duckdown

If it's worth doing training, it's worth doing it in a way that is going to make a difference. Sadly, most training efforts within enterprises fail to meet this goal... We live in a world of outsourcing where employees do little more than just manage processes and documentation. Training in most shops is no different. When you outsource training, you sometimes ignore the fact that the firm's own practitioners usually are the most effective (distinct from efficient) trainers since they provide... Read Full Story

Many leaders managers over the next month or so are preparing to deliver speeches that champion ideals. It is a common tendency to draw up a set of values and present them simultaneously to all of the key players at some annual meeting or specially convened strategic planning meeting or retreat without regard to how this ceremonial practice may run counter to their goals... An enterprise may be made worse, not better, by pretending to advocate a set of standards its not prepared to live by. I... Read Full Story

There are many successful consulting firms including the likes of Accenture, Cognizant, Virtusa and Wipro. Sadly, they still leave a lot to be desired in the hearts and minds of their clients. I think I know what the missing ingredient is... It is important to acknowledge that these firms provide their clients with exactly what they ask for and therefore the onus shifts to a CIO needing to ask for the right things. The fatal flaw made by many CIOs is in asking for consulting services and not... Read Full Story

I have been studying some of the traits within the insurance vertical and have observed: Leading carriers value work-life balance. Their people work eight hour days. Followers espouse work-life balance but their employees tend to work hard vs work start Leading carriers have focused more on promoting from within. Followers seem to always hire former partners and put them in IT leadership positions Leading carriers respect the total individual and their unique value proposition. Followers tend... Read Full Story

We all know what happened to the banking sector and its cataclysmic collapse. Some people think banking collapsed do to its incestuous greed and irresponsibility in making horrific underwriting decisions. While these are contributing factors, I believe that the issue at hand is in putting profits ahead of people... Its now 2012, the year of the empowered consumer. We can no longer expect consumers to exhibit brand loyalty when it has become apparent that they are no longer respected as... Read Full Story

During the Christmas holidays, I met up with a few friends who shared with me a story of several individuals I know who recently lost their fancy job titles. There are always multiple right perspectives... How many architects does it take to change a lightbulb? The answer remains unknowable. What we do know is that many job descriptions suffer from title inflation. There are UI architects, Java architects, enterprise architects and so on. Sadly, many of this people have used the word... Read Full Story

Below are a few questions that will help you delineate consulting from other professions: * You work very odd hours. * You are paid a lot of money to keep your client happy. * You are paid well but your pimp gets most of the money. * You spend a majority of your time in a hotel room. * You charge by the hour but your time can be extended for the right price. * You are not proud of what you do. * Creating fantasies for your clients is rewarded. * It's difficult to have a family. * You have no... Read Full Story

There are a few opportunities for improvement in the functionality of ServiceBuilder. Below are my thoughts... Liferay does a good job in making itself manageable, but could take a further step in leveraging JMX to create additional visibility. Generally speaking, when you create a custom service, you may want to expose metrics such as uptime, number of invocations, etc. It should be relatively straightforward for ServiceBuilder to also create a JMX MBean that provides visibility into service... Read Full Story

I previously blogged on ways to make healthcare more affordable without compromising quality or availability. Today, I will share a few thoughts on what employers can do to bring down costs for their employees... Reduce stress in the workplace : How come HR seems to only focus on employee benefits and not the cause of stress in general? We all know that stress causes cortisone to increase in the body which can impact those with high blood pressure, diabetes and even high cholesterol. In an... Read Full Story

I have been spending some time noodling the requirements of Solvency and believe there are a few fundamental flaws in how reinsurance carriers are approaching this problem space. Generally speaking, the reinsurance industry introduced the notion of models as a way for private equity and hedge funds to measure the potential risk of loss. The folks who created Solvency requirements seemed to have latched onto the same level of thinking. The challenge as I see it is that carriers are attempting... Read Full Story