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Southwest Airlines meltdown: a reminder why software maintenance matters

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IT WASN’T MOTHER NATURE’S FAULT While the cancellation rate for most other major U.S. airlines – American, United, Delta, and JetBlue – ranged between 0 and 2% on the Tuesday before Christmas, Southwest had grounded 70% of its flights on Monday, and 60% on Tuesday. By Tuesday morning, Southwest’s schedule accounted for fully 2,522 of the 2,890 flight cancellations reported across the U.S. The airline that has cultivated a scrappy, humorous brand since its founding in 1967 suddenly found itself tripped up by a crew scheduling system that couldn’t keep up.  The root...

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We look at 2022’s top 10 tech stories – and why they matter

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1 – ELON MUSK BUYS TWITTER This is easily the most impactful tech story of the year – and the one tech story with the most potential to impact society at large. What started out as something of a lark by the world’s (now second) richest man – Musk started buying up shares in Twitter in March. He then offered to buy the rest of the company for $44 billion in April – and by October it had morphed into something infinitely more chaotic and unpredictable. This train wreck – or perhaps more appropriately, rocket explosion – is something we frankly should have seen coming. And...

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Staff Augmentation Part 3 – Way more than outsourcing

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SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES Critics of staff augmentation often say it’s a fancy term for outsourcing. They couldn’t be more wrong. It’s easy to see why some folks think it’s convenient to toss staff augmentation and outsourcing into the same proverbial bucket. Both of them could be viable options for companies looking to boost bandwidth – without having to activate their own human resources department to bring resources on-board full-time and permanently. This can be especially resonant for IT departments challenged by historic shortages of key technology skills – including...

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5 suggestions for reviewing your software before the new year dawns

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WHATEVER YOU USE, VISIBILITY IS CRITICAL Whether you’re working with off-the-shelf packages, custom-made solutions, or subscription-based services – or a mixture of the three – it is essential to assess your software assets and ensure they’re still functioning optimally, and are still contributing to the growth and success of the business. Because if this isn’t the case, you’re not only spending more than you should, but you’re also potentially compromising your competitive positioning against organizations who manage their software estate more effectively. As clouds continue to...

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Why developers must pay particular attention to mental health

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WHAT WE LOST IN THE LOCKDOWNS The warnings have been building since long before Russian soldiers and weapons first began massing at the border, and the conclusions are stark. A report from Forrester in March concluded the invasion threatened to permanently alter the cyberthreat landscape; primarily as Russia accelerated its cyberattacks and cyber-espionage efforts to offset military losses and compensate for expanding economic sanctions. Forrester said Russian cyberattacks had been building for years, targeting Ukrainian financial systems and critical infrastructure....

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Staff Augmentation Part 2 – 8 questions you must ask first

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LET’S ROLL UP OUR SLEEVES Now that we’ve learned a bit about what staff augmentation is, it’s time to ask a few questions to determine how we’ll know if it’s something we should consider. To kickstart the process, start by asking – and hopefully answering – the following to determine if staff augmentation should be on your business roadmap: 1 – Do you need to move quickly? If you’ve got a project on the books that needs to launch – and deliver – fast, it may not be feasible to directly hire a team of full-time developers and related resources. Similarly, you may not want to...

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Staff Augmentation 101 – what you need to know to get started

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TAMING THE TALENT MANAGEMENT TRAP As economic headwinds continue to strengthen amid stubbornly high inflation, rising inflation rates, and global economic uncertainty, organizations in all sectors – and particularly those with well-developed IT capabilities – are under increased pressure to be more effective, cost-conscious, and agile. Pulling off this often-contradictory trifecta can be a challenge, particularly considering how difficult it can be to hire the right people, train them up, and keep them resourced over time while continuously meeting ever-evolving business needs. ...

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Ukraine war holds critical cybersecurity lessons for all organizations

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THREATS THAT GO BACK YEARS The warnings have been building since long before Russian soldiers and weapons first began massing at the border, and the conclusions are stark. A report from Forrester in March concluded the invasion threatened to permanently alter the cyberthreat landscape; primarily as Russia accelerated its cyberattacks and cyber-espionage efforts to offset military losses and compensate for expanding economic sanctions. Forrester said Russian cyberattacks had been building for years, targeting Ukrainian financial systems and critical infrastructure. Forrester’s...

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Tech sector layoffs hold sobering talent management lessons for HR

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HIGH-PROFILE JOB CUTS Meta eliminated about 13% – or 11,000 – of its salaried workforce. Salesforce pared 2,500 from its payroll, and Snap sent 6,000, of its employees packing. And even Microsoft and Amazon have been eliminating corporate roles through both layoffs and corporate attrition. Here in Canada, where STEP Software is based, Shopify, Hootsuite, and Wealthsimple have all made major headcount reductions in recent months` While these numbers are certainly eye-opening, they don’t come out of nowhere. We see three basic factors at play here: 1 – It’s part of...

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