During a meeting about training today, one of my colleagues and I were discussing how the same taxonomy could apply to several different “bodies of knowledge” about Acquia and Drupal. We’re envisioning a taxonomy that could organize a “Drupal Body of Knowledge” collection (akin to the PMBOK), training curricula, a certification exam, and a knowledgebase.
During our discussion of different areas that the taxonomy would influence, I got to thinking about IAN and PETE, the knowledgebase and project collaboration tools that we used a Context Integration. I got my start in consulting at Context, and these tools were a key part of our success. I think back longingly to them each time the discussion of knowledge management comes up.
Posted November 19th, 2008 by Chuck
WSJ travel columnist Scott McCartney offers his plea for how President-elect Obama can simplify the lives of business travelers by splitting the FAA into two different arms—one for regulation and the other for air traffic control and management.
He recommends that President Obama work to create the latter entity as a quasi-government organization or a non-profit corporation like those in Australia, Canada, and the UK.
Posted November 7th, 2008 by Site Administrator
I just finished listening to Karl Susman on Sound Policy with Denise Howell. A worrying trend that Karl points out is that homeowner’s claims related to blogging liability were being paid out for some time, and now there aren’t any being paid out. As an insurance agent, his take on this is that blogging, podcasting, and other online participation are no longer covered by homeowner’s policies. Of course, there are now some custom policies available for bloggers.
Earlier in the cast, he mentioned that blogging and related activities are also entering into corporate policy negotiations. Most of the corporate liability policies he’s working on (in CA) explicitly do not cover liability related to online publishing activities—or offering very minimal coverage.
Posted November 6th, 2008 by Chuck
The CMS Watch Trendwatch blog had a post yesterday on when the project honeymoon ends. We’ve all experienced this—when our relationship with clients shifts from “how can we help them succeed” to “how do we keep from bleeding money.” I think a big part of this is our failure to estimate well, and the fact that we prepare a big statement of work up from (BSOWUF? cf. BDUF).
At Acquia we use Scrum for product development and I want it to figure prominently in our PS delivery methodology as well. I’m not sure that the honeymoon never ends with an agile method, but I think the disappointments and the defensiveness of traditional methods are minimized. During the course of an agile project, you have regular feedback on progress, all validated with working software.
Posted October 25th, 2008 by Chuck
QuickArrow has made a great library of 35 must read PS whitepapers available on their site. The collection includes some papers from TPSA director Thomas Lah, PSVillage advisory board member Jeanne Urich, Charles Green from Trusted Advisor Associates, and more.
There are great papers on The Changing PS Model, services marketing, services maturity, and KPIs/metrics. Thanks to QuickArrow for providing such a great resource, and to PSVillage for bringing it to my attention.
Posted June 21st, 2008 by Chuck
I spent the morning today documenting the practice development activities for Acquia services. I started out working in Project X which I decided to try after seeing the icon in Andrew’s dock. It turned out to be a terrible time to try a new tool, since the ideas were coming too fast and I was handicapped by the learning curve. I thought of switching back to OmniPlan, which I’ve been using since it came out.
As I started down that path, it hit me that it wasn’t learning a new application that was the problem (though I’m sure it didn’t help). It was the structure I was working in. The ideas weren’t coming to be in a hierarchy, but I was trying to record them that way. Jumping around a Gantt chart or even the Network View in Project X just wasn’t working out. I needed to move back a level and get all the ideas down, then start putting them into a more formal structure. Time for a Mind Map!
I fired up NovaMind and started mapping.
Posted April 22nd, 2008 by Chuck
Joining Acquia not only marks the earliest stage that I’ve joined a company, but also the first time I’ve joined a commercial Open Source company. This was one of the main reasons I chose to join the company. Managing a services business at an Open Source software company creates some interesting challenges compared to my past experience in traditional software and consulting businesses.
There’s more than one culture to adapt to. When you join an Open Source company, you not only need to adjust to your company’s culture, but you need to become an active member of the Open Source community. At an early stage, the cultures are likely to be quite similar—but its not guaranteed. Even with compatible cultures, you’re still dealing with two sets of personalities and the politics that come any time you get people together.
The software already exists. This is a big benefit but also a risk when putting your team together. If you’re building your capabilities along with the software, your company will be able to put the right team in place to stay ahead of the curve as use and acceptance of your software grows.
Posted April 17th, 2008 by Chuck
One of my responsibilities at Acquia is overseeing the development of our certification program. We’re creating this program to establish baseline credentials for working with our commercially supported distribution of Drupal (codenamed Carbon) and our Spokes and Caliper network services. Since Carbon is a distribution of Drupal core and a selection of modules, Acquia certification will judge facility to work with Drupal independent of our distribution.
I was not surprised that the Drupal community is suggesting caution when it comes to our effort and the value of certification in general. I’ve been a certification skeptic since I first started working with Certified™ technical staff. There are too many “paper” certifications in the IT community, and I’m not interested in adding another to the pile.
Posted April 10th, 2008 by Chuck
I’ve owned the domain name “chuckdantonio.com” for a couple of years now, but the time for tool selection, installation, and keeping up a quality blog always eluded me. Now that I’ve joined Acquia, I’m able to make the time to launch the site with Drupal. I started to get acquainted with Drupal during the interview process, then gulped from the firehose during two days at Drupalcon Boston and haven’t stopped gulping on my first few days on the job.
Over the last ten years, I’ve been consulting on a variety of technologies—most recently SOA Governance for Systinet and its successor companies. Before Systinet, I worked on web applications and content management for eFORCE and Context Integration. Consulting most excites when watching clients develop and “get it”. I joined Systinet to move formally into management get this excitement everyday working with my team.
Posted March 26th, 2008 by Chuck
