Stories by Minda Zetlin

  • IT: Don't let the CEO wonder what you do all day

    If there's no catastrophic system failure or major software deployment to work on, CEOs might wonder what IT does all day. Here's how to make sure your contributions aren't undervalued when things go smoothly.

  • Is Your Outsourcer Agile Enough

    About four years ago, Medidata Solutions decided to switch from its traditional "waterfall" method of software development to an agile methodology. Medidata provides clinical testing solutions in a software-as-a-service model. "We made the change for all the usual reasons," says Andrew Newbigging, senior vice president of research and development. "We wanted to be more responsive to customer needs." At the same time, Medidata's IT leaders explored the possibility of outsourcing some of the company's software development. Though that might have made sense in the traditional waterfall world, they concluded that it was the wrong way to do agile.

  • Guide: The new rules for enterprise apps

    An insurance company decided to roll out an application for its sales reps. The new app would give them a wider selection of products to offer customers when out in the field. Information on those products was stored in a legacy mainframe system, so the company created a Web interface that let reps query the database to get details on offerings.

  • Three warning signs of a user-unfriendly app

    A user-friendly interface is paramount if you want employees and external users to adopt an enterprise application. But what, precisely, makes an app user-friendly? That's a complicated science, with detailed books and research papers devoted to it. But if your app has any of the following three elements, that's probably not a good sign.

  • App spotlight: British Airways' iPad app improves customer service

    Can deploying a user-friendly enterprise application solve customer service problems? For British Airways, the answer appears to be yes. In August, the airline conducted a pilot test in which about 100 crew members were given iPads loaded with its new Enhanced Service Platform app. After a successful test, the airline is now distributing 2,000 iPads with the app to senior crew members across its route network.