December 2007
13 posts
FICO, Risk and Making a Mess
I spent several years working in the mortgaage industry, new product development, when it was hot-hot-hot vs., the chill in the air coutesy of the so called “sub-prime mess.” I say “so called” because the situation isn’t exactly what the media reports, although it does report facts about what isn’t a pretty sight at all. This interview with the CEO of Bank of...
Risk Assessed [Or is that Obsessed!]
I am always asked how to balance business risk and technical risk on projects. Most of the business risks are more important than technical risk but try telling that to the kids with the keys to the car. Technology risk is usually one of the failure of imagination. The evils of functional decomposition rise up on every software project. Attack that risk today and you’ll earn your pay...
Outsourcing Works: NOT →
If a hot stockmarket in India can’t help the leading outsourcing companies in India, then what do they know that we don’t? It would appear that Wipro, Infosys and TCS are banking on a US recession for profit.
Risk Management
I feel very sorry for the mortgage industry these days. Despite their best efforts to quantify and manage the risk for their counterparties in the securities business, something really was lost in translation. Could it be that risk patterns changed to an extent that traditioanl underwriting standards failed? Did product development get ahead of risk management to such an extent that cash flow or...
Greenspan: Basically a Politician
The book on Greenspan is that his genius kept inflation low and the economy humming through both Republican and Democratic administrations. Monetary policy is such a blunt instrument that it would be dificult for it to be directly attributed with either creating or undermining successful manipulation of the economy. But if ” The Fed’s” use of moral suasion in the economy is a...
Greenspan's Mea Culpa: The Nosepickers React →
The blogoshpere is full of wisdom, insights, breaking news and most important, points of views the main stream media will never really get. But it is also full of shit! Cranks of all kind and people I think are nosepickers. A nosepicker is someone who just can’t resist the urge to share their opinion on not the body of the story, but the nose. Typically, public dispays of actual nosepicking...
Kaizen
As fond as I am of reading of the “Toyota” approach, I do tire of the sprinkling of Japanese within the text of an essay. It isn’t so much that I object to the masterful way in which the author uses a Japanese term to express lean concepts as much as I yearn for mere simplicity in natural description. Much of what has been invented in our modern world can be captured in the...
Project Takeoff or Landing
Trainwreck! →
Have you ever been in one of those situation where the tunnel is so dark and the only light ahead seems to be attached to the giant rumbling engine known as reality. This my friend isn’t a death march. No, no, no! It’s a TRAINWRECK!