Beveridge’s Law

Life is full of intriguing paradoxes and none more so than the regular imbalance between IT investment and IT strategy. This is so widespread that I feel compelled to declare a new law of computing: Beveridge’s Law, which states that the financial investment in technology is inversely proportional to the organisation’s strategic planning effort.

Think particularly about how much READ MORE

IT takes two to tangle – NHS and Fujitsu contract termination

It’s no surprise that the contract has broken down. I have seen so many similar situations, where the client expects the contractor to be “more flexible” (i.e. taking more risk) without recognising the need for mirroring the expected flexibility themselves (i.e. rewarding the increased risk of the contractor). The client can’t have it both ways.

Common READ MORE

50 years on and we still re-invent the wheel every week

Even after fifty years of Information Technology, ours is still a relatively immature business function that continues to create more and more management opportunities; without exploiting the perceived wisdom and body of best practice, a heritage generally available to other more mature professions.

As a result, we are all prone to make mistakes and business decisions that we later READ MORE

Us and Them

One of the all-time great rock albums, and a favourite of mine, is “Dark Side of the Moon” by Pink Floyd. This classic recording is still going strong and a quick glance at the album track-list will undoubtedly resonate strongly with many of us in the IT business.

I am sure that we can all relate well to READ MORE

Time please! The long hours culture is burning us out.

We are all supposed to be good little Europeans these days so why do we consistently break one of the few EU regulations most likely to be of direct benefit to us?

I am talking about the European Working Time Directive, which in my view is not only an extremely well-intentioned piece of Euro-legislation but also very well-ignored READ MORE