George Spafford

In our connected world, people are attached to their work more than ever. Rarely can people leave work at the office as it follows them home, tracking them down via cell phones, laptops and a plethora of remote connectivity options. Some would say this has increased the productivity of the American worker, but has it […]

The events of the past few months have brought disasters back to the front of corporate agendas. Unfortunately, not all organizations realize the critical need to internalize planning and may figure they will let the government help them if the time comes. What they don’t realize is that even if a disaster strikes, there may […]

I recently traveled to Australia and New Zealand to teach classes on regulatory compliance, risk management, and the use of controls. The flight from LAX to Brisbane was supposed to take about 14 hours, so I took two main batteries and two auxiliary batteries for my Dell Latitude D800, figuring on getting six to 10 […]

People sometimes ask if configuration management and change management are the same functional set of tasks. Both in principle and practice, they are two very different subject areas but they are dependent on one another. To understand Configuration Management (CM) better, let’s review it through its four primary objectives and benefits. From a broad perspective, […]

Three. That’s the number of times in the past five months that I’ve been stuck in hotels with failed high-speed Internet connections. While I received polite apologies and “I’m sorry sir, we’ll credit your bill,” those responses are unacceptable. Simply put, hotels catering to business travelers need to seriously rethink the criticality of their Internet […]

You know, I feel like a poster child for Dell most of the time. I have a Dell notebook, Dell printer, and Dell Axim Pocket PC. To me, they are tools I use to run my business and satisfy customer needs. My selections have been pragmatic, but one of my choices surprises me in terms […]

In a recent study published by A.T. Kearney, the need for alignment between IT and the rest of the organization was brought up yet again. Their research shows there still is a disconnection between IT and the business side. The Kearney study provides some very interesting contrasts between IT and business perspectives — how IT […]

IT administrators and workers are so busy addressing operational issues, they don’t have enough time to be innovative, according to a recent study from A.T. Kearney, a management consulting firm. In fact, the study says that only 20 percent of the IT budget is allocated toward innovation, which is a 30 percent drop since 2002. […]

When talking with IT people, negative perceptions of process controls invariably surface as soon as the subject is raised. Unfortunately, many people have limited exposure to control theory and the benefits that can be gained. In fact, many don’t realize they already have controls in some processes they perform constantly, but have never labeled them […]

One of the challenges during IT process improvement projects, or any project for that matter, is to stay focused. During the course of a project, opportunities and risks constantly surface that people tend to want to address ad hoc. The challenge is that projects should have a goal from which resources including time, people, technology […]