Articles, opinions and frameworks from the people at First Digital, on generative AI, low-code, and what it all means for your business.
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The SDLC gives you the structure, the methodology gives you the rhythm, and the customer gives you the specification. Matthew De Waal walks through what it takes to build a large-scale system that people actually want to use.
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If AI takes everyone's job, who exactly is going to pay for the AI? Wimpie Baard on why the dangerous part of the AI revolution is not the destination, but the decades in between.
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Most AI applications fail on architecture, not on the model. James Lamusse on why the harness is the real product, and the patterns that make a model-agnostic system reliable enough to trust.
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An agent is metered, so the bill tracks adoption and a rollout people actually use costs more than one they ignore. Nathan Goosen on why Azure will not give you a hard spend cap, and where to build one yourself.
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SQL Server 2016 went out of support on 14 July 2026. Greg Fibiger on why the real blocker is rarely the database engine, what each of the remaining paths actually costs you, and how to avoid an expensive false start.
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Projects go sideways for one of two reasons: nobody scoped them properly, or nobody ever finished scoping them. Adrian Griesel on the real cost of planning too little, and why plans still come with an expiry date.
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Software leaves a trail of proof behind it. That trail explains why AI became good at code first, and when it arrives in your industry.
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Technology has never stood still, and neither should we. Nadia Hugo on why a qualification no longer lasts a career, what her own non-linear path taught her, and how to own the next step yourself.
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Everyone wants the one super-agent. It falls over. The teams winning with agents in 2026 build small crews of specialists with a manager.
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Gartner expects over 40% of agentic AI projects to be cancelled by 2027. The survivors share one dull trait: they chase value, not novelty.
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Generative AI answered questions. Agentic AI takes action. When a wrong move books the flight or issues the refund, autonomy needs a blast radius.
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A year ago you could count your company’s AI tools. Now you can’t. Agent sprawl is the new shadow IT, and you cannot govern what you cannot see.
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AI may be approaching PhD-level intelligence, but raw intelligence and business intelligence are not the same thing.
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The people most likely to expose your business through AI are not junior staff experimenting in the dark. They are senior leaders chasing the appearance of innovation.
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AI in business is a double-edged sword. Context is what makes it useful, and education is what makes your people able to wield it.
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A short, self-aware take on "AI Selfishness": the moment generative AI makes the writer feel brilliant while everyone else drowns in recycled sameness.
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Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, scaffolding, and what grounding a generative-AI system really takes, tested on First Technology’s own data.
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A futuristic view from Chris Botha: a Digital Workplace team in 2030 building on SharePoint, Power Apps and Power Automate, from Woolworths to a Mars mission.
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From clay tablets to a digital black hole: what future generations will dig up, and whether they will be able to trust a record increasingly written by AI.
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A plain-English breakdown of how Large Language Models and generative AI become game-changers, from content and customer support to data analysis and product design.
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A comprehensive SQL health assessment examines your database and OS environment, finds bottlenecks, and delivers phased recommendations for peak performance and reliability.
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A QA tester shares why automated testing changed their work, catching defects early, freeing time for exploratory testing, and improving software quality.
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Aging SQL versions create security and support risks. Explore upgrade, migration, and cloud options, including Microsoft Fabric, to modernise your data environment.
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How First Digital built a modern Azure-based data warehouse for a South African agricultural supplier, centralising data and enabling Power BI insights.
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Using the Chevrolet AI bot incident, this piece explores the legal and ethical risks of letting AI make binding customer-facing decisions.
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How to write clear, effective user stories using the INVEST principles, and why well-crafted stories keep custom software projects aligned with user needs.
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How organisations can improve internal and strategic communication in the digital age by focusing on the individual, emotional intelligence, culture and continuous staff development.
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A practical walkthrough of TDD in C# with NUnit, covering unit tests, mocking, the Red-Green-Refactor cycle, and integration tests on new and existing projects.
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An introduction to StratoMetrics, First Digital's tool for assessing application readiness and simplifying the complexity of cloud migration.
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A reflection on the ethical responsibilities of the digital age, covering privacy, digital inequality, and bias in AI tools.
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Why full rewrites of legacy systems fail, and how the Ship of Theseus and Strangler Fig patterns let you incrementally replace old code without freezing features.
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A comprehensive analysis of the advantages and disadvantages across the Microsoft Power Platform stack: Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, Power BI and Dataverse.
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Using Luke Skywalker's journey as a metaphor for learning to wield AI effectively, from novice basics through training, ethics, balance and lasting impact.
