As I was thinking about accounting and financials, I started thinking about how to structure and group activities within accounting and the following came to mind. RAPARR R - Record. The first step in any accounting step (I am not considering setups) is to record transactions. A - Approve. Once these transactions are recorded, they need to be approved. P - Post. Once transactions are recorded and approved, they need to be posted. A - Audit. Transaction that are recorded and approved need to… Continue

At the risk of being pedantic, I hear us using the word Method and Methodology interchangeably. AIM is a Method not a methodology. You ask what is the big deal. The American Heritage Dictionary offers the following explanation. In recent years . . . “methodology” has been increasingly used as a pretentious substitute for “method” in scientific and technical contexts. The misuse of the word methodology obscures an important conceptual distinction between the tools of scientific investigatio… Continue

I was looking at this posting on youtube and it is may sound funny but it makes a point. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtkUO8NpI84 Basically, there are four combinations of Knowns and Unknowns. Donald Rumseld talks about three. Known Knowns: There are things we know that we know. Known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. Unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. There is one more thing that is missing which is the Unknown Knowns… Continue

A year ago I was talking to a mentor of mine and he said this which really impressed me. Business and Life are about two basic questions. 1.) Are we doing things right? 2.) More importantly, are we doing the right thing? The simplicity hit me. While we trod through life, career, relationships and projects it helps to keep these two questions in mind. The story behind it is funny too. My mentor and his friend were at an airport to go to a business meeting. The friend's shirt lost some threads… Continue

A few weeks ago, I came across this term called SCRUM. You can find a definition of course at Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCRUM . SCRUM is a rugby term where the players move the ball back and forth and across to the other side. It is now used in Agile Programming where a product is built incrementally by a team with small pieces of functionality and improved over and over again into a usable product. SCRUM projects have two kinds of members. They are the "Pigs" whose bacon/ham is… Continue