So, now you’re a consultant
Over the years, I’ve noticed that when the economy turns sour, the number of people calling themselves consultants grows dramatically. Sometimes it seems the definition of consultant has been changed to “person between jobs.” If you want to thrive in this next phase of your career, you need to be clear about a few things. As you consider these issues, be completely honest with yourself. And recognize that honesty can be exceedingly difficult at a time when you feel vulnerable and out of control. First, think about what you really want. Why are you becoming a consultant? Is...
Read MoreWhat is a Job, Anyway?
With the economy ailing, the U.S. presidential election in full swing and surveys showing cuts in next year’s IT budgets, get ready to hear more and more about jobs. People will lose jobs. Evil corporations will export jobs. We will need more jobs. We will need better jobs. Not McJobs. People will become unemployed and underemployed, and they will drop out of the workforce. They will go back to school with the hopes of obtaining better jobs. The government will try to “create” jobs using tax policy, environmental policy, fiscal policy, trade policy, labor policy, research...
Read MoreHow Indispensable Should You Be?
After World War II, the vacuum cleaner began its meteoric rise as an American household appliance. It was sold as an amazing labor-saving device to liberate women from the dreary chore of rug beating. And with that promise, it quickly became a fixture in the homes of the rapidly growing middle class. For years afterward, it was assumed that vacuum cleaners did just what we expected: saved labor. But more recently, scholars have reinterpreted their true effects. It seems that rather than saving time for other pursuits, vacuum cleaners merely raised the standards for home cleanliness. Women...
Read MoreFacing a no-win situation
The Alamo Dilemma Sometimes work is a joy. Sometimes we get to work with people we love. Sometimes projects are engaging, exciting and meaningful. Progress seems effortless. Sometimes we even wonder how we got so lucky as to get paid to do something this fun. But then, sometimes work is a struggle, and we are confronted by intractable problems that can’t be solved or even managed. Since most of us trained as engineers, we’re steeped in the disciplines of problem solving, and we like to think that every problem has a solution. Given infinite time and money, we think we can solve...
Read MoreWhat do we owe our bosses?
Workplace Obligations (This article originally appeared in Computerworld USA and Computerworld Australia.) Wouldn’t it be nice if every boss came with a standard API? It would be so easy to look at the interface specifications and know exactly what he expected, in what format he expected it, when you should deliver it, what predictable events would result from your input and how you should handle error conditions. All the politics would go away. Those pesky emotions would become a nonissue. Success would become deterministic. Sadly, it will never be so simple. Every boss-subordinate...
Read MoreFear the Fear of Offshoring
Lately I’ve had a troubling sense that there is a cancer growing in IT departments these days. No, I’m not talking about constrained budgets, poor alignment, hiring freezes or project failures. I’m not even talking about the growth of outsourcing and offshoring. While these issues are all real, there seems to be something even more toxic eating away at our indust ry. What could possibly be more threatening to IT staffs than offshoring? Fear of offshoring. This faceless, nameless dark terror seems to be gnawing away at the morale of IT professionals everywhere. They are...
Read MoreJob Satisfaction: It’s Overrated
Few managers are genuinely surprised when the results of an employee satisfaction survey are revealed. You really don’t need the science of statistics to know that people aren’t entirely pleased with every aspect of their work lives. Given the state of our industry over the past few years, most IT managers are facing at least some degree of worker disaffection. In fact, plenty of the managers themselves are similarly discontent, as Computerworld’s Job Satisfaction Survey also shows. But once faced with a dissatisfied IT workforce, what should you do? Hide in your office?...
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