Archive for category IT Management
You Get What You Pay For…And Pay For What You Get
Posted by Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog in IT Management on February 21st, 2007
When you pay a lot of money for something, doesn’t it give you a sense of comfort and control when you know exactly what you are paying for? This principle applies to chargebacks within a business just as much as it does in other transactions.
Many of our clients are implementing chargebacks in their IT organizations, or are considering it. A recent article on the Projects@Work site not only makes a great case for the value of chargebacks, but also for the itemization of services that a chargeback system enables.
“You Get What You Pay For” by Karen McIsaac, http://www.projectsatwork.com/content/Articles/235089.cfm
(Registration required, but it is free and easy.)
Itemization not only gives the customers who request IT services that comfortable feeling of control, it actually makes them more disciplined about their IT spending, and therefore helps the entire organization keep IT spending under control. It also gives everyone a crystal-clear picture of what IT is doing, where the priorities are, and where additional resources may be needed.
Process Improvement : Job No. 1 (the workforce management and project management perspective)
Posted by Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog in Business Process Management, Good Books and Articles, IT Management on December 22nd, 2006
CIO Insight published an article, "The 30 Most Important IT Trends for 2007." For your convenience, we list the 30 trends below:
Strategy
1. Process improvement will be job No. 1
2. IT works on closing the sale
3. Companies make their Web sites more engaging
4. Customer service gets a tune-up
5. Companies put their mounds of data to work
6. Information governance gains momentum
7. CIOs strive to be strategic
Management
8. The division between IT and business will diminish
9. CIO compensation keeps climbing
10. IT organizations will keep growing
11. CIOs struggle to find business-savvy technologists
12. Outsourcing changes IT management
13. Outsourcing growth slows
14. Offshoring shifts from India
15. Companies invest in IT leadership
16. Demonstrating ROI will remain a struggle
Security and Risk
17. No abatement of IT security threats
18. Security concerns turn users away from Windows
19. Security morphs into risk management
20. Compliance achieves what government intended
21. Compliance spurs financial process improvement
Technology
22. The move to a new architecture marches on
23. Enterprise applications start losing their luster
24. Data quality demands attention
25. IT reluctantly embraces Web 2.0
26. IT innovation loses traction
27. Business process management services and software will frustrate users
28. For business intelligence, the best is yet to come
29. IT organizations start going green
30. Dissatisfaction with vendors is on the rise
In their blog, 180 Systems adds the following comment:
180 View – We also share the view that process improvement will be job No. 1. It’s interesting that process improvement shows up under security and risk [#21]. This makes sense to us. Compliance reviews are deemed a bitter poison by most companies and want them done as quickly/cheaply as possible or at least to provide some suggestions to improve business process.
In my view, compliance is like medicine that tastes bad but is good for you in the same way as getting more exercise and eating healthier food might be unpleasant but necessary for a long happy life. The process improvements brought about by compliance are the very improvements that will make a business more agile and competitive.
Therefore, process improvement—whether for compliance, or for the general "health" of the business—is an essential area for a company to invest, and we are glad to see it is regarded as the #1 trend for 2007. A workflow-driven project workforce management system is the one of the best ways to achieve and maintain a consistent process improvement program.
Reuse, Recycle…and Leverage Your Current Investments
Posted by Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog in Good Books and Articles, IT Management on December 4th, 2006
We enjoyed the article What Gartner is Telling Your Boss, which discusses Gartner’s view of the future of application development:
"The future of application development is not about programmer productivity," said [Matt Hoyle, Gartner Analyst] during the keynote presentation, "but in assembling functionality from components." While programming will not go away, he stressed, programming has decreasing importance in delivering excellence. "Assembling, buying, and extracting is an increasing part of what you need to do," he said. To be more agile and responsive, application development managers have to manipulate, orchestrate, and compose new business processes, using resources available from outside partners, third-party applications, Web services, and existing code components. [Dale Veccio, gartner analyst] asked, "Why would you ever code an app from scratch again? Why would you need to?"
Bloggers tended to focus on the implication that Gartner is advocating the use of open source code. But I think the bigger picture is that managing software and IT projects is not just about technology decisions. We have to do Project Execution and Governance better: by knowing which projects to do and which to kill.
Moreover, there has to be more emphasis on optimizing the investments the company has already made in infrastructure, technology and R&D. There has been a shift in emphasis in the marketplace from investing in the "next new thing" to better leveraging current investments.
New Study Validates Process Controls
Posted by Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog in Business Process Management, Good Books and Articles, IT Management on November 21st, 2006
Here’s a frank and informative article in the latest CIO magazine about the differences between high-performing IT organizations and the rest: the bottom line is better controls, and real consequences for unauthorized changes within a project.
The article is here: http://www.cio.com/archive/111506/col_sch.html
CIO Magazine, "Are You In Control? Innovation demands discipline as much as it requires freedom." by Michael Schrage. November 15, 2006.
The article takes some very nice stats from a report by the IT Process Institute (buy the full report here). They amount to resounding support for the workflow-driven approach:
The findings quantified distinctions between IT shops that live for the average and the few that take process leadership seriously. Elite IT performers weren’t just two or three times better than median performers—they were seven or eight times better. High performers—roughly 13 percent of the 98 sampled—contributed on average eight times more projects, four and a half times more applications and software, four and a half times more IT services, and seven times more business IT changes. They implemented 14 more changes with half the failure rate.
And what separates these elite performers from the rest? Schrage explains in no uncertain terms:
Two controls towered over all others in impact and importance: Do you monitor systems for unauthorized changes? And are there defined consequences for intentional unauthorized changes? No ambiguity or nuance here. The key discriminator between the best and the rest was that elite performers rigorously monitored and punished unauthorized changes. They had situational awareness of change.
Schrage goes on to make some excellent comments about the value of control over change:
It’s not the work we’re supposed to do that undermines our productivity; it’s our black market economies of unauthorized changes—no matter how well intentioned or essential. We misunderstand the true enterprise costs of change.
As a firm believer in the value of process controls and well-managed workflows, I’m glad to see this validation come from the ITPI and CIO magazine.
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