Client List
SOME OF THE DIVERSE BRANDS I’VE WORKED WITH
“I focus on getting measurable results from delivery teams, by using a blend of coaching, teaching & leading by example” – Ben Maffin
Tech Rundown
A SELECTION OF THE TECHNOLOGIES I USE
Latest Publications
BELOW IS A SELECTION OF STEM BASED BLOG POSTS
Digital Disappointment
Frustration increased as my colleague prodded her greasy index finger on my Macbook Pro’s screen and tried to swipe the web page we were looking at to the right. “It’s not a touchscreen”, I pointed out. The look of surprise and bewilderment which crossed her face made a couple of neurons fire in my agitated brain, and something clicked inside [...]
When Zero Talent Counts
Getting a highly qualified candidate with the most in-depth knowledge about your company’s chosen technology is the most valuable potential employee right? From experience, this turns out not to be true. When I first started my own business, I got two valuable lessons by the Marketing whizz Felix Clarke and the POS guru Graham Atherton: 1. It’s easier to teach [...]
Grammarly and Linkedin, a Perfect Partnership?
This weekend I was told by a beautiful girl in a library how to bring my “A” game when writing Linkedin articles. Or at least I was watching her on a YouTube advert promoting Grammarly - “The World's Most Accurate Online Grammar Checker” (from their meta description). With Microsoft’s Word having dominated the writing sphere for decades, and Google Docs [...]
Do Project Managers Need KPIs
Key Performance Indicators, they’re not something a project manager needs to worry about right? They’re just a buzzy term used by senior management to “get things done”? Wrong. KPI’s can be the project manager's best friend and enable you to show delivery success, give team credit and allow you to investigate areas where support is needed most even at the [...]
Getting Team Buy In
What's the best way to get the most out of your team? Rule them with an iron fist and push them to the brink? Or is there a different approach you can take? I was speaking recently with Marco Aurelio the Global Services VP at Delphix and we got onto the question "how to best manage team members when there's a client [...]
Delphix fixes Data Gravity
The internet is rapidly growing, and it's becoming more and more commonplace just to accept that every site you use pulls personal data. Whether you agree this is for the greater good or not is largely down to opinion, but it is happening, and every metric ranging from how much margarine you bought in Tesco, to your pension contribution is [...]
Maffins Wager
The accepted three pillars of project management are: On time, to budget and the right standard. Assuming the latter two are fixed the age-old question of delivery crops up again and again. Many clients by either their nature (or the nature of their business) are reactive, but they expect partners to be highly organised and deliver fluid projects to fixed [...]
Failure is not an option fallacy
Many managers use the term "failure is not an option". One of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard came from Mark Yates who stated: "people who never fail, rarely do anything". At first, I thought it was just a pun, a throwaway comment. But it's true failure is normal, it's how our species has evolved by trying one [...]
Context Switching in Programming
Ben Maffin People often talk about how interruptions disrupt their flow and the ability to produce good quality, consistent work. This is often viewed with a certain cynicism by commercial teams and individuals who aren't involved in the development process. They tend to view developers as machines which have an output, so moving from one task to another [...]
