Categories
design other

Models

Build models based on historic data but be ready to place bets to increase potential IRR. Track budget IRR vs current IRR and have visibility of the spend as an absolute measure what assets can move the needle.

Categories
innovation other process

New market entry

When entering a new market makes sense to think like a hedge fund: come early, faster, sweet tooth the market and take longer bets.

Your platform needs to be market agnostic to a practical level (limited generic functionality, low complexity) while your processes could be market specific.

Categories
decisions future other

New IT

IT is responsible for all tech/dev/R&D/innovation. Right?

But what is the function of IT in a fast-moving data-driven hyper-competition market?

It is no longer mostly CTOs who hold businesses’ purse strings; by 2017 chief marketing officers will spend more on IT than their CIOs, reckons Gartner.

Customers are no longer willing just to buy the latest technology; they want to pay for specific results, for instance for sales increases achieved by using analytics software.

Categories
other work

Progress not

“Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.” ― Alfred A. Montapert

Categories
other process support

SaaS Prenap

When you consider buying a SaaS make sure that you have a prenap strategy in place (does service deactivation in FAQ section exist, for example).

At least test their support (send them an email with two questions since most support processes cannot handle branching queries) to find out if there is anybody behind the flashy website who is able to respond and guide you.

Categories
design other system

Useable software

Making software useable makes it harder to be used while making it easy to be used makes it less usable (across other software).

Search for The Learning CTO, a friend’s blog covering enterprise architecture.

Categories
decisions other process

AWS vs Azure support

We are testing migration to cloud. The long tech list of requirments is met by both clouds. But in our experience Microsoft wins in terms of suppoort which is by default phone based walk throughs while (paid) Amazon support defaults to emails that tend to be imprecise while their documentation is supperior (with cool Kindle integration). Assuming this is reflection of their cloud strategies (MS keen to build capability and customer base while AWS is optimising) pick the one that is aligned with the stage of your development.

Categories
hacks other

Google is your friend

Educate your users to default to searching for tech answers before reaching out to IT support. Google is your user’s friend.

Categories
design hacks other process tools

Okta

Ok. So you believe in micro services and shadow IT. You add a task management tool, e-payslips, HR app, case management and more. They all make sense since they address a specific need. And then at some point you feel a need to link them first via a single sign on (with a service like Okta) and later as a coordinated work flow. Don’t do this since you will be adding complexity and removing optionality to use the best service for the job since you will be embedding the tools that you selected because they are easily replaceable.

Categories
decisions other

365 + Active Dir

Cloud is simple, right? It just works. Well… no!

Corporates love Outlook. The other reason you would pick Office 365 is the fact you get… Office. But Office 365 is not a cloud native. It’s more of a hybrid trying not to offend old school IT while trying to compete with Gmail.

Think hard if Outlook delegates are worth the work to get on prem IT working with the ‘cloud’.