Perspectives

Managing IT - A Different Perspective

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 23:00:06 -0400

The process we put into place has been proven in nearly 100 companies from startups to the world’s second largest corporation, and has provided radical improvements in the overall IT governance and financial performance of both IT and the parent company. This process is highly flexible, extremely repeatable, and provides consistent benefits that, in most organizations, become institutional fixtures in the running of the organization.

The core of the process is Principles - the values that are used to make decisions. Understanding these values, and how they should be applied to what decision when, is essential. You need to leverage all this knowledge in your organization, and the top executives can’t be there for every decision. Getting everyone to behave the same way for the same reasons, and for the right places, is highly effective for massive cultural and business change. Broadly supported decisions can then be made, and the empowerment that gives to people - in line with executive intent - is amazing!

The Ideal Sequence - Ideal order but not mandatory ......

• Strategy - WHAT the business wants to do
• Strategic Metrics - characteristics that insures that subordinate efforts are adding to the desired value
• Business Tactics - HOW the business wants to create this value
• Principles - statements of value that guide decisions
• Principles Alignment - against a behavioral view of the organization, such that all decisions might be made synergistically
• IT Direction - WHAT IT needs to do to enable the strategy and tactics for the business
• IT Delivery - HOW IT plans on delivering the WHAT
• Current Environment - a qualitative analysis of the technology landscape across the complete coverage model of platforms, applications, data, operations, security, people and process
• Gap Analysis - the delta between where we are and where we want to go - made up of keepers, retirement candidates, and components we need to build or buy
• Implementation Priority - the delivery sequence roadmap
• Cost Model - what it takes to acquire the build/buy items

Seems like a lot of effort? With well proven templates, “shopping lists” of content to select from, comprehensive training materials, and expertise from delivery in over 40 companies, the work output is highly pragmatic and efficient.

Contact us - we can get you on the track to more effective business value delivery through information technology.

Principles - Driving Sustainable Change

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 22:00:38 -0400

People think governance and enterprise architecture are technical disciplines - they are really business management of technology. Making it about technology, makes it the realm of the very few, dictating to the many. Effective change does not often come from an oligarchy, and few businesses are really driven by technology.

However, it IS all about executive intent. You pay the big bucks for the people at the top, and yet, that superior knowledge and leadership seldom gets translated into the day-to-day behavior of the rank and file.

If you can articulate the core VALUES (principles) - statements that reflect why you make decisions the way you do - you have a good start to effective change, but only a start. These are not things, these are values - statements that reflect why you would make a decision one way or another.

How is this, you ask? We have principles defined, and yet we still struggle with decisions and change.

Most companies preach that they are customer focused.

Not likely - at least not across the board.

Step 1 - Allocating Principles into Groups

No, core decision values need to be classified into affinity groupings - things like customer, business and employee perspectives. Through this, it will be immediately obvious that the customer perspective and the business perspective are opposed views.

Let me provide an example: You are a customer focused organization. Your users request a LINUX desktop computer. You are a Windows shop. You deny the CUSTOMER request, because the BUSINESS perspective - in this case, prudent financial management - dictates that the increased diversity in the environment, increases my software, and support costs.

SO, you behaved in a diametrically opposed perspective to the stated corporate principle - customer focused.

And you wonder why you have problems in consistent delivery.......

Step 2 - Prioritizing Values

Typically, principles are in conflict. You can’t equally apply every core value to every decision; it creates schizophrenic behavior - what I call the bible approach; pick chapter and verse to support whatever decision that you want to make.

In order to make principles work effectively, they must be allocated to the parts of your organization that behave synergistically. In developed this technique, various grouping were tried - most failed. The one that worked, is not immediately intuitive, but is highly effective.

Create a view of the business providing a consistent view of how technology is managed, irrespective of where, or by who.

This structure or view is NOT based on geographic, organizational, workflow, or business interaction; it is the I/T decision making view - where we make the same level of I/T investment around the management of technology. This provides consistent delivery characteristics (e.g. level of IT Enterprise Management, dollar investment, data criticality, etc – see appendices) and consistent value alignment against this view - a view facilitating all decisions against a consistent set of value criteria as defined by the Senior Leadership Team.

It is amazing to observe the resultant change in an organization. Call to find out more, and we can share some real world examples that will astound you!

Strategy vs. Requirements - a What vs. How

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 21:00:02 -0400

One of the more common issues that impacts business today is something that appears simple, but is so critical to understanding everything from strategy, to architecture to project requirements. People naturally jump into the solution - the how. That is because most people relate to concrete concepts. Abstract concepts - the what - are foreign to most thought processes.

