How Software Is Designed and Built
How software is designed and built. Its effect on value to a customer. Waterfall, agile and hacking. Iterative design and delivery and the benefits of iteration.
Contracting for Multi-Supplier DevOps
Just when multi-supplier (also known as SIAM) contracting is starting to get under control, DevOps emerges. This article looks at the interaction of the two for the design of retained and sourced IT operations. The implications for service contracts are profound and largely un-tested. The pages of management journals have been liberally sprinkled with fads…
Stealing a March: Using Innovation to Beat the Competition
CEOs have long seen the potential for technical innovation to steal a march on their competition. Some like Google and Amazon have consummately reinvented their industries this way. Achieving the goal is however desperately difficult. What could you do to define the vision, business model and deliver appropriate technology to support them? The Prize Strategists…
Remind Me: Why are we Doing This?
The reason for making any change is that there is an expectation that the new state will be sufficiently better than the current to justify the effort of undergoing the change. How can a business case be supported by the reliable management of benefits to capture more of the expected return? Art enlivens the soul.…
The Trouble with Innovation
There are few matters raising as much heat and as little light in service provision as innovation. Customers are often aggrieved that they do not gain the competitive advantage they think they have paid for. How can you gain competitive advantage from innovation by sourcing services effectively? At the start of an assignment some time…
Project Delusion
Projects have been running over-budget and late since the Pharaohs built their tombs. Since then, good practice has been published and qualifications have been established, so why do projects and programmes still go wrong? Whilst most projects slightly over-run, a significant minority goes catastrophically bad, even sinking their host companies. What can you do to…
