Technical Debt

The term "technical debt" is nothing new in the software world, but it seems to be a standard practice with some rather large companies I come across these days.

Technical debt is the overhead that occurs when there’s decision to design or deploy the technology in this case (WSS- Windows SharePoint Services) - that expedient in the short term but increases complexity and is more costly in the long term.

For a single server to be the company intranet for a 1000 users, is pushing it a bit…but I’ve had this conversation twice with CXO’s in the past week, both who said , ‘Yeah, this is something we’ll look into when we go live!!!!’


What is Technical Debt? Two Basic Kinds

The first kind of technical debt is the kind that is incurred unintentionally. For example, a design approach just turns out to be error-prone or a junior admin just takes short cuts. This technical debt is the non-strategic result of doing a poor job. In some cases, this kind of debt can be incurred unknowingly, as the person didn’t know any better. . Sometimes, ironically, this debt can be created when a team stumbles in its efforts to apply a service pack inadvertently creates more debt. I call this general category of debt Type I.

The second kind of technical debt is the kind that is incurred intentionally. This commonly occurs when an organization makes a conscious decision to optimize for the present rather than for the future. "If we don't get this intranet done on time, there won't be another opportunity" is a common refrain—and often a compelling one. This leads to decisions like, "We don't have time to move these two databases, so we'll leave them synchronized for now and reconcile them after the next service pack is released." Or "We have some web part written, with no documentation or instructions ; we'll clean that up later." Or "We didn't have time to test the alerts with the ISA server, so we won’t mention this functionality".

As a future blog post, I’ll mention how to avoid both types…. And the costs of these types.

Up and coming webinars

Distinguishing Between Dynamics GP Business Portal and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007

With the release of Business Portal and SharePoint web technologies, there are now deployment and strategy choices for your report generation, workflow, and other portal initiatives. Discover the distinctions between these technologies and a clear understanding of where Business Portal and SharePoint fit into the Microsoft landscape and your organization. The last thing you need is technology overlap and deployment end user confusion.

There will be a Q and A session at the end, to ask direct questions to the presenter. We'll cover:
-Brief history of both products
-Technical architecture of SharePoint 2007 and Business Portal 4.0
-Side by side functionality comparison
-Appropriate business scenarios for each product
-Why migrate to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?
-Moving forward

Date: Thursday, April 2nd Time: 12:00pm EST
To register, click here
- This web session will start on time. Try to be logged on at 11:55am Thank You


Project Management 2.0 using SharePoint 2007

Project Management 2.0 (social project management) is the natural evolution of project management practices brought by Web 2.0 technologies.
Internal / Virtual teams now can work together more efficiently by utilizing the new-generation, web-based project management tools . These tools such as blogs, wikis, collaborative software, which are out of the box SharePoint features challenge the original definition of project management. Project Management 2.0 represents a dramatic shift toward having collaboration as the heart of project management.

Most companies don't understand SharePoint's power, and use it simply to share documents or spreadsheets, rather than webinizing their information for their project team to collaborate, communicate and co-ordinate.

The transformation appears in the role of the project manager, in the interaction with clients and the technology.

What we'll cover:
• What is web 2.0?
• What is project management 2.0?
• Compare and contrast with current (old) project management approaches
• Why project management 2.0 fails
• Project management 2.0 challenges
• Webinizing information
• SharePoint and project management 2.0- the natural fit: Track project schedules, change controls, on demand status reports
• Learn to apply key project management techniques by leveraging SharePoint as the project management office tool.
• Track a case study that illustrates the circumstances and processes of an effective SharePoint project management office tool.

Date and Time : 4/9/2008 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EST - This web session will start on time. Try to be logged on at 11:55am Thank You

To register, click here


Free webinar: Web based business analytics in SharePoint: Dash boarding and report writing from GP to SharePoint

-Have you excelled quicker than you should?-Is your reporting more of an informal process that really should be formalized?SharePoint is the great tool to bring together the reporting, dashboards, and spreadsheets into a single and accessible location. It’s a tool to compliment your current reporting process. Data business analytics can be new to IT management professionals, however it has been around for quite some time under different names (data warehousing, data marts, cubes, etc.).

Learn how to:
• Display a mixed data from multiple sources • Automate GP report writing-
-Cash flow across AR, AP, GL
-Sales orders: Trend analysis
-Forecasting: Revenue models
-Drill down functionality
• Dashboards

Do you put your finger in the air, to get a sense of how your business is performing?Imagine a world where there is 1 version of the information.

SharePoint can be that world. We look forward to you joining us on this free webinar.The InterDyn team

Date and Time : 4/23/2008 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EST - This web session will start on time. Try to be logged on at 11:55am Thank You

To register click here


Unleash the collective power within a media / advertising / publishing company with SharePoint 2007

Media Focused Webinar• Have you excelled quicker than you should?• Have an informal process that really should be formalized?SharePoint has been the fastest growing product in Microsoft history. By making it easier to manage content and streamline processes.

Learn how to:
• Display a media calendar of Digital, OOH , Print, Radio, Retail, TV, Other campaigns
• Automate campaign due dates
• Stream line the process for each media type: Planning ---> Approval ---> Buying • Authorizations of media plans, schedules, flow charts
• Automate your performance metrics: Post-Analysis, Digital – Tracking, TV - Post-Buy Summaries
• Dashboard research from different sources: Nielson, Workhorse
• View your billing schedule in 2 clicks
• Reports: US budget, spending vs. marketing. With drill down functionality
• Provide metrics and data visibilities to monitor performance capacity forecasts and inventory availability to guide sales activities.
• Timesheet tracking of your campaigns

If you put your finger in the air, to get a sense of how your business is performing, this free webinar is for you.

Imagine a world where there is 1 version of the information, based on fact!! SharePoint can be that world.Communicate + Collaborate + Coordinate = SharePoint

Date and Time : 5/7/2009 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EST - This web session will start on time. Try to be logged on at 11:55am Thank You

To register, click here

pricing of wss with external parties

I often get asked this question:

Costs:

Option 1

Server 1: Web server front end
Server 2: Standard back end server- SQL (you have this already- GP runs on this)

External connector unlimited non employees $2,019


Option 2

Server 1: Web server front end
Server 2: Standard back end server- SQL (you have this already- GP runs on this)

Windows CALs for each user/device, not SQL $30
These are not concurrent licenses

Note: When you install the server, you need to specify what kind of server it is- Web and the license type. CAL or per server

Microsoft promises to slash cost of 'high-end' search

"Microsoft has promised to make enterprise search cost effective under a roadmap outlined today, having splashed out $1.3bn on FAST Search and Transfer a year ago.
The company's roadmap will see high-end search from FAST integrated with its SharePoint family, covering portal, content management, and business information."

Link

Even through FAST was acquired by Microsoft last year, not sure if this purchase was that wise as FAST was last year accused of accounting fraud in its home country of Norway, with the company restating its 2006 and 2007 earnings and former chief executive turned vice president of Microsoft's search group John Lervik has now left Microsoft citing personal reasons for his departure.

Obvious the financial statements weren't properly searched!!

"Avoiding the Intranet Dumpster" - watch this short video

CEO Mark Ragan shares seven tips on how to avoid letting your company's intranet become a dumpster of content.

SharePoint functionality..missing .

I was recently adding in the functionality of the list approve/reject feature and I discovered that whoever approves the item, does not get shown in the audit log or related metadata.

With non coding it’s difficult to show. Calculated fields don’t work, nor does email triggering.

This is a bit of a poor design feature, as normally you want to know who’s approving what.

The workflow functionally is needed, so if you are on WSS, you’ll need MOSS, or K2