Process Alignment
Process management is more detailed than project management, and addresses the mechanics of overseeing business processes and fixing them when they break down. Consulting services relating to the following items are provided on time and materials basis plus actual expenses.
Software Test/Release Cycle
Software Configuration Management, or SCM, is the practice of backing up your code and metadata files so that you can find them later when you need to update or recover your system. It has turned into a rather complicated industry-wide practice supported by even more complicated, resource-draining software, so that many companies don't bother. However, simple measures can protect you from disastrous losses. It helps if you know in general terms what you need to protect and how important it is. Torix Corporation uses internal SCM processes as part of the test/release cycle for software it designs and develops for its clients.
This SCM article by Michael Hill was published April 1996 in Data Management Review: Configuring for Success.
Software as a Service
The idea of remote services for software has gained widespread acceptance over the past 15 years, and the practice has matured immensely after evolving through several stages of technology. Michael Hill developed an early application of the concept in a system he developed for the State of Texas. The Report Server idea was picked up soon after by Oracle and application servers of all sorts were formalized in the following year. Computing technologies have advanced once again, and the client/server model is obsolete. Yet most of the raw functionality remains the same even though user interface technology now relies almost solely on the World Wide Web. The main difference with the older technology is that software services can now be distributed so much more widely using the internet as the fundamental data transactions infrastructure. Another difference is that internet transactions are much less secure, and must be supported with ever-newer transaction encryption techniques.
This Report Server article by Michael Hill was published April 1995 in Data Management Review: Serving Up Reports.