#10 – VALUE ADDED AUDITING® – GREG HUTCHINS

What value are you offering these days?

Greg Hutchins pixThis is probably the most important question management is asking these days.  Functions and activities that don’t add value are outsourced. Quality, operational, internal, and financial audits are outsourced if they don’t add real operational and managerial value. 

Value means different things to different people.  What is important to one organization may be different to another.  One company’s best practice may be another company’s standard operating procedure. Continue reading

#10 – ALARP – AS LOW AS REASONABLY POSSIBLE – PAUL KOSTEK

ALARP – As Low as Reasonably Possible.

Paul Kostek PixFor anyone with any experience with risk management this is one of the key terms used to make a decision about applying risk mitigations.  It is used when going beyond a certain point (cost/weight/performance), open to definition by every company, that the resulting cost/performance of the product no longer makes fiscal sense.

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#10 – PREVENTING SOFTWARE FAILURE – (C) CAPERS JONES

Capers Jones pixFrom working as an expert witness in a number of lawsuits where large software projects were cancelled or did not operate correctly when deployed, four major problems occur repeatedly:  1) Accurate estimates are not produced or are overruled; 2) Requirements changes are not handled effectively; 3) Quality control is deficient; 4) Progress tracking fails to alert higher management to the seriousness of the issues.  There are often other problems as well, but these four always occur in breach of contract litigation. Continue reading