"We can generate a lot of simulations varying the traffic conditions and the driving style and calculate the energy and get a distribution of energy consumption [said Erica Klampfl, technical leader, strategy & sustainability analytics, at Ford Research & Advanced Engineering]. That really helps us answer this question, 'Under different scenarios, how far can I go?'" ... For the second question, "Is there a smarter way to get from Point A to Point B?", Klampfl said Ford uses a "robust route optimization algorithm that determines the optimal routes under energy consumption uncertainty." She compared this to the short-distance or fastest-route alternatives spewed out by any of the navigator apps many of us use regularly today. "What we're doing is, based on energy consumption uncertainty, figuring out what is the most robust route that will get you there most of the time."

If one genome is big, 100,000 genomes is overwhelmingly huge, and it’s Dr. Madeleine Ball’s job to keep all the data happy. Ball oversees data collection and the public data portals for the PGP, as their Director of Biology. This can be as awesomely geeky as tweaking python scripts to analyze data, or as mundane as packaging blood samples so they can be sent off to be biobanked.

To me, the most interesting stuff is in regard to data formats that only sound like standards.

One of Ball’s largest challenges is the lack of uniformity in personal health records (PHRs). The PGP program participants (who currently number in the low thousands) are very active, uploading all sorts of personal data such as PHRs, X-Rays, and MRI scans. Unfortunately, getting all that information into a consistent format is daunting. “Everyone has their own way of doing a health record,” says Ball, “And they all say, ‘Oh, we have electronic health records,’ as if it solves everything. That’s kind of like saying, ‘We all have Word documents;’ it doesn’t mean they’re all using the same coding systems.”

A lot of supermarket tech is at the checkout area. Bar-code scanning was already old hat when U.S. president George Bush the elder was allegedly amazed by them in 1992, and retailers continue to experiment with the next logical step: self-checkout systems.

Here's some of the ways you'll find spiffy stuff among the lettuce:

There’s a lot of technologies out there right now that are being introduced into the retail space to understand what consumers are doing in the store, and heat-mapping is one of those technologies--using cameras in the ceiling to actually track where the consumer’s going. What this information tells the retailer is where a consumer is, how they’re moving around the store, whether they’re dwelling in certain places, like checkout or in front of specific merchandise.

There’s both the real-time application for this technology as well as a longer-term application. And so, as you’re deciding how many people should be in the store manning the registers the next week, you can actually use this information as well.

You’re seeing retailers are being more innovative than I think historically they’ve been given credit. And IT organizations are really starting to be innovators in technology.

...She's been frustrated by her Agile experiences — and so have her clients. "There is no process. Things fly all directions, and despite SVN [version control] developers overwrite each other and then have to have meetings to discuss why things were changed. Too many people are involved, and, again, I repeat, there is no process."

The premise here is not that Agile sucks — quite to the contrary — but that developers have to understand how Agile processes can make users anxious, and learn to respond to those fears. Not all those answers are foolproof. For example:

Detailed designs and planning done prior to a project seems to provide a "safety net" to business sponsors, says Semeniuk. "By providing a Big Design Up Front you are pacifying this request by giving them a best guess based on what you know at that time — which is at best partial or incorrect in the first place." The danger, he cautions, is when Big Design becomes Big Commitment — as sometimes business sponsors see this plan as something that needs to be tracked against. "The big concern with doing a Big Design up front is when it sets a rigid expectation that must be met, regardless of the changes and knowledge discovered along the way," says Semeniuk.

Danerys also shows another key quality of good project management: She constantly seeks to learn, and she frequently integrates new information into her plans. That allows her to take advantage of opportunities when they arise, where an inflexible project leader (say, King Joffrey) sees only distractions.

At one point, she tells her people, “I swear to you that those who would harm you will die screaming.” Remember that loyalty to your team is important, although threatening blood and fire might not work in the boardroom.