The StoneHenge blog

What is consulting?

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:29:23 GMT

In my various IT roles over the past 30 years I've hired a number of IT consulting firms of all sizes and capabilities, both on-shore and off-shore to help solve a variety of problems. The reasons for using a consulting firm are as varied...

Professional Services at StoneHenge

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:55:49 GMT

As I mentioned last week, StoneHenge Partners is an 11 year old IT Consulting and Staffing company that has built its reputation around three primary service offerings; Professional Services, Strategic Consulting, and Staffing. One o...

Strategic Consulting at StoneHenge

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:02:25 GMT

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, StoneHenge Partners is an 11 year old IT Consulting and Staffing company that has built its reputation around three primary service offerings; Professional Services, Strategic Consulting, and Sta...

Don't overlook the content model

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:24:00 GMT

One of the most commonly unanswered questions in implementing a website content management system is: How do you want to divvy up the ...

Embracing change: Agile vs. Nimble

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:05:31 GMT

Just like the software development industry as a whole, we too have experienced problems before integrating Agile Development into our methodo...

A better way to support browsers

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 10:29:28 GMT

How many times has this happened to you: The client calls. "I can't see my new widget. The site's broken!" "Sorry, sir, you'll h...

Augmenting your staff

Tue, 04 May 2010 15:53:18 GMT

Serving in various IT Director positions over the past 30 years I frequently found myself needing to augment my staff.

Sometime...

The difference between success and failure

Thu, 06 May 2010 13:49:31 GMT

Every company has worked on some projects that were a great successes, and some projects that weren't as successful. What makes the dif...

Nimble Method works with Agility

Mon, 17 May 2010 12:24:55 GMT

Agile Software Development is a relentless focus on providin...

System administration on a zero budget

Thu, 20 May 2010 09:45:38 GMT

As with most small businesses, when it comes to IT, our own needs take a back seat to our clients. In our case, we have a definite need for an IT support shop to provide internal development servers, test environments, and everything else asso...

Function Points by the numbers

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 08:57:57 GMT

For the last three years we have been using Function Point Analysis to size IT projects at StoneHenge Partners. Below is a summary of our sizing effort and the lessons we have learned along the way.

The numbers

Crisis Communication - Lessons Learned

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:54:40 GMT

A recent article in the Tulsa World about the BP Gulf oil crisis highlights the benefit o...

The best and the brightest

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 10:18:25 GMT

Ninety percent of our staff augmentation business is repeat business. Why? What makes StoneHenge people so special that our clients keep coming back for more?

This question was posed to me several times this past week during the ...

What's new in Function Point Analysis?

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 10:31:41 GMT

For practitioners of Function Point Analysis, the International Function Point Users Group has published several topics of possible interest in the recruiter, I talk to people who are actively looking for a change in employment opportunities, as well as those wh...

Facebook for business: the right way

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:33:03 GMT

I've been watching a fascinating case study this week on how a business can harness the power of social networking to energize its loyal customers.

Nov. 16-22 is Collection Week for

CMS: Details, details

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:22:55 GMT

When it comes to usability in content management systems, for the editor the details make all the difference.

That point was driven home this week while migrating content from our current CMS, Joomla!, to our new CMS, Umbraco. Now...

The unique value of a Unique Value Proposition

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:29:31 GMT

It's funny how you start thinking about something for someone else and end up thinking about it for yourself.

We've been working for the past six weeks to design a website strategy for a local client, and as part of that we decide...

Function Points and software measurement

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:41:28 GMT

I spoke at the 4th Annual International Software Measurement and Analysis Conference held in Chicago Sept. 13-16th. This conference is sponsored by the International Function Point User's Group (IFPUG). It included two days of worksh...

Creative redesign vs. system rebuild: either/or, but not both

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:25:06 GMT

"Never redesign your site AND install a content management system at the same time." That's what user experience professionals have been saying for years, and it's always made sense to me. It's like trying to build a boat and sail it at th...

The true value of a BCP

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:49:06 GMT

Is your company prepared for a pandemic?

Most companies have invested in insurance and provided for offsite data backups, but these steps alone will not meet customer expectations and provide adequate resources &...

