kpmrd blog

' Old school tip ': When you've finished a conference call hang up. Then pick the line up again and check for the dial tone. Chances are there are as many different conference phones as there are conference rooms you'll see in a consulting career, and the only way to know the line is dead is to hear the dial tone of a clean line... think about what the first thing you say after a conference call is; then think about whether you'd want the other people who were on the call to hear it? From icanhascheezburger .

Don't use etcetera etc. in a specification document... From Sober in a nightclub .

With her hand in his hand, They were both happy again. You started taking sides. They started arguing. He said it was her fault. She said it wasn't at all. But the truth lies somewhere in the middle Kate Bush, Between A Man And A Woman, The Sensual World (1989)   When you take a look at it, and you think one thing, and they think something else, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

It's technically about an online gaming incident . But it reminded me that I sometimes build call centres... From icanhascheezeburger . Yeah, Lolcats.

Another image from one of the blogs I read.   From DeadDog . Now, let me state that some of the other posts at DeadDog are NSFW. And as for all blogs, they might apeal to your sense of humour or they might not, and sometimes the posts there appeal to my sense of humour and sometimes not. That's not my blog. There's probably another post to write about how to present other people's points of view without people necesarily believing they're your own - the Devil's advocate argument (and one that I often use myself in order for us to convince ourselves that we've got a good idea). That's another topic. But. Back to the above picture. It would be great to know the original context of it's existance. It looks like an installation somewhere. However it made me think - you're thinking about a new way to run the project. You're looking at a new opportunity. Do you stop to ask whether you should do it or not? Certainly make sure it's a good thin...

Maybe you've heard the Serenity Prayer...   God, grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change; The courage to change the things that I can; And the wisdom to know the difference . Clearly there are religious conotations to this, not least the word 'prayer'. Let's park those, this is not a theology blog. Also, you may know that it is widely adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous as a 'motto'; which, I'll admit, kind of dents it for me, although a fair amount of IT management is done over a beer, so maybe it's not such an irrelevant fact. An internet search will give more origins of the prayer - Wikipedia cites the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr as the author. Personally, I came across it as the first line on Sinead O'Connor's album 'I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got', and it's stuck in my mind ever since. So, how relevant is it to IT Management? Overlooking the religion of IT Management and the alcoholism that is required...

However much one learns how to do it, one just sees more to learn. The Delivery Method Definition will never be finished... just get more detailed and evolve.   From Abstruse Goose .

I enjoy walking - being outside, fresh air, clearing the head or thinking. I was taking a walk in a place just outside Stockholm that I know pretty well; I've been for several walks out there during the last summer. I know the paths and routes, so I didn't bother to take a map. Being an 'experienced' fell walker from back in England, I know one should always take a map; but this is a small area, and I know it well. Weather is changeable Anyone who does any amount of fellwalking will know that weather is changeable. Something that looked friendly and inviting can become unenjoyable and even dangerous very quickly. Take the right gear no matter what. Take a map. It's snowed a lot in Stockholm over the winter, and you'd be suprised how much it changes things if you didn't stop to think about it. The paths you know well are hidden, the route is different; sometimes impassable. The map helps you work out where you, and what options you have to go forwards....

I'm not a designer, but... From wickedpaedia .

I read an interesting article over on Rands's blog ( http://www.randsinrepose.com/ ) the other day. I thought, that's interesting; where should I store that so that I can come back to it when I need it? Favourties I 'favourite'd it in the RSS feed in google reader ( http://www.google.com/reader/ ). There's probably some very smart way in google reader of searching through such things for what you're remembering that you were looking for. Google is usually full of very smart things. Sometimes us mere mortals even find, understand and use them! Research Then, at a customer, I was asked about a certain type of software estimation method. Being a 'process monkey' I took a look through the internet at various random links to good looking weksites, cheap looking websites, people who seemed to know what they were talking about, and people who didn't. Just because you write it doesn't make it right - wikipedia is not a citeable source of the tru...