Almost anyone who works in an industry that sells services will sooner or later be asked to create an estimate. Most people have limited skills in this area: they’re trained to perform some kind of specialist work like software development … [read more]
In the course of my day job, I often find myself confronted with having to document things on paper that are easier to implement than document. One of these things is a SharePoint 2010 collaboration site template. As you know … [read more]
Have you ever had to facilitate a meeting where a large number of people was asked to solve a complex problem? It’s stressful and the outcome isn’t necessarily the resolution of the problem. Every time you think you’ve discovered a … [read more]
The opinions in this blog post should not be construed as advice, especially not legal advice. Whether you act on anything I suggest here is entirely up to you—I would strongly suggest you take a close look at your employment … [read more]
One of the hardest things in selling professional services is to properly articulate the business value of your solution in your proposal, especially during an economic downturn. We in the “Microsoft partner camp” are often not very good at establishing … [read more]
The New Software Era I know this is a generalization, but I think that the world of software is finally changing. For years now, we’ve heard about systems that provide enough abstraction, enough of a “toolkit” user interface so that … [read more]
There’s an industry-wide SharePoint skills shortage. Nobody can currently meet their human resource needs: customers, systems integrators, independent software vendors, even Microsoft itself is short of talent. Such is the plight caused by a product that has been unexpectedly successful, … [read more]
When discussing project vision, business requirements and software specifications with clients, a typical challenge is that the business analyst doesn’t act as a discussion partner but rather an order taker who has no opinions of his own. Many business analysts … [read more]