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Microsoft's new Outlook drops support for COM add-ins, exposing risk for IT managers whose third-party and line-of-business integrations may not migrate to web add-ins in time.
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A tour of the 8+ task management tools in the Microsoft stack, from Project Online to Azure DevOps, and how to choose the right one.
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AI is best seen as augmented intelligence and a strategic partner rather than a job replacement, echoing how past disruptive technologies ultimately created new opportunities.
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How the Observe-Orient-Decide-Act framework helps developers transition through context switches swiftly and maintain focus within Agile development.
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Context switching erodes developer focus, productivity, and code quality in Agile teams; protecting uninterrupted time helps developers reach flow and deliver better software.
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How continuous feedback throughout the software development lifecycle improves quality, reduces rework, and optimises the developer's inner loop for greater value.
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Five reasons to move from SharePoint on-premises to SharePoint Online, covering scalability, cost, automatic updates, integration, and security.
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How Microsoft's .NET MAUI framework lets developers reuse Blazor, Angular, React, and Vue code to build native cross-platform mobile apps from a single codebase.
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How Microsoft Viva improves employee engagement, learning, knowledge sharing and well-being by integrating with existing tools like Teams and SharePoint.
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An overview of edge computing: what it is, its benefits, real-world applications across industries, and the challenges of adopting it.
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How the DevOps mindset expanded into EverythingOps, and how its core actions of team management, tooling, effort and continuous improvement guide digital transformation.
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A step-by-step guide to building a console app that pulls data from Azure SQL into Dynamics 365 CRM and deploying it as a scheduled Azure WebJob.
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How AI and tools like ChatGPT are reshaping data engineering and data warehouse work, the benefits and challenges, and why AI will supplement rather than replace data engineers.
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An introduction to building RPA bots with Blue Prism, covering Process and Object Studio, comparisons with UiPath and Automation Anywhere, and K2 and Power Platform integrations.
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A framework for effective organisational change management, covering behavioural, structural and operations strategies, common pitfalls, and tools like PESTEL and Kotter's model.
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Why .NET MAUI, the evolution of Xamarin.Forms, is a write-once-run-anywhere framework worth adopting to future-proof cross-platform apps.
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How to minimise security risks through monitoring, vulnerability testing and training, and best practices for securing every stage of the Software Development Life Cycle.
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An introduction to why DevOps started and a walk through the eight phases of the DevOps lifecycle, from Plan to Monitor.
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AI is reached in phases through big data and automation milestones. The question for businesses is no longer whether to adopt AI, but when.
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What a Business Analyst does in an IT context, the importance of clear communication, and the WHAT/WHO/WHERE/WHEN/WHICH/HOW modelling methodologies.
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Comparing data warehouse projects and software projects across design, ownership, complexity and culture to help manage expectations and ensure success.
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An introduction to Test Driven Development, its six-step process, advantages and disadvantages, and how it compares with Behaviour Driven Development.
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How First Digital built a central SQL data warehouse and Power BI semantic layer for Belgotex, unifying scattered data into dynamic, automated reporting.
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Part 3 explores integration for low-code platforms: what integration is, what differentiates platform connectors, and how to design and test integrations effectively.
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A model of the levels of business process automation, from fully manual to full automation, adapted from Tesla's autonomous driving levels.
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Most project overruns stem from underestimation. Investing properly in analysis and a Business Requirements Specification leads to accurate budgets and less technical debt.
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A pirate-crew metaphor for the roles needed in a successful data warehouse project, from project manager and BI analyst to architect, modeler and developers.
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How Microsoft Endpoint Manager unifies and secures device management for hybrid work, combining Intune and Configuration Manager within a Zero Trust strategy.
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How to create and use custom code snippets in Visual Studio to speed up development by avoiding repetitive typing.
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Five practical Microsoft Power Platform solutions, from employee onboarding to helpdesk ticketing, that help organisations digitise and automate processes.
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A practical look at digital process automation: understanding, modelling, and reporting on business processes using low-code tools like Nintex Promapp to cut costs.
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Why fixed-price software contracts hide risk and cost, and how an agile, budget-controlled approach keeps the customer in charge of scope, time and spend.
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A step-by-step guide to enabling Python scripting in Power BI, importing data, creating visuals and training a machine learning model for data-driven decisions.
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An overview of how the Microsoft Defender suite secures on-premises and cloud workloads, from Active Directory and Exchange to BYOD and endpoint protection.
