acting outside of the box can sometimes be perceived as rash or brazen behaviour in some organiztions.  I was in an internal meeting yesterday where I was the client and I was reminded about the challenge that process and outside the box thinking often have, so though

Future Directions of My Blogging

I have really enjoyed sharing my ideas over the last year and look forward to some interesting dialog in 2008.  I have been contemplating what my strategy might be for the year.  My goal is to make a contribution to people’s lives and help the readers think about new a

Maintain Your Power Base

I was watching a DVD of the history of the Kingston Trio and something Dave Guard said really struck a cord with me.  Dave left the very successful trio when they were at the peak of their success because he thought they should go in a new direction and said "my way or I qui

New System Introduction

I have been thinking about readiness for change and the way we introduced new systems to our customers.  The general scenario is that we do business analysis to find out what are the requirements for the new system.   We then get key people to sign off on the requiremen

The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power

The book referred to above is a very challenging book and really makes you think about the motivation and character of the public corporation.  The key thing apparently is that the owners, shareholders, are not libel or responsible for the activity of the corporation.  The o

Return to Fundementals

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