The third time really was a charm

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:25:47 GMT

Since passing the International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG) exam on April 17, on occasion I've been asked to describe what is involved in becoming a Certified Function Point Specialist (CFPS). Each time I have struggled to give a si...

No website is an island

Sun, 03 May 2009 11:55:38 GMT

Maybe it's a coincidence, but three times this week I have talked to companies who are unhappy with their websites. "It looks good, but it doesn't do anything for my business," they say. "How come nobody uses my website?"

So we t...

Function Point 103

Sun, 03 May 2009 10:10:26 GMT

Information Technology Project Management: A Forward-Looking Strategy

Many IT teams use a "rear-view mirror" strategy to manage projects, tracking hours spent as they move towards their goals. This can lead to serio...

Domain Driven Design: Part 1

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:45:41 GMT

An introduction

At StoneHenge Partners, we've realized that the best way to ensure the success of software development projects is to keep the focus on the users and their experience at all times. Too many times, once you get i...

Domain Driven Design Part 2

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 10:42:43 GMT

Value Objects and Services

Today's post is a continuation of my series on Domain Driven Design. One of my favorite parts of Domain Driven Design is how it narrows your focus down to a handful of design patterns that will work f...

Domain Driven Design Part 3

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 10:13:37 GMT

Repositories and Factories

Today I conclude my series on Domain Driven Design. In the first part we looked at a brief introduction and the concept and Entities. In the second part we covered Value Objects and Services. Today we...

Function Point 101

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:50:59 GMT

(Or; how to keep unpleasant surprises from derailing a project)

Keeping information technology projects on time and on budget is a task of Herculean proportions. According to a study by The Standish Group, only 29 percent of IT...

Function Point 102

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:49:42 GMT

Fair and Accurate Pricing with Function Point Analysis

When you're outsourcing information technology project management, pricing calculations can seem closer to voodoo than an exact science. And the vague pricing may not be acc...

Why is web content so hard to manage?

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 10:27:24 GMT

In so many areas, software is getting better. Languages are more robust, databases are easier to line up, and interfaces are more intuitive. But web content management systems continue to be ... umm, off-target. Why is that?

I wa...

A decade of excellence

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:15:57 GMT

March, 1999: Companies were bracing for the impact of Y2K … Microsoft released a version of Windows that finally worked … the Browser Wars was raging between IE and Netscape …

And a group of Tulsa technologis...

Chasing the CMS dream

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 10:29:59 GMT

I'm learning a new content management system these days. Again. [sigh]

In the past 10 years I've suffered through discover/design/develop/deploy of a CMS 6 or 7 times, depending on how you want to define a CMS. Some have been OK,...

Estimating the uncertainty of estimates

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:19:54 GMT

Last month, a new client came to us to talk about developing some software for him. We met a couple of times, asked a lot of questions, drafted high-level business requirements, and did an initial Function Point Analysis. We sized the effo...

It's about the content, not the system

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:31:40 GMT

When choosing a web content management system, what should you look for? Too often I see this question devolve into a debate over "open source" vs. "commercial," ".NET" vs. "Java," or worse yet, "SharePoint" vs."everything else."

I say...

Free tools every .NET developer should have

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:47:46 GMT

There are several tools that my team has grown accustom to using on our .Net projects. Having used them on several projects now, I can't imagine doing work without them.

They are all free, and I think that every .Net developer sho...

Software delivered on time, on budget, on target. Oh, really?

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:22:11 GMT

Six Sigma, meet software development.

While other industries strive for perfection, as expressed in the set of practices (made famous by Motorola, GE and others) aimed at achieving fewer than 3.4 defects per million, the motto for...

How to pick a CMS

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 10:34:00 GMT

I got into a LinkedIn conversation the other day with Rob Fields, the Director of Member Development at PMA--The Association for Integrated Marketing. He asked: "Can anyone recommend a good content management system...

Yeah, we can do that, too

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:24:35 GMT

I was having lunch with a long-time client the other day when the topic of conversation turned to some of the projects StoneHenge Partners consultants are working on for other clients. I mentioned we have one team re-architecting a mammoth...