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Why POPI checklists fall short, and how First Digital's cloud-based POPICheck tool helps South African businesses assess and achieve POPI Act compliance.
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Skipping dedicated quality assurance invites UAT disasters. A proper QA process, planned early from the requirements phase, saves time and protects project delivery.
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How the pandemic reshaped work into hybrid models, the pros and cons of remote working, and how Microsoft cloud tools bridge the gap.
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Why business process automation is essential for productivity and growth, the barriers organisations face, and why failing to automate ultimately leads to failure.
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A sample IoT project using a BME280 sensor and Raspberry Pi to stream sensor data into Power BI and build a live weather dashboard.
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How Office 365 tools such as SharePoint, Yammer, StaffHub and Teams help connect, engage and empower frontline workers through a digital intranet.
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Why basic coding knowledge and an understanding of common patterns make citizen developers far more effective when building and maintaining no-code solutions.
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How shelveset validation builds in Azure DevOps let developers back up local changes to the server and validate that code builds on the build agents before check-in.
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How Microsoft 365 tools like Power Apps, Power Automate and SharePoint make affordable business process management accessible, with a First Digital RFQ example.
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Low-code platforms promise fast, cheap delivery, but complex requirements and reliance on non-technical builders carry real pitfalls worth understanding upfront.
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Five core Agile Manifesto principles, from satisfying the client and embracing change to daily collaboration, working software and sprint retrospectives, that drive project success.
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The key business benefits of Robotic Process Automation, from employee empowerment and cost reduction to improved accuracy, data, and customer satisfaction.
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A simple three-question approach to solving any coding problem: understand it, split it into smaller tasks, then simplify your solution, with a worked example.
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An overview of digital transformation and the software development trends shaping the years ahead, including IoT, artificial intelligence, and continuous delivery.
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How cloud-based integration and iPaaS connect cloud and on-premise systems, enabling scalable, secure hybrid integrations that drive competitive advantage.
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UX and UI are distinct disciplines; this breaks down the differences across six areas, from design principles and thought process to competencies and skill sets.
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How organisations can build and manage a successful multicloud strategy by aligning people, processes and technology, and choosing the right cloud partner.
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A practical look at how automation and integration tame business-process chaos, the industries and technologies they touch, and how continuous improvement drives value.
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Gabriel Malherbe and Neil du Plessis explain why a holistic cybersecurity strategy is critical for any enterprise moving its business and assets online.
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As businesses move to the cloud and remote work, securing organizational data and meeting POPIA compliance requirements has become a top priority.
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Using Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a lens, this piece argues that modern productivity tools free time and drive the efficiencies behind a digital workplace.
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Tracing the industrial revolutions to the 4IR, this looks at how no-code/low-code, integration platforms, and cloud computing help organisations automate and integrate.
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Why employee productivity matters for customer relationships, engagement, and costs, plus practical ways to raise it through training, task matching, and better communication.
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A short primer on chatbots, their history and uses, and how conversational AI automates communication and personalises customer experiences at scale.
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A comparison of the benefits and downfalls of .NET Core and the .NET Framework to help decide which to choose for your development needs.
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An overview of why hackers steal data, four common motivations, and how the CIA triad of confidentiality, integrity, and availability guides effective data security.
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A developer walks through all five SOLID principles, exposing the common misinterpretations that show up in most developer blogs and what the source actually says.
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A look at nopCommerce, a free open-source .NET e-commerce platform that ships with admin functionality out of the box and is easy to extend by following its existing patterns.
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A comparison of gRPC and REST covering payload formats, HTTP 1.1 versus HTTP/2, and serialization versus strong typing.
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Lessons learned in software design, from embracing failure and not reinventing the wheel to using UML, SOLID principles, design patterns and TDD.
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A walkthrough of the logical order in which SQL clauses are processed, from FROM through to TOP, and how knowing it helps optimise queries.
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A PowerApps, Power Automate and SharePoint solution that lets users create and archive Microsoft Teams sites in minutes, rolling out folder structures, columns and tabs automatically.
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How process automation transforms paper-based processes into digital ones, cutting human error, eliminating paper, and reducing task times by up to 80%.
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A developer's case for Test Driven Development, rebutting the common objections that it takes too long, isn't real-world, or isn't worth the effort.
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A developer's casual, hands-on comparison of building cross-platform mobile apps with Ionic versus Xamarin, weighing flexibility against speed and ease of delivery.
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Four fundamentals that make the biggest impact on SQL performance tuning: reducing subsequent selects, managing table size, optimising joins, and tightening aggregations.
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