LeadershipCategory

Shadow IT is rarely rebellion. It is a signal that someone has a problem to solve, and the official route did not solve it. I described what Shadow IT is, and what it costs, in Shadow IT / Stealth IT. This article looks at the other side: how to stop… Continue Reading How to stop Shadow IT before it starts

Every legacy system reaches a day when keeping it costs more than changing it. The skill is spotting that day before it arrives, and then choosing the right kind of change. Technical debt behaves like financial debt. A little, well managed, is a sensible trade-off. Left alone, the interest compounds:… Continue Reading Legacy modernisation: retire, retain, replace or evolve

When a business asks for an AI solution, the request almost always describes what it should do. Summarise our emails. Draft our reports. Answer staff questions about policy. What it rarely says is how well, how quickly, how safely and at what cost. That second half has a name: non-functional… Continue Reading Non-functional requirements explained: a new architect’s guide, with an AI project example

Here is an interesting perspective to apply to your employees’ acceptance of AI in their work – consider AI is a junior work colleague that every employee has at their disposal. With the roll-out of new AI capabilities and agents, there is often push-back from employees who fear that their… Continue Reading AI is a junior colleague

For anyone working in Cybersecurity, it can be hard to convince your board to understand the issues, and to invest money or focus on Cyber Security issues. I have presented Cyber issues to multiple Boards, and here is my advice on how to get Boards to understand Cybersecurity issues –… Continue Reading Cybersecurity for boards – analogy to Health & Safety

Even with the gradual increase in cybersecurity literacy amongst the masses, there are still some myths that people follow religiously, even Cybersecurity professionals. I will set out to bust some of those myths here. Many of the myths have come from companies advertising products as a “silver bullet” solution, some… Continue Reading Cybersecurity Myths – It’s not my responsibility

On International Women’s Day, I am reminded of the need for diversity in the workforce, and want to pose the question of what does diversity mean to you? Diversity is not just the inclusion of other races, genders and backgrounds. More than just a blind quota of some interpretation of… Continue Reading What does diversity mean to you?

The English journalist Louis Theroux has a reputation for interviewing “difficult” and unusual people and subcultures, and getting a large amount of information and knowledge from people who otherwise do not open up to outsiders. The techniques and patterns that he uses to get people to open up are methods… Continue Reading Get information the Louis Theroux way

As the world becomes more aware of cybersecurity risks and issues, company boards need to become more aware of the issues that cybersecurity poses for their businesses. However, it can be difficult for non-technical people to learn the new terminologies and concepts. The question still remains on how we educate… Continue Reading Educate Boards in Cybersecurity

A question that has been around my mind for a while is “does the CISO need to become the CSO”? Is the responsibility of the Chief Information Security Officer too limiting, and should they be the Chief Security Officer? The issue with a CISO is that they often are limited… Continue Reading Does the CISO need to become the CSO?

In times where you need to run through your BCP drill, it is important to know and understand the reasons why you need to exercise your Business Continuity Plan drill, and where it fits in with the rest of your Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP or DR Plan). Your BCP Drill… Continue Reading The BCP Drill

For your next system development, make the systems intuitive instead of spending time up-skilling people in potentially high turnover positions. Great customer interaction should be your focus, ahead of designing a system that meets your internal needs for audit and reporting. Too often systems are designed with customer and user… Continue Reading Make your new systems intuitive

People have asked me about my leadership style, and as it is such a common question, I have decided to post it here. People recognise that I am passionate, and I lead through inspiration and desire to achieve the strategic goals. I am a positive and passionate person who motivates… Continue Reading My leadership style

Solving problems often takes a completely new viewpoint over what the problem actually is. There have been many recent studies and trials of working weeks durations, including a successful trial at Microsoft for a 4-day week that increased productivity. However, I have a different idea to solve the problem: changing… Continue Reading The new week – 5 on, 5 off

This post was written and published in March 2022. There have been two very different leadership styles in the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022. We have seen the impact of poor leadership and the benefit of strong leadership in the conflict, and there are many parallels that… Continue Reading Leadership in the Ukraine War