Technical Career News Computerworld has determined that General Mills are  one of the best companies in the US to work for. Congratulations General Mills. There is rather a lot from my experience that an organisation such as General Mills need to do to achieve such lofty heights. I worked for an organization back a whiles that suddenly came up with the idea that they were suddenly going to get themselves into the stratospheric heights of at least a top 50 entry. I sort of thought at the time we would be lucky to scrape in the the top 100. Now as I seem to remember it there was a bit of fanfare for a while and then zip, died faster than a Saturn V leaving the atmosphere. Gone and it was never seen again. Now I am sure it seemed like a really good idea at the time and another business which was a neighbouring business had after all been the Number 1 pick a couple of years earlier. They had in fact reached the top 10 a few times, so it shouldn’t be that hard. Funny thing is they clearly had no idea that there methods of managing the company held people in such raptures at times that they had little chance, it was a work force that had been beaten down too many times and they just didn’t have the will to go again for another dead end ride. One of the things was they had to get 50% I think of the staff to do a survey as part of entry. I think the results from the initial survey wasn’t want was that which they expected. Form my experience they would have taken at least two years of decision and follow through with the execution each and every time to show a solid progressive front. I started there amidst some more turbulent times that lead to a plan being hatched to reinvigorate the company and as a new employee against the judgement of the older employees I was working with gave management the benefit of the doubt. Like all before me I was to ultimately be dissapointed. I saw things that didn’t seem right at the time, but hey I was a relative junior in much of that sort of stuff. But I still stuck with them for at least 18 months to try and help make the changes happen. I even enrolled myself as a change evangelist. So what did the company get, well not a lot in the end. A lot was spent and little really changed. Maybe there was a flow on effect and there was probably a few small changes however I think in the end all the major initiatives dropped by the wayside.I look back and think that really the best for that organisation was Kaizen as shown by Toyota Motor Corporation and written about in the Toyota Way an excellent read. Go to work and make small improvements each and every day, try and do a new thing that improves a process or improves a product. This is something that will work if it is institutionalised from the top. jeffrey Liker wrote a great executive breif in this matter from the Toyota perspective

Since Toyota’s founding we have adhered to the core principle of con-tributing to society through the practice of manufacturing high-qualityproducts and services. Our business practices and activities based on thiscore principle created values, beliefs and business methods that over theyears have become a source of competitive advantage.These are themanagerial values and business methods that are known collectively asthe Toyota Way.                                           —Fujio Cho, President Toyota                                (from the Toyota Way document, 2001)Big bang means you are leaving your run to change too long, you need to change bit by bit each day, until there is a notivcable chage to process which needs to improve quaility or time to manufacture, however in the interest of continuous improvement,each employee needs to adress the process of improvement in their area every day. Toyota has seen huge pay back in this process.

So go out and make a little improvement in you, your processes or your product each day, little by little.

See ya round

Peter

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I was approached last year about reviewing a book, this was quite a surprise as I had never had anything to do with such things before. I was interested so after a quick exchange with the publishers I was on board and ready to go. I received a brief outline of the book chapters and some guideline material to assist me in the process. A few days or a week later I received the first chapter along with the book preface to review. Then depending on how the author was progressing, the new chapters  would arrive each week to have me review them. I would then have to review then write comments apply tracking and enter edits to the document and the chapter returns to the author vvia the publisher.

I needed to review each chapter for its technical merit; Did the content cover the topic for the chapter, what things could be done to improve it, does it have suitable material to allow someone to understand, and therefore get any value for the money they hand over to the bookstore, publisher and author or are they getting a dud.

Now just a thing to be  aware of is that you will not likely get any payment for the effort you put in, however, in my case I am getting a couple of book copies as well as I get recognition for the assistance in technical review in the book.

I am now about to review a second one and this is going to be additionally interesting as I have quite a personal interest in the area, where the author is writing. This has a few benefits, the things the author is going to cover are going to cut down on some research I have to do and will likely ask em a few questions I am going to need to know answers to.

Both these books are on topics about Oracle product, the first is for a newbie DBA, although I am sure a number of more experienced DBA’s can get a bit out of it. The second I have just stated on relates to Oracle Middleware and Fusion

I would recommend this heartily to anyone else as there is much to be gained and little to lose except some slack time and possibly some sleep. Book review work is an excellent way to get in some material reading. It makes you really think about what it is you are reviewing and finally you have to learn something.

Have a great week all

See ya round

Peter

CrunchBase Information Oracle Corporation Information provided by CrunchBase

Apparently Security skills of the IT work force lacks generally. This is not surprising as for the most part many organisations where I work there is a lack of understanding of IT security. The government departments are very aware, generally have good policy and practise in place but I have seen many stupid breaches of good practise due to poor policy and procedures. This is where the problems often lie and its not the practitioners, who are struggling to do there job but the management who fails to understand many of the ramifications as they do not well understand the problems they are being faced with at the coal face.

This is a common problem that many parts of IT face. Management ever come up to you and say “can you sort this out for me it shouldn’t take more than a few hours.” Well this lack of understanding of IT from our managers is what is leaving the organisations exposed to breaches.

Clearly many managers do not understand IT law, I find this a terrible oversight that leaves many companies exposed to poor outcomes when there is a failing of there IT policy and procedures.Recently I was doing some work on a clients site and they had me sign a piece of paper for internet access about acceptable use. It would now be considered that for that organisations they will be covered against a misdemeanour. My legal studies would lead me to the conclusion that they are likely on shaky ground, for a few reasons they have not clearly identified what are a couple of items open for interpretation. what is offensive and what is acceptable use. Now maybe another time they might just put me on a induction course that will clearly outline these, however until that is clearly stated then what may be considered offensive by the organisation may not be yours or mine interpretation.

It is these problems that management have about IT and security that are leaving the IT practitioners hanging out as without this being understood how do they understand the firefights the practitioners are wrangling inside and outside the organisations. If they can’t understand this how do they get to a place where they have sufficient skills. Offering training will be good, but how does it benefit people. Does a new Checkpoint course really help solve the problem or should we look deeper at other types of training to take people out side the box to solve the problems. I certainly think a lot of management needs to go there.

See ya round

Peter

Security skills of IT workforce lacking, survey finds – Network World