Given the high profile nature of identity theft and security breaches, there are many laws, policies, and guidelines that companies are using to classify and manage the information technology systems in a secure manner.  What exactly is secure data and how should it be handled?More...

The physical amount of time spent on a task is not the same as the calendar time that it takes to complete the task. This is especially true when teams are working on multiple tasks. Project managers need to understand this when planning and getting estimates from a development team. More...

Those who've read the book The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering know the mantra Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.  But why does it make it later?  How many resources should you put on a project to optimize the delivery date?  How do you explain and justify to the customers and teams the optimal number of resources to be on a project?  How do you explain that adding more than the optimal resources won't make the delivery date sooner?  Resource saturation is my answer. More...

We strive for good quality, a job well done, making the client happy. Having a customer or client that is so enthusiastic about a solution my team and I delivered that they use dramatic phrases like “improved the way we do business and increased our competitive advantage” from Bob Ulrich the chairman and CEO and “Life just got simpler in our stores” from Craig Lindner Senior Manager, Store operations both from one of the largest retail organizations in North America can only be described as an honor and a privilege. More...

For the last two and a half years, I've been working on helping Target corporation with a project to bring a dashboard reporting application to work on a mobile device.  The project has been well received and so popular among store managers, that it's won an award within Target. Not just any award, but the Best Company Ever Award. It feels like winning an Oscar. More...

Focus or stress causes us to overlook things we would normally notice (inattentional blindness).  When people focus too much on one thing, people don't notice other changes.  Take the video example below that illustrates this example.  There are five changes that occur during this video. More...

photo: Willi Heidelbach stock xchng

It's not that software is never finished.  It's just that done is not a good description to describe the status of software.

What's the status of the "Buy 12 get one free promotion?"

It's done!

What's done for one particular team isn't done for another.  Done for the business analyst isn't done for the the person doing deployment.  It leads to a lot of confusion among teams, particularly when teams are in multiple physical locations. More...