SMS Fri, 30 Jul, 2010 13h12 Log 22697: SEVERITY 1. Sever NW1A gone down. DR not implemented. Diagnosis of disk and space commencing. Update in 20 minutes. SMS Fri, 30 Jul, 2010 13h42 Log 22697.Hard disk failure found on NW1A. Disk to be replaced. Data restore to time of failure to commence. ETC 1.5 hours. [...]

We start off our careers with the same level of intelligence, education and commitment – however the higher up in a company you look the lower the percentage of women. Many companies are adopting socially progressive HR policies that aren’t inadvertently biased against women. These changes come at a price and despite the BBEEE business [...]

Whilst on my travels abroad I received a call from my wife who was concerned about a strange noise emanating from the front of the car. She said that it made a Ka Thling Ka Thling noise whilst driving. Concerned about her safety, as she drives quite a bit in her sales career, I told [...]

Systematic and comprehensive organisational performance analysis is the only accurate basis for improving performance at the organisational, process, team and even worker levels.  Regardless of the approach used, most standard improvement methodologies include multiple phases – from analysis to benefits evaluation. However, it is the way in which the analysis phase is conducted that determines [...]

It appears that there are currently people who view process as “a way to manage stupid people”! At the very least, different levels of documented processes aide inexperienced staff of what, when, how, who and where things happen which liberates managers from constantly having to supervise them and long, expensive training courses. Experienced staff members [...]

Moving out of the era of economic and financial devastation in all of the world’s markets it is prudent that corporate and companies need to be cost conscious and cautious in their approach to spending. As human capital is one of the largest costs on a company’s income statement it stands to reason that these [...]

The quantitative outcome of architectural and design related efforts is often regarded as a notoriously difficult task. The challenge of business benefit quantification in the software environment is also emphasized when medium to longer term impacts need to be assessed. The fuzzy nature of architecture level principles, the lack of relevant measures and overall traceability [...]

Developing a really compelling offering into a competitive market is a challenge. Today, the offering, as we term it, is a unique combination of services and products which form the overall proposition to an organisation’s customers. Within a competitive market the uniqueness, coolness, functionality, price and value adding services, in combination, will determine the success [...]

In the current economic climate Innovation can very quickly be relegated to the background, yet Innovation has proved beyond doubt that it can change a company’s fortune especially during times of adversity. Innovation strengthens the ability of a company to remain competitive and agile in this contemporary networked economy. With the global crisis and other [...]

Aspects such as profit margins, stock levels, cycle times, inventory turns, days sales are normally analysed and interpreted as indicators of corporate performance and operational effectiveness. However, even though some leading companies are succeeding in measuring critical performance relating to their businesses, many Information Age organisations are still struggling to answer basic questions around process [...]