Happy New Year!?
Yes, I know it’s the April 2018 Newsletter. The Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582. The switch by countries was gradual, with the UK changing in 1752. During the switch the UK lost 11 days in September, and the start of the year was moved to January the 1st. We covered some of the strange naming conventions in our October newsletter. Originally the first day of a ‘new year’ was 25th March, this sudden jump would have messed up financial institutions accounts. So they kept the start of the fiscal year more or less where it was, shifting by those same 11 days to 5th April. Or it could have been that the accountants were so drunk at Christmas they just couldn’t face doing the accounts when they returned to work. Take your pick.
So if you are lucky enough to be dealing with a new budget for the “new year” now’s the time to check you are getting value for money across all your projects. Are you still dealing with several different tools to manage your Requirements and model your Systems?
Could you consolidate these tools and methods by adding extra licences to your Cradle installation and then on-boarding (yuck -Sorry read that one in a trendy blog post somewhere) the less enlightened?
On the other hand if you’ve been Spring cleaning and found your project a little out of kilter, you may realise that the management view you have over it, is not as clear as it ought to be. Then maybe adding a Dash or Metric licence to Cradle could help with getting to grips on the health of your project. However we can help, don’t hesitate to call us here in the UK or your local distributor.
Metrics
Measurements and collation of the results are an important management tool.
It is obviously important to manage and track the right thing. Using the ludicrous quote “The majority of people involved in accidents were wearing white underwear….”, you may jump to the conclusion that brightly coloured pants will keep you safe. Of course this statement is completely meaningless without context because if white pants are the most popular colour you could make that statement apply to any topic.
Provided you are measuring sensible information, percentage of Requirements that are Accepted, or Underway gives a really useful view about the maturity of your project.
In Cradle you can define any number of metrics, save and re-run them at a later date. A metric is made up of a set of elements, each element is a query to the database to retrieve item(s), and an analysis operation on these items. This could be a simple count, or a more comprehensive coverage analysis of attributes. Available functions include:
- Item count
- Minimum value, Maximum value
- Averages/spread (mean, median, mode(s), variance (population-based), range, standard deviation (population-based) and semi-interquartile range)
- Total / Weighted total of values
- Range of values
- Pivot table for category values
- Coverage statistics
The returned values can also be further manipulated with Metric calculations, combining values with basic mathematical operations. Delve into the help section for more information or read the flyer.
Cradle Features Coming Soon….
As we mentioned in February Cradle 7.4 is on the way. Look out for; New colouring options in (HID) Hierarchy Diagrams, Additional Regex (regular expression) matches in queries, Unique attribute checks……..
Social Media
Yey! Our followers still steadily climbing, but will you be the one that pushes us over the 400 mark?? What happens when we get to 404, do we get Follower Not Found? (Oh dear, sorry, bad engineering joke crept in. Ed.)
We read how conventionally CO is seen as bad, but there could be a route to making fuel.
We gave you a peek inside 3SL towers at some of the great staff we have.
We found ourselves hungry on St. Patrick’s day.
And took comfort that we were missed…..
Hints of the Month
Last month’s blog articles included:
We highlighted types of storage in Cradle, last month. Think of this too as a way to get tighter control over some of those files that form part of your Requirements set. Adding them to a Cradle item and then adding meta data to describe how they fit into your project.
We also looked at setting your model drawing preferences.
And to fit in with our Spring Cleaning, some housekeeping tips in Cradle.
You can read Hints & Tips in the 3SL Blog