ChangeTag Archive

Skills evaporation is a blight that affects many businesses, particularly monolithic large businesses and governments. Skills evaporation will happen when good people leave a business to pursue better opportunities, taking knowledge with them – but also the culture of the remaining people is that their skills are reduced by the… Continue Reading Skills evaporation

In the new economy, innovation and creativity is highly desirable, emotional intelligence and adaptability are more important than ever. But, has the education system kept up? Is it true that education makes us stupid? Are we being educated out of innovation, or is innovation being educated out of us? Education… Continue Reading Educated out of innovation

How much does it cost to manage your data? In an early job, I was making a projection to purchase more disk to expand capacity on our Exchange mailbox servers. At the time, disk was relatively expensive, and the capacity that I had projected for 3 years would have also… Continue Reading Save Money – by buying more disk

Strategy is a word that is often over-used so much that it has become poorly defined and understood. You can have a ‘strategy’ to buy your groceries before you buy alcohol … it can be a ‘strategy’ to start a meeting on time… the term has become watered down and… Continue Reading The Hallmarks of a Strategy

As you may realise from this blog, I’m a Principal Consultant – and that means not only do I work with customers, I also need to lead other Consultants on their journey in consulting. I work with some exceptional and smart people, but the top 5 “rules” for consulting can… Continue Reading Top 5 rules for consulting

Corporate culture can be formalised, or it can be “this is the way things are done here” lore that defines how people act, react, make decisions, and deal with problems. The impact of corporate culture on a business can be significant to the way that corporate culture in IT projects… Continue Reading The importance of understanding corporate culture

Microsoft used to have a realy great approach to product naming – think of Windows, Outlook, Word, Exchange, etc. – but recently, their naming imagination has disappeared into a confusing mess of extended terminology, which to make things even harder, Microsoft have been changing frequently. Wouldn’t you like some of… Continue Reading Office 365 terminology clarified

As Rear Admiral Grace Hopper said – “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission”, and this is true in many areas of change. When I am fighting against “this is the way we have always done it“, I find that the path to success is to… Continue Reading Ask for Confirmation, not Definition

A term that you may have heard used a few times may not make complete sense, so; What is Shadow IT? The term Shadow IT or Stealth IT is used to represent the implementation or usage of IT services that have not been officially created or deployed by the IT… Continue Reading Shadow IT / Stealth IT

Many of us have to give directions; it might be in a project, when managing a team, instructions for someone to pick something up for you from a shop, defining a business strategy – but the way to give directions is important. What is wrong with the way people are… Continue Reading The best way to give directions – destination first

You have probably heard the analogy of trying to guide or coordinate people who have their own agenda or views – that it is like herding cats. It’s often a battle dealing with people who think that they already have the right answer (or those who stick to, and defend,… Continue Reading Herding cats? Use catfood

In my travels as a consultant and adviser, I have come to find that middle management is holding back innovation. Allow me to explain this dramatic assumption. I have found that there are three types of employee – the leader, the worker and the middle-manager. The leaders In industry, government… Continue Reading Middle management – holding back innovation

The focus needs to change. People need to stop fighting today’s problems with yesterday’s answers, and instead, focus on finding solutions to tomorrow’s challenges. I see this time and again from organisations large and small, from both experienced and newly educated people – a focus on the problems that have… Continue Reading Stop fighting today’s problems with yesterday’s answers

DIY is dead. The time when you could “do it yourself” is no longer relevant for IT Infrastructure. It may take a while for it to happen, but it has happened before – to desktop PCs. Approximately 20 years ago, it was both cheaper and easier (if you knew how) to… Continue Reading The era of infrastructure DIY is dead

You may know about ToR, top-of-rack (for) switches. It’s the practice of placing a physical switch within each rack, so that the network switching for the rack is close to the servers or devices that need to connect to it. The ToR switches will allow servers to communicate with each… Continue Reading ToR switch placement – not at the top!

Are you new to computers, or do you always have strange little problems with your computer? Are you scared of using your computer / tablet / device because things seem to go wrong – you press the “wrong” button? Do you want to fix your computer problems yourself? As a bit… Continue Reading The 6 Rs to fix computer problems yourself

Many of us have to give directions; it might be in a project, when managing a team, instructions for someone to pick something up for you from a shop, defining a business strategy – but the way to give directions is important. What is wrong with the way people are… Continue Reading The only way to give directions

How do you work out what data you need to capture for a system? This is a question not often asked, at least not in the right way. Designing data entry for a system should be driven by the wants and needs of the output. It’s no good gathering data if… Continue Reading Designing data entry for a system