Kitchen (and Other) Nightmares – Mark Leheney

In the embarrassing-admissions department, I have to confess I sometimes watch Kitchen Nightmares, that show in which the acerbic Gordon Ramsay (poster child for Thinking versus Feeling in the MBTI) shreds a failing restaurant along the way to rebuilding it into something successful. The predictable sequence is: Gordon enters the disaster zone, dissects what isRead… Read more »

Objectives and Outcomes

Frank Strickland gave a talk at CTMH this week that defined, clarified, and corrected one of the most common destructive organizational behaviors. Picture this: You’re in a development meeting, or a sales meeting, or a deployment meeting, and a ranking member, often from outside the team, starts grinding for some unknowable information. “When will youRead… Read more »

Early innovator states not racing to the finish line

Deltek Health Care and Social Services Analyst Aila Altman reports. Despite receiving millions of dollars in federal funding to get a leg up on developing federally-mandated health insurance exchanges, several Early Innovator Grant recipients continue to battle health care reform law. In total, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded $241 millionRead… Read more »

Can’t tell you if a product complies with Section 508

As part of my team’s job supporting the BuyAccessible Wizard, we often get questions asking if a specific product complies with Section 508. This is a question we can’t answer. Remember it is the agency itself that must comply with Section 508, not the product or the services. When an agency is determining the requirementsRead… Read more »

Using the Hourglass to Respond to Questions in a Crisis

Here at EPA, we were quite busy this spring providing information about radiation levels resulting from the earthquake and tsunami that damaged Japanese nuclear reactors. Check out the site! Now we’re thinking about lessons learned, and one thing I came up with was a concept of a question/answer “hourglass,” where we take in questions fromRead… Read more »

Next White Paper Outline: Featured Based Techniques for SharePoint

Featured Based Techniques for SharePoint Brian K Seitz Abstract What are Feature Based Techniques? Why are Feature Based Techniques important to SharePoint? Feature Based Requirements Techniques Problems with old methods Overly administrative Slow to delivery, Slow to receive benefits Complex relationships difficult to represent Problems with new methodologies (Agile) Disconnected from rest of enterprise, unlessRead… Read more »

Weekly Round-up: June 17. 2011

Gadi Ben-Yehuda Vivek Kundra to Leave White House in August. OMB Director Jack Lew has a nice good-bye post on the WH Blog for Vivek Kundra, who announced that he is leaving the administration in August for a fellowship at Harvard. Need to Find an Embassy? Look up a Travel Alert? There’s an App forRead… Read more »

Cleveland considers new policy for fare cheats

The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (OH) may soften its policy against fare evaders by giving scofflaws two days to pay a $50 fine before charging them with a crime. Under the current system, riders caught without paying receive a ticket and are charged with a fourth-degree misdemeanor; they can avoid a trial by payingRead… Read more »

BART delays Orinda solar carport project

San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (CA) has agreed to delay plans to install solar panels above 400 parking spaces at the Orinda station until the city finalizes its downtown planning process. Some local officials and residents believe that the carport could interfere with the city’s vision for downtown. Until the planning process is complete,Read… Read more »