The critical aspect of this is that, in any area, the definition of solutions - the how - predesposes the users to accept that solution as gospel. If they had instead defined the needs - the “what” - then alternative approaches might have been identified. These alternatives afford the opportunity to implement other aspects of strategy, such as common delivery.

“The best solution to a point problem, may not be the best enterprise solution” - Kirk Rheinlander

Let’s explore a tangible example; project requirements. Nearly every reader probably would have experienced requirements gathering at one point or another. More often than not, people have a pre-conceived idea as to how to deliver the project, and solve the problems. However, it is exactly this pre-conceived notion that gets in the way of innovation.

You really need to get requirements into the realm of “WHAT” and not “HOW”. Once you determine what the root needs are, alternative solutions (how) can be developed. Often these can be in line with a corporate enterprise architecture, and in line with the strategic plan - solutions that may not be the user’s initial impressions of requirements, as they were thinking “how”.

Contact us - we can get you on the track to more effective business value delivery through information technology.

Customers There can be Only One

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 20:30:37 -0400

There is only one customer - the person who makes the decision to buy the product or service. It is not the guy in the next department, the other business unit, or even the person that writes the check - it is the decision maker who, by their choice, adds bottom line dollars to your company.

Internal relationships are all part of the value chain, not customers as such. Everything you do with the internal operations of the company are optimized to produce lowest cost, or maximum performance, not matching each customer need as requested.

Customer focus reflects a value orientation that indicates “Preferred Business Partner” or “Strong Customer Commitment” and all that implies. And yet, with these internal “customers”, often it is “prudent financial management” that drives decisions.

The reality is that you optimize the business value, ignoring unique internal relationship requests, and deliver for minimum diversity and maximum manageability.

And you though you were customer focused......

Contact us - we can get you on the track to more effective business value delivery through information technology.

Innovation - the Cultural Impacts

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 20:00:20 -0400

Creativity is often stifled in many companies - people just do not like change. If you are not willing to accept debate, dissension, or alternative ideas, your organization is probably not ready for change. Take care - your competitors are changing; if not the ones you know, then the ones you don’t.
• If you have a lot of off-the-wall thoughts, you’re creative
• If you use those thoughts to degrade or disrupt progress, you’re a troublemaker
• If you can turn those thoughts into something of value, you’re innovative
Cultures that support the free flow of ideas, without “personalizing” the activity, excel at innovation.
“If Julie thinks Fred’s idea is all wet, don’t you think it would be refreshing for Julie to say ‘Fred, that idea is all wet. Here is why I think so, here’s what I think is better and why.’
If your team had that kind of conversation, and nobody takes offense, you have a healthy team. Otherwise, it’s time to figure out how to fix your team.”
From “IS Survival Guide” by Bob Lewis
(Bob runs IT Catalysts - a wonderful and exciting company and friendly competitor)
You probably have someone in your organization that is outspoken - maybe even classified as a troublemaker. Embrace that person - they are one of your most valuable assets - someone that is willing to challenge the status quo. This person can be the catalyst of innovation in your organization - you just need to learn how to work with this creativity.
Innovation seldom comes from doing things the same way you have always done them.
These people are not evil - if they wanted to be subversive, they would take their dissent underground. By working out in the open, they are striving to bring the best out in everyone.
Our principal has been part of many significant innovations over the years. He was a member of the development team on the original IBM PC, co-founder of the first Mac users group, one of the early Novell CNEs, inventor of the first laser interferometer measuring device for disk drive accuracy, co-developer of the first portable spectroscopy device, the process modeling technique (swim lanes) that later became Rummler-Brache, and numerous other industry innovations.
If you want to harness the nascent innovation in your organization, contact us - we can help.

Learning Maps - Communicating Change

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 19:00:46 -0400

The concept of learning maps have been helping companies understand change. The approach engages employees in short workshops, where a visual map of the environment is laid out in front of them. Various interactive techniques and group discussions provide insight into the concepts being presented.
This process can bring critical business issues to life for your organization.
Change Understanding
• Market Understanding
• Organizational Understanding
• Business Understanding
• Economic Understanding
• Customer Understanding
• Process Understanding
• Specific Business Issues

Contact us - we can help with getting you started in change transitions

Concept Mapping Characterizing Complexity

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 18:30:03 -0400

• Fast
• Powerful
• Highly Visual
• Highly Effective

This technique has been around for years, but only recently have computer tools existed to facilitate not only the creation of the models, but the downstream delivery of value from this models. These tools are not basic drawing tools, but tools that provide automated arrangements of information in hierarchies, cross-hierarchical relationships, and background documentation.

