Category: Systems

  • #68: Is it time to ‘refactor’ our business again?

    Like a successful business, most successful software products develop over a period of time. After many rounds of feature enhancements, the code behind the scenes can look a bit of a mess. So, every so often the software developer will ‘refactor’ – whilst ensuring the functionality is maintained, they will clean up the code, simplifying…

  • #15: Do we have a checklist for that?

    Atul Gawande wrote a book about how to create and use checklists. It’s 224 pages long and runs to 53,505 words. It has 3,901 4/5 star reviews on Amazon. Obviously, he went further than showing you how to write a better grocery list! Because it turns out that SIMPLE checklists are kinda important. As in ……

  • #14: Did we find any brown M&M’s today?

    Rock bands are notorious for making prima donna requests in their contracts and then causing scenes if their wishes aren’t met. For a long time, supergroup ‘Van Halens’ request for bowls of M&M’s to be placed in their dressings rooms with all the brown ones removed OR THEY WOULDN’T PLAY’ was thought to just be…

  • #05: What have we stopped doing that used to work really well?

    There’s an old joke about consultants … The consultant asks you: ‘How have you solved this challenge in the past?’ You tell them and they say: ‘Do that again’ and send you an invoice. When you’re faced with a ‘new’ challenge take an inventory of how you’ve solved the same or similar challenges in the…