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Dec 09

5 Time Management Techniques That Save You Time and Money

Mike Posted by: Mike in Subscriptions | Comment (0)

Let’s face it- 24 hours in a day seems limiting. After all, you have deadlines, coworkers to manage, and a looming project. How do the likes of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, with all their responsibilities, have enough time to accomplish their goals?  One common characteristic of very successful people is excellent time management skills. By not learning or employing time management techniques, you are not working efficiently as possible. 

We will go over five time management tips that will hopefully save you time, money and increase your efficiency. They say it takes three weeks of repetition to make an action a habit-what are you waiting for!? Start practicing the time management skills shown below.

#1) Track your daily activity

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Nov 22

Complete Projects On Time

Mike Posted by: Mike in Subscriptions | Comment (0)

 

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According to the market research company, Research and Markets, US spending on IT products and services is forecasted to grow to $514.5 billion in 2010. However, the estimated cost of IT failures to the US economy is $1 trillion! Now we’re talking about IT system failures and their net affect on the companies that rely on those systems. But you can bet money on the fact that the institutions and companies experiencing these losses know the IT company who built their system. Furthermore, they’re not going to be buying from that company again, much less recommending it to their partners and contacts. In any company, large or small, your reputation is your biggest asset – you want to be in that 8% group. If your IT projects are failing, then you are not going to win the market share you need to compete in that $514.5 billion market!
The following 5 principles lay out the steps you should be following, to make sure that your projects are completed on time, and on budget, successfully. Read them, learn them, know them, teach them and then make them stick.
Principle One: Communicate
• 40% of project managers cited poor communication as the leading cause if IT project failures
If everyone involved in your IT project doesn’t know what they’re working on, when it’s due, how to get it done and who the audience is, how can you possibly expect your project to succeed?



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Nov 19

Software Test Cases 101: The Basics

Mike Posted by: Mike in Subscriptions | Comment (0)

Building test cases is about doing your best to find the worst in a program in order to deliver a quality product to thecustomer. Without a well-designed and executed test plan, the results can be catastrophic and very costly. For example,because of an error in the software, the first flight of the Ariane 5 rocket resulted in its complete destruction and the loss of four satellites at a cost of more than $370 million.

In the U.S. alone, software bugs cost the economy $59 billion2 back in 2002. Clearly, software defects must be found and corrected before unleashing new programs to the customer.

This article provides you with a basic understanding of software test cases. In addition, the article describes proven methods for building test cases that uncover the most defects with the minimum of time, effort and money.

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Nov 18

Don't let the bugs out!!

Mike Posted by: Mike in Subscriptions | Comment (0)

In software development, an Issue or Bug is a glitch in your software system that causes the program to behave in a way other than designed. Issues can range from the show stopper, a fatal error that causes irreparable damage to your software system, to the very minor glitch. Obviously, each issue in the system is not going to have the same importance, or urgency, attached to it. Critical issues, the show stoppers mentioned above, need to be solved first before you can do anything else. Lower urgency issues are the minor ones, which you or your team can put off until time permits. There are tons of other details, that are relevant to the fate of your software, to keep track of like who experienced the issue (was it a customer or someone within the company), when was the bug found, what exactly was it that the user
experienced (in order to be solved, this needs to be extremely detailed!), what solutions were attempted, and much more.

An issue tracking system or tool will manage and maintain your lists of issues. Organizations commonly use Issue tracking systems in their customer support call centers to create, assign, update, track and resolve reported issues. These issues could come from customers directly, or even from the organization's other (non IT) employees. An issue tracking system will often also contain a knowledge base, which information on each customer, fixes for common problems, and other important and useful data. http://www.elementool.com/ebook/IssueTrackingeBook.pdf

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