Minimal IT newsletters 2012
Fully capturing the meaning of information can make development 5× to 10× faster.
Versatile user interfaces are based around resources, rather than tasks, processes or data types.
Thinking through the universal business computer is hard, and building it is harder still. But working out what to do with it is the greatest challenge of all.
Taking a different approach to development can reduce the need for testing.
The technical content of a piece of work can hide a more complicated requirement that needs significant analysis.
Is there demand for a standard library for server-side JavaScript?
You will not succeed until you know who your competitors are.
Web-based development and deployment could get around the perennial buy-or-build argument.
Successful businesses are based on growing the value of assets.
Commercial software can be hard to learn, but free software can be hard to remember.
In IT, we like to think that our work is structured, but often structure only evolves as the work proceeds.
Our job is to create order and structure, not to be constrained by it.
How can we use technology to support the evolution of structure?
Like many design questions, deciding whether to perform processing on the client or the server depends on who you talk to.
Resistance to change often comes from those most loyal to the organisation.
Buying a PC is now much more about personal preference and getting good value than it is about technology.
Why do organisations consider that Microsoft is a safe choice?
The more we reuse software, the more productive we are and the higher the return on the development effort. How far can this go?
The best way to improve cost, risk and responsiveness in IT is to reduce the number of systems, the complexity of systems, and the unnecessary demands on the IT organisation.
Understanding how IT creates value lets you deliver smaller, simpler, cheaper and more usable IT.
To overcome the really big problems in IT we need to change how IT is structured.
The only way out of the mess of IT is to manage IT proactively.
To improve responsiveness, risk and cost, you need to stop obsessing about systems development.
Standards and open source are fundamental to reducing the costs and risks of your IT.
Our prejudices stop us achieving the highest levels of reuse.
Identifying areas of conflict opens up debate and helps us explore ways to deliver more value.
The minimal IT strategy summarises how a business can manage its IT to improve long-term cost, risk and responsiveness.
As well as gathering facts and supporting decision making, an effective assessment process clarifies objectives, encourages collaboration, and builds buy-in for change.
We should value simplification more than precision.
Can we make IT as flexible as consumer electronics?
To create the next generation of IT architecture we need to think beyond our current engineering mindset.
You can improve data security by implementing fine-grained security at the lowest level of data access.
Products that are developed in themselves are initially hard to work with but eventually become much more powerful than conventional products.
Many of the problems in IT stem from a lack of professional ethos.
As a parent, you have to learn to let go.
Marketing may seem vacuous to our technical minds, but when it works it's magic.
Should our methods and processes be consistent?
If you need Internet connections when you are away from home or the office, a mobile WiFi access point could be just the solution you are looking for.
Computers don't just automate our ideas, they make them bigger.
Problem density could be a valuable new concept for measuring IT.
Some things that look simple can take a very long time.
Could video games provide a good model for how we structure technical training?
Defining your product's unique selling proposition (USP) is not the same as listing its features.
What are the trade-offs of rapid development tools?
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