IoT and VCR – starting with V

Introduction Apologies if I’ve piqued your interest in video tape recorders but I’m afraid you’ve been led astray. This article is not about the Panasonic PV-V4520 or the Sony SLV-N700, although I’m sure they are fine products. VCR then, I’ll touch on this later. In the meantime, a confession. I have to admit that I’m…

Things aren’t the same just because you treat them the same

Several years ago a major software consultancy built a Pega solution for a client and within two years of deploying it, the client was having to rebuild it themselves. It’s not an uncommon scenario. The client brought me in to take a look at the business architecture underlying the original solution and that is where…

Decision models, user stories and acceptance criteria

Decision modelling dramatically changed how I view business rules. In a nutshell, business rules are not particularly useful on their own. For example, if the business has a rule that a person must be aged 18 or over in order to have an account, that does not give us the full picture. What decision is the business trying to make when taking into account a person’s age? What other data (fact types) does the business take into account when making that decision? At which points in which processes can that decision be made? What other decisions take into account a person’s age?

A Lasting Legacy or Eternal Damnation? Redemption is in the Clouds

In the business world many personal legacies are less memorable and more toxic, and deserve to be consigned to the Rip Off Rascals Hall of Shame. The Enron gang, Robert Maxwell and Fred Goodwin immediately come to mind. But there is one definition of legacy that many companies would probably also like to forget, but are reminded of every day by their customers and employees.This is their old and creaking technology defined in many dictionaries as “of, relating to, or being a previous or outdated computer system.”

What Are the True Costs of a New WMS?

There is a significant amount of research to suggest that a majority of WMS projects run significantly over budget. Some even fail because of the following factors. If you plan for and address these up front, you’re much more likely to achieve the business objectives you desire.

Tailoring Code

Over time, even with the best of intentions, code bases will tend toward entropy if constant effort isn’t made to improve and maintain them. Even revisiting your own code which has sat untouched for years, after your learning and knowledge has expanded, will look worse than you remember leaving it!

Doing business with the Public Sector

[Hacked from a recent post I put on LinkedIn but with the emphasis shifted to show the possibilities of working with the public sector] We are now in the middle of HMRC’s IR35 public sector consultation and it appears they have decided the rule changes are going ahead regardless, as reported in various places. I…

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