Articles
Pulling the plug on IT projects
In a prior post, I talked about conducting triage on your IT projects — that is, deciding which projects should (or must) go forward, and which should (or must) be shut down. The next question is: what do you do with the projects that are to be shut down? These IT projects typically fall into […]
IT retrenchment: performing IT project triage
The on-going economic turmoil in the U.S. and global economies over the past several years continues to force many organizations to freeze, trim or even dramatically slash internal budgets. If you’re an experienced IT manager, you already know that your budget may be among the first to be affected. And that means making hard choices, […]
The 5 books every IT manager should read right now
In a prior post I talked about setting up a reading program for your IT department. However, whether or not you can get your IT engineers to read, you yourself need to be aware of the fundamental realities of IT project management and software engineer that have been discovered again and again. In other words, […]
“Microsoft Windows Forever and Ever?” (Windows Magazine, June 1996)
[Here’s another article I published back in 1996, this one predicting the problems that Microsoft would face as it continued to advance the Windows operating system. While I didn’t anticipate in this article the rise of post-PC devices, nor the return of Steve Jobs to Apple and subsequent transformation of NeXTstep into OS X, I […]
How to retain IT talent with goal alignment
Back in 1990, I was hired by the principals of a start-up company (Pages Software) to build an engineering team from scratch to create a new product: a design-oriented word processor. For more than a year and a half, I acted both as head of engineering and as chief software architect — a dual role […]