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The Business Ramifications of Thin Clients: A guide for CEOs, CIOs and CFOsOver the past five years, the topic of thin clients has gained significant interest among senior management, with virtual desktops being the current hot technology. However, senior executives need to be aware of the challenges and risks that thin clients pose, along with the benefits promised by vendors. In this report, senior executives will:
Audio Management Briefing: Handling difficult people in the workplaceAdvisor: Alan Hansell Date: September 9th 2009 Time: 11.00am - 12.00pm AEST In our private life we can often avoid difficult people but in the workplace it is not so easy. Difficult people come in all shapes and sizes from management to staff to clients. Most are hard negotiators but surprisingly some are soft negotiators. We need additional skills to work with them and achieve our objectives. How can we meet the challenges they pose and minimise our stress? |
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Better project planning - The key to making expected project outcomes a realityTurning expected outcomes identified in the business strategy into reality, is high on the agenda of most senior managers. What is not well understood though is the role
sound planning has to play in ensuring the outcomes are realised while meeting the typical project performance criteria such as delivery on time, costs kept within budget and ability to meet agreed service levels. Project planning
skills are not acquired overnight. They are based on a sound
understanding of the project life cycle, as depicted in the diagram below, the ability to unravel the business strategy and plan the IT-related activities (tasks) needed to facilitate workplace change.
Preparing for a Swine Flu Pandemic – Avoid being ‘piggy in the middle’Organisations with existing Business Continuity Plans (BCPs) may find them to be a poor fit when dealing with the unique circumstances surrounding a pandemic. The chief characteristic is massively depleted numbers of available workers, with as many as 25-40% of staff absent throughout the entire government and business eco-system. Those without
effective plans face the prospect of severe disablement that may take many months of recovery. For them, urgent action is required to draft pandemic-specific BCPs or to modify, then test, existing BCPs.
Communication Breakdown: managing social networksThe Web, and social
networks, as virtual places of conversation, challenge the role and
effectiveness of an organisation’s communication
management.
Traditional
management and censorship in the unfettered communications world
of the Web may only be effective to a limited
degree. In this new communications landscape, organisations will have
to train staff, and modify their traditional attitudes, to deal with
the varied and complex online channels.
What is an "Infrastructure Cloud"With infrastructure vendors
jumping on the cloud bandwagon, their sales and marketing teams are increasingly using the terms “Cloud”, “Cloud
Computing” and “Infrastructure Cloud”. From
discussions with clients we have observed these terms are not well understood and mean a wide range of different things to different people.
This confusion is driven by a war between vendors to establish a definition of these terms that best suits their specific products, technologies and architectures. Until “Cloud Computing” and “Infrastructure Cloud” become commonly defined, which we expect to take at least until the end of 2010; be careful to define what you mean, and seek to understand what others mean by these terms to avoid significant misunderstandings between staff, vendors and
partners.
My Desktop RFP: Getting the most out of itMany organisations
overcomplicate their desktop RFPs with technical jargon while
underplaying some of the key operational and commercial considerations
associated with their desktop procurement process. The end result can
be a contract that while providing a desktop that meets the
organisations technical needs, falls down in commercial areas such as
competitive pricing over the contract life.
Déjà vu: Software as a ServiceSoftware as a
service seems suspiciously familiar, bringing up old memories of time
share mainframe computing systems in a different era, and more recent
memories of application service provider based software offerings.
Repackaging of old concepts in new terminology is a technique commonly
used by software vendors. However, don’t dismiss software as a
service due to a lack of technical innovation. The current attraction
of SaaS is a result of changes in the economics of IT
infrastructure.
Cloud computing and the law – data considerationsPrivacy and data protection
laws in Australia and NZ hold organisations, rather than their
subcontractors, responsible for the activities of their subcontractors.
Before committing to outsourcing any corporate data to a cloud
computing vendor any organisation must ensure that all relevant legal
constraints are agreed and in place so as to avoid any subsequent
litigation. Ensuring and monitoring this may not be easy.
WAN Optimisation - Latency will tear us apartThe various techniques of
WAN optimisation technology will eventually become a standard component
of networks, but this does not negate the need for better application
design. Currently, WAN optimisation technology provides the potential
of a network band-aid until applications are consistently designed for
truly mobile users.
Should we go with Microsoft Vista or wait until Windows 7?A decision to migrate an enterprises desktop operating
environment from Microsoft Windows XP to Windows Vista in the near
term, or to wait until Windows 7 is available and proven, is both
technically and politically complex. The final decision depends heavily
upon several key factors: the existing software and hardware
infrastructure, Microsoft licensing arrangements, the sophistication of
desktop management tools, scale of the help desk and ability to train
end users and manage change.
Achieving benefits from document management systems during periods of budget restraintProperly managing a project portfolio and determining
which projects can safely be delayed during the current difficult economic environment is a complex task. For example organisations which
have been considering the selection and implementation of an enterprise
document/records management system (EDRMS), but are nervous about the
significant costs associated with such an implementation, should look
carefully at the downsides of not having such a system.
The costs of implementing EDRMS can be high. However they can
often be justified by the cost benefits that can be realised from a
successful implementation, and productive use, of selective functions
within a document management system, such as information capture, which
can include payback periods of three to six months.
Sourcing Monthly - May 2009 - June 2009A monthly review of all of the sourcing activity, upcoming tenders and news items
Could your team be Costing you your Job?Much of the work undertaken by IT Departments (systems development,
maintenance, systems upgrades, selection of new technologies, etc)
could well be managed under a project framework. Instead many
organisations choose to manage this work using permanent teams under
a hierarchical structure. This is serious mistake that inevitably
drives higher than necessary IT costs.
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