Category Archives: Best Practices

A Cloud Story III: Leapfrogging Isn’t Just For Kids

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

Perhaps the most important outcome of Cloud migrations, the real game changer, is that Cloud services can level the playing field. This is not necessarily good news for service managers in big firms. Fortune 500 firms are largely in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Common Sense Contracting, Decision Making, Delivering Services | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Cloud Story II: Data With A Side of Miso Pork

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

Yesterday we spent some time going over a brief definition of the Cloud, some of its history and why everyone is scrambling to adopt Cloud services. Today, we’re going to take a practical look at what it means to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Common Sense Contracting, Decision Making, Improvement, Continuous or Not | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

A Cloud Story I: The Coming of the Cloud

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

We’ve all hearing stories about Cloud based services and how they’re going to change the way we live and work. If you manage services in a large firm you’re probably hearing little snippets here and there about Cloud projects that … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Common Sense Contracting, Decision Making, Delivering Services | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Well Managed Core

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

The nuclear disaster in Japan is the case study that just keeps on giving. Putting aside the policy and planning issues about the reactor itself, there is another problem, the extent of which  we still don’t know. The power plant, … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Common Sense Contracting, Decision Making, Delivering Services | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Do Outsourcers Know What Time It Is?

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

Today, I was puttering around on the Internet, on a site that I frequently visit, Linked-In. I decided that I would take a look at their “Answers” section, which lists questions by members that other members are invited to answer. One of … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Common Sense Contracting, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Expectations and Rewards, Improvement, Continuous or Not, Learning and Development | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

S’what’s a SWOT?

Posted on April 7, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

A lot of perfectly respectable management theory has been left to marinate in too long in strange acronyms and hard to remember buzz words. Good management doesn’t need to be complicated, and it doesn’t need a special language. There’s a … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Improvement, Continuous or Not, Unique Ideas | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cloud Watching…

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

There’s definitely a lot of talk about the Cloud, what it is and what it means for you. In fact, I recently viewed a YouTube video that stars a very animated Larry Ellison (Oracle’s CEO) opining on the definition of … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Common Sense Contracting, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Unique Ideas | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Bulking Up Your Staff?

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

Everyone I talk to tells me that there are good signs of growth in the economy. And managers in large firms are talking about the positive signs they see that new positions will be… although, not just yet.  The resistance … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Common Sense Contracting, Improvement, Continuous or Not | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Epsilon Cloudburst

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

Have you heard of Epsilon, the marketing firm? Well, if you haven’t you can probably expect to hear about them soon. One of the many services Epsilon offers is the management of emailing services for many large corporations. Personally, I … Continue reading →

Posted in Best Practices, Common Sense Contracting, Decision Making, Delivering Services, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Tsunami Of Problems

Posted on April 1, 2011 by Chris Niccolls

The problems in Japan continue, as do the truly heroic efforts to contain the disaster. Still, how did this all happen? Now that we have some information, we can put together the pieces. The first piece is simply that all … Continue reading →

Posted in Backup Plans, Best Practices, Decision Making, Delivering Services | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment