Category Archives: Resources

Some reference resources that we provide on our projects.

Environment Configuration Management (ECM)

This post provides information about Environment Configuration Management and how Nexbridge fits into it.

The Nexbridge core team members have been involved with the technology and business practices supporting Environment Configuration Management for almost two decades. The lessons we have learned through building and deploying business and technical solutions for companies needing to improve their time-to-market, including error rate reduction and support efficiency, have led us to unique wisdom in this area.

From this page, you can get to some of the resources available to support your ECM process development. We have included this information for you to examine. Our hope is that you will avail yourselves of our expertise in this area. Please contact us for more information.

What Is ECM?

Environment Configuration Management is the discipline of managing how software and hardware are configured and operated through the use of parameters, physical and logical structure, and connections. It also deals with managing how the operation of software is controlled through changes to its configuration parameters. Ranging from the very simple, command line parameters, to the extremely complex, Windows registries, ECM covers many technical areas. ECM is also the area where hardware and software meet in a product. Parameter at this meeting can include entities such as disk partition sizes, screen colors, driver versions.

ECM has traditionally dealt with only the hardware and has been in the responsibility area of System Operations. As the line between hardware and software has blurred, and software has had to detect and operate in diverse conditions and platforms, the management of environment configuration parameters has become critical to effective solution deployment. Today, ECM is integral to product and solution deployment, SCM, problem determination and correction, and root cause analysis.

put success reference here

Phrases “Officially” Banned from Nexbridge Documents

While we’re not entirely serious about having banned the words and phrases in
this humour piece, sometimes, words become tiresome, or silly, or just downright
annoying. Just remember, this is a joke. Except for paradigm. And dialoguing.
Oh, and World-Class. And…

Phrases “Officially” Banned from Nexbridge Documents

Banned Phrase Real Meaning Ban Reason
Actionable From legal lexicon referring to a situation that may result in legal
action.
When you show up at a project status meeting and the organizer says,
“Please refer to the actionable items list”, and you don’t think “As
opposed to the non-actionable items list?” you’re in Heck.
Bridging Providing a previously unavailable means of interacting between two
groups or places.
Everyone these days is involved in bridging something; particularly
bridging the gap between the clients’ Accounts Payable department and
your Accounts Receivable department.
Even we’re guilty of using this
one. That’s how pervasive its use is.
Core Competencies What we’re supposed to be good at because that’s our business. What we think we’re supposed to be good at so that we can be perceived
as being justified in employing the noble hatchet-person to remove
everyone who actually produces stuff instead of increases stock activity.
Dialoguing This isn’t a word. Dialog is a noun. It means conversation; discussion. We need to dialog about going forward harnessing our impactful core
competencies.
Do you see anything wrong with this?
E-anything Stick an e in front of anything an it means a computer is
involved.
eJust eOverused. eVery eOverused.
Follow-on Uh. Something that follows something? Another overused phrase. It’s not funny. It’s just tired. Let’s find a
new one. Like aft-action.
Going Forward From this point on. When you’re talking about doing anything, isn’t this redundant? Can you
see this in a meeting, “Going backward, we would have sold more,
but we didn’t. So there. Wait. Then. Oh forget it.”
Harness Use. Leash. Bridle. See Leverage.
I-anything Stick an i in front of anything an it means information is
involved.
iJust iOverused. iVery iOverused.
Impactful This is an invented term derived from heavy impact. After 160 million years, the dinosaurs’ management team probably
invented this term. They were promptly hit with an extremely impactful
comet. Remember that, the next time you think of using this term.
Leverage To apply a small force over a large distance to move a
disproportionately heavy object.
As in “We seek to leverage our technology into new synergistic
opportunities”
. We’re sure this is meant to allow you to position
yourself to be impactful.
Momentum Or inertia. Somehow, we can’t see a CEO using the phrase visioning
inertia
.
We must leverage our knowledge resources to achieve synergistic
momentum.
Paradigm A way of thinking. A unique conceptual framework. This term was the first added to this list. We’re not even allowed to
discuss it for fear of shareholder and employee retribution.
Quality It’s supposed to be an adjective! On its own, it has no real meaning in common parlance. As in “Our
quality makes us last”. It’s worse when used as “Quality Management”.
Rightsizing A new word taken to mean “We have too many people like you with
bad hair. You’re fired.”
We think the definition stands on its own.
Synergy Independent developments leading to a  common objective with
permitting increased momentum. No really. We’re serious.
With a word like this, you expected a definition that did not use
banned words?
Utilize Use. Just use “Use”. Utilize an actionable stratagem; leveraging known variables;
encompassing.
Need we say more?
Visioning The real word is envisioning even though this word is in some
dictionaries now. So is dialoguing. Heaven help us.
The act of creating a vision. The act of doing other things we can’t
mention here.  As in “We are entering the visioning phase of
our corporate mission realization.”
World-class Please forward a definition. Our best take is that it refers to New
York, London, Tokyo, and those class cities.
We’re going to utilize synergy to become a world-class company.
Could you just die?
X-anything-without-the-E There’s no meaning here. People just like making big X’s in front
of their products.
We just don’t like it. After spending all those years evaluating
X-products, you’d be tired too.

We are also close to adding anything with an “i” in front of it.

Please leave a comment to nominate another phrase.

What a Typical Project Looks Like

This page outlines the basic services we provide to our clients throughout typical large-scale projects. Some of these phases are optional.

Client Assessment and Discovery Phase

The Client Assessment and Discovery phases allow us to work with you to determine the nature of the gap.

Scenario and Strategic Planning

The Scenario and Strategic Planning phase is an ongoing process of translating your business plans into product plans by building and managing business scenarios.

Information Session

The Information Session phase bring groups together to identity and determine action plans based on the identified gaps. The number of sessions usually depends on the magnitude of the gaps, size of the teams and the scale of the organization’s interaction with the information technology division(s).

Development Coaching

The Development Coaching phase involves change and development methodology seminars and training sessions. The number of sessions depends on the technology involved and its applicability to change preparedness.

Documentation and Communication

The Documentation and Communication phase involves documentation methodology. The sessions focus on supporting lines of communication through effective practices involving: documentation; electronic mail; Intranet information dissemination; and other emerging technologies and processes.

Architecture and Design Mentoring

The Architecture and Design Mentoring Sessions phase involves working with the information technology staff to review and determine effective adaptations to software architectures and designs to facilitate flexibility and change adaptability in software.

Business Process Revision

The Business Process Revision phase involves working with various parts of the organization for the purposes of: adopting a flexible process for product and service delivery; building a dynamic quality assurance process; building responsive production and problem support environments; and establishing effective information channels.