Closely related to mind-mapping, a technique for breaking down high level concepts into lower levels of detail, concept mapping adds the elements of relationships across the tree branches. It also adds the element of annotated paths - a verb phrase the describes the relationship between conceptual elements.

Contact Us - we can help you learn to use this valuable technique to drive your business understanding.

Stress - Barbarians at the Gate

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 18:00:58 -0400

The military consistently uses stress to drive performance. Their operational environment - like most businesses - is not under their control. Troops that are unable to perform their function, are dangerous; not only to themselves, but to the people that depend upon them. They would suffer from high degrees of anxiety - what we have called stress. To counter this, the military trains, trains, and trains more.

Most stressful situations should NOT be eliminated - even if they could be. Let me give you an example......

Public speaking - a high stress situation if there ever was one. The solution to the resultant anxiety over public speaking is most often found with speaker expertise in the subject area. People that are very, very familiar with the topic being presented - familiar enough that no audience onslaught could not be countered - are typically not anxious at all. The stressful situation still exists - nothing happened to change that - but the anxiety over the situation is eliminated, and performance is superb.

Translate that parallel into other work situations. Removing stressful situations is not the answer - preparing workers to deliver is.

We can help - contact us

Managing from a Risk Planning Perspective

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 17:00:49 -0400

Ideally, you would understand a set of factors around the risk elements.

1) Have you identified the majority of the risk topics?
2) To what degree does the risk exist in a given topical area?
3) What things are triggers to the risk?
4) What things are symptoms / observations that a risk is occurring?
5) What is the probability that the risk might occur?
6) What do you have in place to detect / flag those symptoms?
7) How could you minimize / avoid the risk from occurring?
8) How are you going to recover, should the risk occur?

We have developed a comprehensive set of risk questions, with range response answer (to constrain variability in the understanding of the questions/answers), and some great presentation tools. Combined with our comprehensive experience across a broad range of industries, we have seen a wide range of risk mitigation approaches, and have seen what works, what doesn’t, and why.

We can help!

Contact us to help you work through getting a handle on the things that will negatively impact your organization.

Eliminate Application Development

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 16:00:10 -0400

Application development is geek toyland - a place to play with the latest technologies, and live in a world so foreign to the outside world, that no one can question what they are doing. OK, so most companies have a need for at least some application development. The packaged, commercial-off-the-shelf software may not meet their needs, or necessarily provide the competitive advantage required. Add to this, that many CIOs are not business people, but techno-geeks that have grown up the management chain, and want to continue with what they are familiar with and enjoy - and think that they are adding value by doing.

NOT the CIO success path of today’s day and age......

With most software packages today, these software companies have learned the best practices from hundreds or thousands of customers, or competitors products, and applied this to their off-the-shelf application. It stands to reason that the way their application works, may be better than the way you currently work today.

If you find these products, minimize your application development - you’ll save lots of money, and have a vendor to point the finger at when bugs arise. Take it on yourself, and you become the fall guy.

Now if we could only eliminate the accounting department....

Contact us - we can help with product selection, and refocusing your IT organization on providing real value.

Capabilities Marketing - Under the Surface

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 15:00:22 -0400

Why do these things occur? Are your users really that clueless as to all the things that the experts in IT can deliver - and all that goes into IT? Or are they dissatisfied with what IT provides, not knowing that you can deliver more, and better than most non-IT professionals.

Lack of understanding probably comes down to poor or non-existent capabilities marketing. Your users create what they need, ‘cause IT refused to help them, or the users did not know that IT had the capability to deliver what they want.

SO, they go create their own little renegade IT environment, created mission critical software and data used to make decisions, without solid software engineering process, understanding and quality controls to make it an accurate and manageable information asset, and fail to protect that asset. Now you have uncontrolled development efforts, and terrorist data stores out there, that, when they don’t work right, or break, or lose data, or end up wasting a business person’s time doing work that would be better served with an IT resource, get you in trouble, or worse, your business in trouble.

You need to get in closer touch with your users and the business community. Let them know what you are working on. Ask them what they need. Never say “no”, but always work with the users to find out how you can help. This may come down to a “this does not make financial sense” decision, or something else that precludes doing the work,, but the user now understands the why and wherefore of the situation. At best, you have gained an ally and satisfied user, at worst, you have disappointed a user.

Contact us - we can get you on the track to more effective business value delivery through information technology.