The archive · 27 articles

All writing.

A decade of ideas on people, business and technology.

27 articles

03

AI & the future

Get your head in the game: The rise of the 10× employee

This is a message for employees who want to be more effective, more useful, and harder to ignore. There is a growing mismatch in most organisations. Individual capability has expanded rapidly,...

3 min read

06

Business & consulting

The 9 Principles for Selling Custom Software Development

In a world where technology changes at the speed of light, some principles for selling custom software development remain timeless. Discover the enduring sales strategies that have stood the test...

5 min read

08

AI & the future

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a language model developed by OpenAI that can generate human-like text based on a given prompt. It is part of the GPT (Generative Pretrained Transformer) family of language models,...

4 min read

09

Working smarter

Responsive Web App vs Native Mobile App

Many businesses are dealing with this quandary at the moment, and there a number of factors to keep in mind when deciding how to cater for users on mobile devices. These factors can be broadly...

4 min read

10

Working smarter

9 Tips for Searching Effectively in Outlook

Some people are really good at using Outlook search to find the emails they need, while others have a hard time. Searching for emails can be a real struggle, sometimes you want to find emails from...

4 min read

11

Leadership & teams

The Art of Negotiation

Chris Voss is the expert on this topic, and I highly recommend his book “Never split the difference: Negotiate as if your life depends on it”. Most people go into a negotiation assuming that it is...

7 min read

12

Working smarter

The 80-20 rule (AKA the Pareto Principle)

There’s a filter I try to use every day to make sure I’m maximizing the effect my work is having on the business. It’s called the 80-20 rule, or the Pareto Principle. The theory states that 20% of...

2 min read

13

Leadership & teams

Managing Remote Workers

This past year has been surprisingly busy for IT professionals. When COVID hit, we all battened down the hatches, expecting a potential business downturn. However, within a month, a wave of new...

3 min read

14

Leadership & teams

The 5 Levels of Leadership

The world renowned Leadership expert, John Maxwell, has defined 5 levels of leadership, and we'll go through each one here, to help you understand how to advance through the levels, and also to...

5 min read

15

AI & the future

Bots! Huh! What are they good for?

Figure: Click here to chat... maybe to a real person, or maybe to a bot Bots are pieces of software that can speak and be spoken to, either in text form, e.g. web chat, or in voice form, e.g....

3 min read

16

Leadership & teams

The Drexler/Sibbet Team Performance Model

I found a small book at an airport recently called "The Decision Book: Fifty models for strategic thinking". It's a nice easy read and a good thought provoker, and one of the models in particular...

2 min read

17

Working smarter

The 12 Biggest Benefits of an Intranet

With so many companies now using some flavour of Microsoft Office 365, the question of whether to make use of SharePoint Online to build a company intranet as part of your digital workspace is...

4 min read

19

Business & consulting

The Five Advantages That Consultants Have Over Employees

Internal employees have context. They have worked inside an organisation for potentially many years and surely know the business better than anyone… so why hire consultants? There are a number of...

3 min read

20

Working smarter

The Five Things Every Scrum Master Should Do

The larger a Scrum team is, the more opportunity for wastage there is, and so the more difference a good Scrum Master makes. A team with a bad Scrum master can feel powerless, floundering,...

3 min read

21

Leadership & teams

The Importance of Positively Managing Conflict in a Team

Teams don’t always just hum along. People have personal and professional differences, and sweeping them under the rug is not healthy long term, and could eventually cause a full breakdown. If...

3 min read

23

Leadership & teams

The Sunk Cost Fallacy

The sunk cost fallacy is in action every time you: Sit through a long boring movie even if you decided after the first half an hour that is was terrible Finish a meal that tastes bad and after...

2 min read

24

Leadership & teams

How to Delegate Effectively (Orders vs Enrolment)

There are 2 ways that you can allocate work. You can give orders, or you can enrol people. Orders: This is most people's default way of delegating work. To do it well, you speak to the person...

2 min read

25

Business & consulting

Power BI - The Six Reports Every Consultancy Should Have

I've been at SSW, a medium sized custom software consultancy, for over 10 years, and in that time I've asked for a number of SQL Reporting Services reports to be made, but due to the difficulty in...

4 min read

26

Working smarter

Seven Tips to Being a Great Product Owner

Every software product in development has a Product Owner who is in charge of supplying the requirements, and it is often misunderstood how important this role is. You can have the best engine in...

4 min read

27

Leadership & teams

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

There are five interrelated issues that undermine the performance of a team, and they can be viewed from 2 angles: The Negative Angle This is popular because as managers we're often looking for...

3 min read