presentations
One of Steve McCoy's best known traits is that of
being an excellent communicator and teacher. As we look at the
challenges of technology-oriented businesses, the need to ensure
that everyone is "on the same page" can be critical to the success
of projects and product development and the ability to educate and
to lead others has always been at the top of Steve's skills.
The following items represent just a very few
samples of original material prepared by McCoy for business
planning, staff training, and strategy development. These
items hit on some topics that are somewhat unique, in their nature.
While the presentations (in ".pdf" form) are certainly not complete
without Mr. McCoy's commentary, it is hoped that they demonstrate
some interesting ways to "think" about these types of problems.
With such a broad background, he can assist your business in
numerous ways in "thinking through" many similar challenges. Click on any of the
document titles to access a ".pdf" (Acrobat) version of the
presentation.
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Creating a Technology "Vision" -
In his roles as a
Technology Strategist, McCoy has faced many different organizations
that wrestle with the concepts of doing strategic planning for
technical organizations or businesses that are very dependent on
technology. As a discipline, "Technology Strategy" is still in
its' infancy in many respects and is often the reflection of one or
two people rather than a carefully considered set of processes.
This presentation does not pretend to offer a comprehensive solution
to the idea of technology strategy, but does present some important
considerations that you'll want to review with regard to some basic
training for the topic and specifically offers some guidance on the
idea of developing a real "Vision" for where you want your
technology to go and why. If you would like to contact Steve
McCoy for additional discussion or consultation on the topics, he'd
love to hear from you. Having refined some of the approaches
in the past, he is also available for facilitation of sessions on
the topic of "technology strategy". Email
trmccoyx@cox.net or call
+1(402)598-5153.
The "Yellow Pad" Problem Solving Method -
Faced with his own frustrations of being
responsible for critical computer systems early in his career, McCoy
developed a set of rules that he used for himself to follow in
solving technical problems. In moving into management over
time, he felt that "debugging skills" were critical to the
organizations that he led, but found little to be available to
assist in training folks on the topic. Being a "keep it
simple.." person, this presentation was intended to bring the old
"checklist" mentality to the art of solving highly technical
problems. This presentation also has served as the basis for
Mr. McCoy's first book on technical problem solving techniques
planned for publication later in 2010.
Good, Fast, Cheap! Pick Two -
When a former boss, whom he respected greatly,
used this catch phrase in a meeting with some demanding management;
Steve McCoy took it to heart. As one that believes strongly in
breaking complex problems down into workable pieces, it made great
sense. When another colleague made a conflicting statement
that "there must be a way to do all three", McCoy took that as a
challenge to explain what the underlying issues are. This
presentation provides a basis for conversation on setting priorities
and understanding how these three delivery characteristics:
(1) Quality, (2) Time to Market, and (3) Cost, must all be
considered in a business delivery of products or services.
It's not about sacrificing one over another, but about planning and
strategy in your business or organizational responsibilities.
Reporting vs. Analytics: Roles of Information Delivery -
Recently, just about every publication
on technology or business management has been including information
on, Analytics, or Business Intelligence, or Data Mining. This
is great example of cycles that we seem to go through where it takes
careful consideration to understand the difference between the HYPE
versus the HOPE of business tools, practices, and policies.
This presentation offers considerations for business to evaluate in
defining the role and function of more standard "reporting" versus
the use of much more complicated "analytics". Mr. McCoy
believes that is critial to be clear in understanding these
differences when determining how you run your own business and what
you provide to customers..
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