Month: March 2014

Ditch the flashy portfolio

A portfolio by definition is “a large, thin, flat case for loose sheets of paper such as drawings or maps.” I see lots of these when evaluting the merits of leveraging someone’s expertise, especially graphic design expertise. It seems like the goal is to cram in as many images as possible as some tribute of quantity to indicate expertise. Many…

Stop Wasting Money on Training

The pace of change in our technology driven world is astounding. There are so many opportunities to revolutionize the way we do business. But effectively adopting change is no trivial matter. It’s very easy to become overwhelmed and feel left behind. To combat this, organizations engage in training to further the skills of their employees. This training traditionally comes in…

Wallowing In Ideas

Anyone involved in software development is keenly aware there’s never a shortage of ideas. Sometimes ideas are on the scale of a multi month development endeavor. Often they’re just a small tweak to existing software. The trouble is, ideas are customarily acted upon without a second thought. The waste is debilitating. Ideas alone are merely a possible course of action.…

Ax Vestigial Features

I routinely observe projects where developers and users are busy safeguarding countless features that provide absolutely no value to anybody. In many situations people are aware but nobody will do anything about it. In other situations, they may not even know. Vestigial features sap the efficacy of systems. Take the time to curate metrics to effectively monitor the features of…