The IT Skeptic - management

The Summoner

skeptic — Fri, 29 Nov 2019 23:57:47 +0000

Huddled against the cold she peers out into the night. On a far distant hill, a tiny glimmering light of a fire. She squints until she is sure she has really seen it, and then runs down the track to tell the others

Separating out work and personnel management

skeptic — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 08:16:31 +0000

I believe the future is to separate work management from personnel ("people") management. This isn't my idea. It has been around forever in various forms. We have tried these ideas in the past. I worked in a matrixed organisation in 1985-7.

Kill the restructure

skeptic — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 04:05:13 +0000

I'm getting grumpy about the use of structural reorgs to chase ”transformation".
They don't work.
They break existing teams.
They damage morale.
They sow confusion.
And they turn one set of siloes into a different set of siloes.
I wrote recently about the dysfunctions of transformation, and restructuring is one of the worst.

Playing a piano is easy

skeptic — Sat, 14 Sep 2019 02:56:42 +0000

Playing the piano is easy.
The keys are in order and easy to reach.
All you do is memorise which keys make what notes, then play them in the order written on the sheet.
- Randall Munroe in his new book How To.

When I tweeted this, and followed up with

That's a complete set of operational instructions for the piano.

The dysfunctions of transformation

skeptic — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 09:19:17 +0000

There are classic mistakes being made over and over as large organisations try to "do Agile", "implement Agile", or *shudder* "transform". I'm getting passionate about preventing the harm.

New Ways Of Managing

skeptic — Tue, 09 Oct 2018 06:44:35 +0000

I'm now convinced that transformation to Agile isn't about new ways of working, it's about New Ways Of Managing™.
Change the governance, policy, KPIs, system, products, services, and people development. The culture and work will change.
This is the IT Skeptic's Big idea for 2018.

That which cannot be measured...

skeptic — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 10:05:35 +0000

Just because you can't - or don't - measure something doesn't mean you can't manage or improve it.

Organisations have failed their IT like bad parents

skeptic — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:14:27 +0000

Fed up with the modern failures of IT being all IT's fault, I thought it was time to do something about it. So here is a white paper aimed at educating the business world to their responsibilities for IT. The world has really messed up owning IT (Information Technology), like a bad parent messing up a child's upbringing, letting them develop bad habits. We need to do better. We can do better. We need to do it soon, as modern IT requirements become ever more complex. [The white paper was slightly edited for version 5 in June 2012]

Whining about the IT department

skeptic — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:09:28 +0000

If ever there was a classic example of how business people can become spoilt whining brats when it comes to IT services, it is in a recent article in Forbes online. Clearly, organisations have a stupendous amount of work to do to educate their staff in how to be grown-up about IT as a resource (no it is not IT's job to do this):