Technical Leaders Blog
Fueling Curiosity, Igniting Expertise
(See also my articles on “IT in Manufacturing“).
Hello World, again.
It has been a long time since I wrote anything specifically about Technical Leaders. I guess that life happens and you can easily get caught up in a whirlwind mainly when new opportunities keep presenting themselves. “Look, a squirrel”! Another shiny object. The next...
4 Perspectives on digital product management
If I had to distill just four key areas that have the most impact on the success of a digital product business, I would most likely come up with the list below. My first website had these prominently displayed. Turns out, after 5 years they seem to me to have...
New toolkits for innovation
Back in the 1980s, as a junior process engineer, I spent a great part of my first job working with DCS and SCADA systems. At the time, I was working on a synfuels plant that made use of a Honeywell TDC3000 DCS. Most of the field instruments were connected to the...
Product strategy and innovation
Product companies have the unenviable challenge to constantly optimise a complex blend of products and services with the imperative to remain profitable. Frequently the demands of day to day operations dominate and dilute efforts to be innovating around new products....
Business models and mergers
At some stage in the growth of an information company, it may be necessary to grow by merger or acquisition. Acquisitions can rapidly add to underlying business growth by virtue of scale. With the increasing scale of operations the fixed costs associated with shared...
IT organisations need to prepare for an uncertain future
As engineers and technical specialists, we tend to regard technological trends in terms of the physical and virtual world. So, for example, when we consider the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud, SAAS, big data, and so on, our natural response is immediately to focus on...
In search of innovation
There is a great post on Harvard Business Review by Vijay Govindarajan and Jatin Desai regarding the nature of innovation in organisations. The message aligns very closely with my own experience with software products. Organisations tend to focus on building short...