Men of Fort Story operate an azimuth instrument, to measure the angle of splash in sea-target practice. 1942. (reversed)

The Most Important Piece of Your Job Hunt

Forrest ChristianReviews - Books Leave a Comment

Don’t Send a Resume says everything that any jobhunter is used to hearing: You gotta sell Treat yourself like a product Market yourself Etc. I can’t say that I disagree with anything Fox says in this short tome, but he leaves out the most important thing for me: You can’t be someone that you aren’t.

Laboratory worker at the research laboratory at the C & NW RR's 40th Street yard, examining paint samples used on freight cars and coaches of the railroad, Chicago, Ill. (LOC). By Delano, Jack.

Why Information Technology & Software Projects Fail, part 2

Forrest ChristianProject Management Leave a Comment

I wanted to make an addendum to Why IT Projects Fail, part 1, which contains the bulk. Here are a few more reasons for further development. Risk management is not part of our vocabulary. We want people who are optimistic, not trying to find reasons why something will fail. IT does not understand that the change that they are introducing …

Bubbles atop freshly brewed coffee in a french press. (c) Salimfadhley (CC BY SA 3.0)

Why IT Projects Fail, part 1

Forrest ChristianComputers/IT, Project Management Leave a Comment

Right person, wrong job We all too often ask people with little talent for managing projects and clients to do just that. We see those who have a great technical vision and expect them to also have the skills that we in management think are so easy. Unfortunately, just because a developer can be an architect defining the technical vision …

Bix sits in confusion (Detail), from "Heaven's to Betsy!", Club "16" comics

Stewart Brand showed “How Buildings Learn”, So Why Can’t Software?

Forrest ChristianComputers/IT, Project Management, Reviews - Books 1 Comment

In the end, you can’t know what you will need to have at the onset of your project. You can only get the optimized environment after you’ve lived with it and changed it. It follows that you can’t get an optimized environment for tomorrow’s needs until you change it for tomorrow. So, you’ll never be done; you will always need to make adjustments to your environment, or in response to your environment.