Tuesday, March 05, 2024

2024-03-05 Tuesday - Professional Services Consulting - Utilization Rates

[image credit: kolyaeg on pixabay.com]


 
In the world of Professional Services Consulting, I learned some interesting heuristics, several decades ago, that have stood the test of time.

(these are based on long-term sustainable planning models...)

If you build the financial model for your practice around an assumption of a utilization rate of:
 

60%: Your firm has a good chance to survive & thrive - even in the lean times. You won't make as much money - and you won't be able to pay your personnel top rates. But you will have the advantage of long-term continuity - while others disappear.

70%: Your firm will experience wider swings in unplanned reductions-in-force. This will impact morale, training costs, client satisfaction, and retention.

80%+: You'll be able to pay your personnel higher rates, and provide a lot of nice benefits - but your firm will experience increased levels of staff turn-over, and burn-out. Decreased retention will affect morale. Increased client account churn will damage the bottom line. In the lean times, your company will be decimated by reductions-in-force.

95%+: You are on the highway to hell. You are in the "sweatshop" business (or, indentured servitude). 🤣

110%+: Your business model is fundamentally based on abuse of your personnel.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

2024-02-29 Thursday - Research Papers - Composing Words Like Music

[image credit: niekverlaan on pixabay.com]

Burning the midnight oil tonight, to put the finishing touches on a client research paper.

Research skills - honed over decades - allowing me to quickly develop deep insights into a new subject-matter area, surveying relevant domain literature, assembling analysis of the choices, alternatives, pros and cons, developing an understanding of the forces/constraints that touch on both the business and technical aspects, highlighting the key issues/considerations - and summarizing the information succinctly so that an executive can make a decision.

It is something like a duality of both composing & performing a piece of music. There is an art to creating a balance, a symmetry, and composing the threads of different movements - into a piece of work that hits just the right notes.

 

Sunday, February 25, 2024

2024-02-25 Sunday - Understanding Quantum Technologies 2023, Sixth Edition

 Understanding Quantum Technologies 2023, Sixth edition (1,366 pages)



"Understanding Quantum Technologies 2023 is a creative-commons ebook that provides a unique 360 degrees overview of quantum technologies from science and technology to geopolitical and societal issues. It covers quantum physics history, quantum physics 101, gate-based quantum computing, quantum computing engineering (including quantum error corrections and quantum computing energetics), quantum computing hardware (all qubit types, including quantum annealing and quantum simulation paradigms, history, science, research, implementation and vendors), quantum enabling technologies (cryogenics, control electronics, photonics, components fabs, raw materials), unconventional computing (potential alternatives to quantum and classical computing), quantum telecommunications and cryptography, quantum sensing, quantum computing algorithms, software development tools and use cases, quantum technologies around the world, quantum technologies societal impact and even quantum fake sciences. The main audience are computer science engineers, developers and IT specialists as well as quantum scientists and students who want to acquire a global view of how quantum technologies work, and particularly quantum computing. This version is an update to the 2022 and 2021 editions published respectively in October 2022 and October 2021. An update log is provided at the end of the book."

Saturday, February 24, 2024

2024-02-24 Saturday - Interop 2024 Dashboard

Interop 2024 Dashboard

VERY Interesting - compare the compatibility score differences between Stable and Experimental

https://wpt.fyi/interop-2024
 
Stable scores (2024-02-24)
 
Experimental scores (2024-02-24)
 

Saturday, February 10, 2024

2024-02-10 Saturday - Today's Meditation: Impact of -/+ Two Standard Deviation Hiring Decisions

 

[image credit: Dimitris Vetsikas on Pixabay.com]

 

Sometimes, I think the practical implications of the difference in hiring decisions...between hiring someone that is two Standard Deviations to the left of the mean vs. two Standard Deviations to the right - is lost on those responsible for hiring. This is not limited to a single dimension of measurement - it is meant in the context of the broader assessment of the individual: skills, capabilities, insights, intuition, experience, etc.

The phrase: "False Economy" comes to mind...

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

2024-01-24 Wednesday - Signs You Might Be On A Death March Project

[image credit: hgenthe on pixabay.com]

 

Today's meditation:

Signs you might be on a "Death March" project...

  • Scope increases by a multiple [n] (where [n] > 1, and [n] is quite often an integer), but time and resources stay the same.
  • The number of REQUIRED [r] productive hours that must be expended per day, to maintain the schedule, is greater than AVAILABLE hours [a]: where the number of MANDATORY [m] hours spent in meetings - is subtracted from the possible WORKING hours [w]...

Such that, [a] = [w] - [m], and [r] > [a], with [a] approaching zero, as TIME [t] progresses.

 

Other possible signs...

  • Management cancels all vacations through the end of the year.
  • Management mandates staff must work weekends.
  • Management states that working 4am-9pm is expected
  • When there are no more slots available between 8am-6pm - meetings begin to be scheduled at 7am, 6am, 5am, 4am...or 8pm, 9pm, 10pm, 11pm, ...
  • You find  yourself regularly working at 1am to complete status reports (2 days after they are due) - because that is the only time period you could find, where you had sufficient capacity to focus on that task... 
  • You don't have any time to perform QA on the work that is being performed.
  • The work products being produced are a [3] on a [1-10] scale - due to lack of sufficient time to do quality work.
  • Management refuses to accept the estimates provided by staff - and simply picks delivery dates. 
  • There is no time to do actual work - because staff are in meetings 90%+ of the time. 
  • There is no "Think Time"
  • There is no reserve capacity in the team to handle spikes in demand.
  • New work is continually being added - with no additional time, or resources, added. 
  • You spend more time in status meetings, than in working meetings. 
  • Requirements are constantly changing - with no additional time, or resources, added. 
  • The Gantt chart looks like a wall of logs stacked to the ceiling, with the finish dates all aligning on the right side - and everything is showing GREEN...until the last minute, and then suddenly goes RED.
  • Workload is projected to increase by 400%, and yet 75% of staff is to be eliminated.
  • You don't have time to eat breakfast.
  • You don't have time to eat lunch.
  • You don't have time for any exercise. 
  • You don't have time during working hours for bio breaks.
  • Frequently there is zero slack time between meetings - all day long. 
  • Management has purposefully understaffed the team - and expects the team will work nights and weekends (as a standard operating model) - to make-up for the capacity shortfall.
 

Saturday, January 13, 2024

2024-01-13 Saturday - Judging someone's readiness for something is a complex calculus

[image credit: moritz320 on pixabay.com


[companion LinkedIn post]

Today's meditation:
Judging someone's readiness for something is a complex calculus.

Are they open/receptive?

Have they done the work needed to see the value?

Does the arc of their wish to receive, intersect with the arc of their growth to execute?

When teaching, we use toy examples - to simplify the discussion, reduce the cognitive burden, limit concepts to manageable degrees of complexity.

By allowing the student the opportunity to experience success - we support developing their confidence.

With confidence, they can tackle more.

But, ...

Sometimes, their cup is already too full.

Sometimes, they have not yet reached the inflection / pivot point in their growth.

Sometimes, they still labor under misconceptions that hinder their ability to see the bigger picture.

Sometimes, they are unwilling to let go of their assumptions, their preconceptions.

Sometimes, the right approach, for the teacher - is to simply wait, listen, and observe.

Until the bonds that bind them to their current understanding begin to fray...

Sometimes, the inner journey required - is much harder than the external change desired.

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