Link: A global Chinese software company in the next 20 years? |Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker | InfoWorld
There is a lot of competition to become the next big global IT firm.
August 2008 Archives
Making decisions about a knowledge management strategy that will deliver improved sales, innovation or delivery performance requires an appreciation of the value that can be created by this kind of improvement initiative. Companies frequently diminish the value by arguing about what knowledge managment is or is not. Knowledge sharing that produces business results is ineluctably tied to business process. In fact, I would assert that knowledge management has no real relevance outside of business process.
To improve the performance of a process you need to understand the individual worksteps plus the information and skills that are required to be execute effectively. Ask yourself: Is all the information required to do the job provisioned to the employee or do they have to do research in order to complete the task? If research is required, are their job aids that can help them accomplish the task? Is training available for people who don't have enough experience. Knowledge Management seeks to provision the employee with all the information, content, perspective, and learning required to create value. Mapping critical content to a business process enables knowledge workers to increase productivity and improve the quality of their work.
At Coherence Group we combine access to knowledge, learning and methods to enable knowledge workers. This requires adjustment to some business processes. It also requires an implementation of electronic support systems that help get employees find and apply the information they need to effectively execute their jobs.
Plan the end-user search experience (Office SharePoint Server)
Some companies that use SharePoint do not customize the search interface or experience. However, Search is highly configurable. This article describes how to customize the experience.
Most of my clients use SharePoint as their enterprise platform for collaboration and knowledge sharing. Tonight I discovered an interesting site that provides an encyclopedic resouce for SharePoint: SharePoint Pedia There are lots of good articles and examples of SharePoint best practices.
10 Futuristic User Interfaces
10 Futuristic User Interfaces (via feedly)
Interesting perspective on the future. Purely conjecture.
Balsamiq Studios, makers of plugins for Web Office applications | Balsamiq
This is an interesting web-based applicaiton that creates markups of web pages when you are in the process of thinking about how an application might logically flow.
Actually, it is more a link log of sites that I am interested in following. It is at “What Ralph Knows About Software Development”. I like Tumblr for this kind of thing because it allows me to clip pictures and text, and it is a bit more visual than just having bookmarks. Anyway, it should be a good list of Software Development sites and articles, especially about Software Development Methodologies.
Wordle is an application that analyzes the words in your webpages and then displays a graphic image of the importance of the words used in the website. In my case, I analyzed my business website: Coherence Group, Inc. I had not realized that the word applications was used so much on the site, but it makes sense. Most knowledge work is done via the computer these days, and we all interact with applications most of the time. Taking advantage of the new web-based tools to provision the content required to execute your job is a critical function. Therefore a lot of my work involves updating legacy apps so they are searchable and have interactive features.
I have created a new page on the site that highlights and links to the service partners that I work with to deliver high value solutions to clients. Each of the firms has a unique service offering that complements the capabilities of Coherence Group and allows us to provide a broad range of services, from market research to bespoke software development. The objective for these alliance relationships is to provide a process and technology platform for knowledge, learning, and methods in your company.
Link: scrum breakfast
A German site in English and German that provides lots of help on Scrum.
This is a great slide presentation which describes how a number of premier professional service firms use thought leadership in their marketing. Bob Buday pointed this presentation out in his new blog Thought Leadership Space. In this presentation Tim Parker demonstrates how firms create awareness of their business insight and build relationships with potential clients via their points of view.
Link: Control Chaos
Scrum is an Agile process that can be used to manage and control complex software and product development using iterative, incremental practices. Scrum has been used from simple projects to changing the way entire enterprises do their business. Scrum significantly increases productivity and reduces time to benefits while facilitating adaptive, empirical systems development.
Coherence Group has partnered with SigmaFlow to sell and deliver their Best Practice Execution System to our clients in Professional Services, Financial Services, and Oil and Gas. This capability allows companies to identify, distill and transfer knowledge, best practices and lessons learned. Knowledge gained from serving clients, or from supporting internal functions can be captured, prioritized, categorized and turned into actionable strategies to improve process performance.
The service offering includes the methodology for identifying and capturing best practices, training for teams so they can effectively implement the solution and an software application that enables best practice transfer and application.
The service offering includes the methodology for identifying and capturing best practices, training for teams so they can effectively implement the solution and an software application that enables best practice transfer and application.
In Dennis McDonald's Blog I found a post showing how social media was being used to connect retried Dow Chemical employees back to the company via the "Dow Network". This tool targets long term employees that can still have a role to play at Dow. The network allows Dow's people to engage electronically with employees at all stages of their career and provides a platform for generational knowledge transfer from older to younger workers.
The closed, online community allows users to expand their professional networks, renew old friendships, stay connected with the latest Dow information, and explore new job opportunities. It also keeps Dow connected to a larger talent pool, fuels collaboration and innovation, and facilitates a diverse and inclusive work environment.
