Articles on I.T. Management Topics

Some of these articles have been published in trade journals or professional society publications. Others are exclusively published here.

Articles on Project Management and General I.T. Management The Issue Is Management Discipline—Why must organizations keep relearning long-established principles? Task Status is Binary—Avoiding vague and over-optimistic status reporting. Taking a Work Break—Managing interruptions. Killing a Project Isn't Failure — coping with the "stay the course" mentality. What Ever Happened to Return on Infrastructure Investment?—Organizations are focusing on extreme short-range performance. Management article: Assigning Blame for a Maintenance Nightmare—Following up on an October article. Two Easy Rules for a Director of System Development—If these are obvious, why doesn't everyone practice them? Is Insubordination Becoming an Agile Tradition -- An alarming tradition is evolving If You Don't Ask I Won't Tell -- An ethical problem for subcontractors and advice for those who hire them. Have We Lost Our Minds? -- Some people are giving up altogether on project planning. What Ever Happened to the Work Week? -- Why is everyone working 60 hours a week? The Burden of Proof in Project Estimating One common cause of project fiascos. Too Many Conference Calls -- A disturbing trend in organizations that used to have too many meetings. Offshore Software Development Contracts. A manager's guide to seven essential requirements. Deadlines and Target Dates: 5 Guidelines for Avoiding Disaster -- a growing problem in large and small organizations. (Issue of the Month for October, 1999) Are Major Software Upgrades Uncontrollable? -- comments on some recent costly fiscos.	Articles on Professional Staffing NEW in April, 2009: The untrainables—A growing problem with managing the professional staff. Screening Professionals by Keywords—The wrong way to identify candidates Must Downsizing Cripple an Organization?—Unintended side effects of early retirement incentives Should We Stamp Out Developers? -- Shift in job titles generating confusion. Where Have All the Women Gone? -- our issue of the month for March, 2005 Are Application Programmers Cheaters? -- our issue of the month for September, 2004 What Ever Happened to Systems Analysts? -- our issue of the month for November, 2003 Thoughts on Interviewing a Programmer Candidate -- Our Issue of the month for November, 2001. Vendor-Controlled Certification Raises Concerns Outside programming services: Body Shops versus Professional Services Firms Instilling Professionalism in a Software Development Organization, presented April, 1988, at the ACM SIGCPR Conference on the Management of Information Systems Personnel, College Park, and even more relevant in today's high-pressure, competitive corporate world. The Final Triumph of the Junior Programmer -- a puzzling shift in titles. Offensive and Demeaning Designations for Computing Professionals Reappearing -- Writers and companies adopt insulting terms.
Articles on Methodology Administration How to Condemn the "Traditional Approach" -- Revisionist methodologists are knocking down straw men. If It Ain't Broke, Fix It Anyway -- The endless succession of fad methodologies. Are Organizations Losing Interest in Process Improvement? -- If so, why, and what can we do about it? There's no Such Thing as the Waterfall Approach -- Explaining a straw man canard.	Articles on Organization Issues NEW in July: "Look Busy!": No. Be Busy—Avoiding organizational paralysis in undertain times. I.T. is a Service Organization—Never say no to a customer Organization without Accountability = Sure Failure Organizational Memory Failure Brings Loss of Control over I.T. -- Our Issue of the month for September, 2002. Methodology Development and Administration with Decentralized System Development, presented June, 1993, at the COPE' IT (NordDATA) Conference, Copenhagen. What ever happened to quality assurance? -- Our Issue of the Month for May, 1999
Articles on viruses

Return to Table of Contents

Last Updated July 12, 2009