2008 February-March

The free monthly resource on business change and technology using Agile techniques for the wider business community.

Agile Business Change for February/March 2008 by Marcus Price, Agilier Ltd

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1) Book review: "Agile Project Management: Running PRINCE2 Projects with DSDM Atern" by Keith Richards

2) On the SocGen Debacle

3) Users and Customers

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1) Book review: "Agile Project Management: Running PRINCE2 Projects with DSDM Atern" by Keith Richards

This book’s aim to show how these two internationally-renowned project methods can be used together to improve the chance of delivering successful projects. It gives a way of integrating the PRINCE2 project management method with a highly-configurable and increasingly-popular delivery method, Atern. Read more...

2) On the SocGen Debacle

The fallout of the recent Société Générale debacle has lead to speculation that part of the cause was the rogue trader’s use of Microsoft Excel spreadsheet programming to cover his tracks. Most of SocGen’s reporting and risk management appeared to be based on Excel rather than of enterprise-level applications that are easier to lock-down. Read more...

3) Users and Customers

I was interested to read an article on possible future financial models for the Internet telephony provider, Skype. The auction site, eBay, bought Skype in late-2005. The problem facing eBay is how to persuade those that have signed-up to Skype's free telephony services to subscribe to enhanced, fee-based services. One of the comments relating to the article made the telling observation that “the problem is the valuation of $2.6bn - when will investors learn that users are not the same thing as customers”. Read more...

All best wishes for the month ahead.

Kind regards,

Marcus Price

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