Just received an email through from Amazon telling me my password has been reset. Being a suspicious type I didn’t take their email as being genuine but as there were no links it seemed more plausible than not. So following this, I checked the very useful site “Have I been Continue Reading
John
Adding the date to a filename with Powershell
Following on from my previous post, Write to a text file using Powershell, I found it useful to be able to include the date into the log filename. $LogFile =”C:\PsTools\Method01-$(get-date -f yyyy-MM-dd).log” $DateTime = Get-Date Write-Output $DateTime “Performing some operation” | Add-Content $LogFile You can see from this script that Continue Reading
Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
Independent set of standards and practices for running I.T department. Details processes that should exist and what best practise is. Provides standard for I.T. departments to use for benchmarking and measuring their performance. ITIL areas cover: Financial management for I.T. department Service design Service level management Availability management Capacity management Continue Reading
Write to a text file using Powershell
While looking for a method to generate some logging in a Powershell script to aid debugging I came across several suggestions… #Method 01 – appends contents $LogFile =”C:\PsTools\Method01.log” $DateTime = Get-Date Write-Output $DateTime “Performing some operation” | Add-Content $LogFile #Method 02 – appends contents Add-Content “C:\PsTools\Method02.log” “Performing some operation” #Method Continue Reading
Planning Tools
Tools used to support I.T. department planning, range from Excel to Project or even more specialised products. Choice depends on size and complexity of project. MS Project can link several projects together under one steering project facilitating project management. Many tools can also provide costings for the projects to assist Continue Reading
Software Management Tools
Many tools available to help manage I.T. departments, both simple and complex. Can be stand alone for specific functions or fully integrated systems covering areas such as: Code repository Asset repository Help desk Data models repository Software analysis and design repositories
Software Development Productivity Measures
Key output from I.T. department is software, either directly written or by third party. Difficult measuring & monitoring software development productivity – no industry standard approach. Approaches include: Algorithmic Model based on historical data e.g. Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO). Comparison Compare to a similiar sized past project. Bottom Up Work Continue Reading
Contract Management
Sources for human resources can be varied, not just directly employed employees. In such cases there will be contracts. Contracts will also exists for other areas such as: software development software maintenance network provision hardware software licences Contract costs can vary greatly and require managing with help from KPIs and Continue Reading
Key Performance Indicators
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – valuable tool in monitoring plans. Relate to critical areas of plan that need to be monitored and managed. Specific measurements usually quantitative. Commonly displayed as a Traffic Light report, results shown in red, amber and green. Green – progressing to plan. Amber – variance to Continue Reading
Behavioural Issues Relating to Budgeting
Problems with budgeting usually fall into following groups: Figures in budget are not actual figures, they are plans based on historical data, forecasts or human judgement. Accuracy of data could be responsibility of another business function. Preparation is managerial process requiring great deal of co-ordination. Information comes from different parts Continue Reading