IT Value Stack

Great Leaders & Stewardship

I am in full agreement with Phil's sentiments in respect of what makes a great leader. The leaders we read about in the press are by nature attention seekers. The model being that the leader espouses the values of the organisation they head. They are media savvy and getting positive column inches is part of the remit. Some CxOs fall into the belief that they are celebrities and so become more focused on the external nature of their role than the internal leadership elements. Possibly the king makers need to rethink the job specification in respect of 'leader as media magnet'.

The reporting requirements of most big organisations encourages a 'results by quarter end' mindset. Not only does this discourage strategic thinking it encourages the CEO to focus on 'quick wins' in terms of company performance. He or she is thus more likely to trade the needs of their people for the needs of the shareholders. Some might argue that this is rightly so. But it is a high risk approach, particularly if such an approach leads to key staff exiting the organisation (shortly followed by the so called leader).

For me stewardship is thinking beyond one's own ego. To be quietly focused on initiatives today that will benefit the organisation in the future, perhaps beyond their tenure. A subsequent leader will enjoy the benefits of this effort. But a true leader knows that and takes quiet satisfaction regardless of who takes the glory.

The Nirvana Scenario is not Enough

In the CIO post IT is transforming itself from a manufacturing to a service industry I like the theme of the IT department moving from a manufacturing mindset to one more service focused. I love the idea of encouraging all technologists to understand the implications of what they do on the customer's condition. Conceptually this is not new. This is what the business-IT alignment evangelists have been pushing for at least a decade. The significance of this piece is that we are still not really there yet.

Worse still the nirvana scenario that the article promotes in my view is not enough. We need to move beyond alignment to entwinement. The IT function, once it has got to the 'trusted supplier' stage, needs to press the agenda forward to the trusted partner state. Only then will we move from IT as a tool for automating business processes (cost efficiency focus) to IT as a tool for gaining a competitive edge (cost effectiveness focus).

The article presents a pragmatic perspective on what most organisations need to sort out today. I am simply trying to say that CxOs need to be alert to what needs to happen thereafter.

Ron Dimon's Review of The IT Value Stack

I excitedly clicked on the link to a review of my IT Value Stack book on the 'Did Somebody say Strategy?' blog.

Ron Dimon was the reviewer and he has clearly devoted considerable time to reviewing the book for which I am very grateful.

Ron warms me up for some bad news by expressing his disappointment from the outset and kindly attributes this to his expectations being too high.

Nobody likes to be told that their 'baby is ugly', but I take the view that if that is the case the sooner I know about it the sooner I can get back to reality. With this mindset I am responding to the review:

Ron mentions that the book opens up with sweeping generalisations. This is true as are the generalisations in the main. I am not alone in thinking,  for example, that there is tension between IT and business people; the fact that the IT industry is unable to demonstrate business value; the industry has a poor delivery record. Of course there are exceptions, but my generalisations cover the majority of situations. They are intended as the rationale for the book.

Admittedly I have taken perhaps too unequivocal a line in my comments. I put that down to having been 25 years in the IT industry working from bits to boardroom. I hope that it raises the energy of the book for the reader. I am nonetheless open to counterviews in order to refine my own thinking. So I welcome Ron's comments.

Ron points out that his experience in engaging with CIOs is different to mine in that he has found them to be quite business-savvy and sometimes COO like in their approach. I have met similar CIOs. They are smart enough to seek out companies that 'get IT'. But I still hold the view that the majority of CIOs are technology rather than business focused. The last significant surveys I could get my hands on were from Gartner and Burson-Marsteller (a contributor to my book). They put CIO representation at board level within the Fortune 500 companies at circa 5%. So my view is there is work to be done. I can understand Ron's perspective, his working sphere and the blog itself is likely to attract the attention of the enlightened few CIOs. But they are not representative of the overall population.

Ron picks up on my saying that CFOs are unlikely to provide any operational or even strategic input into the IT department and then cites that most of the CFOs he has worked with are very involved. I will need to reread my book but the message I was hoping to convey is that CFOs can be too hands on, taking an alpha male (usually) approach to managing the CIO. But I admit there are some renaissance CFOs who look at IT from a strategic perspective. Their challenge is how do they measure this in financial terms, which is a key (but perhaps unclear) message in my book.

My use of entwinement is questioned as Ron points out that all I am getting at is bi-directional alignment. Possibly I am, but I think entwinement reads better. This is semantics and Ron is as right as I am depending on how we define these terms. My key message here is that we need to move the relationship from supplier (alignment) to partner (entwinement). My concern with bi-directional alignment as an alternative term is that it could be construed as  IT and the users are both suppliers to each other. That is not the point I am trying to make.

My coverage of Process entwinement was seen as a little light for Ron. He was hoping for some new thinking on management processes. My thrust was to provide new thinking in terms of IT's role in business processes and how the role of IT needs to extend from beyond the IT function and into the business (processes). I would agree that I have brought nothing new to the table in terms of business process engineering. Though such emphasis would in my opinion have skewed my model and is thus best left to process experts.

Ron congratulates me on getting external perspectives but suggests that by bundling them together at the end of each chapter undermines my message. This is a fair point.

Paragraph duplication - Hats off to Ron. I didn't spot that! This is a mistake. It also highlights that fine tooth nature of Ron's reviews.

There is mention of me implying that board members take a tactical approach to IT. My view is the opposite. They don't take enough interest in IT, even from a strategic IT or even business perspective. Again I must reread to check that I have articulated this point clearly.

An interesting point was made regarding the interconnectivity between the layers of my model. I need to give this more thought as there may be something in that point. My initial thought is that the model was designed so that the layers are uncoupled. But again Ron's comment has triggered a potential improvement opportunity.

Ron recommends Enterprise Architecture as Strategy  by Ross Weill and Robertson as a better read on IT value and leadership. I will take a look myself as my initial scan on Amazon reveals what could be a good read. However the recommendation suggests that Ron is still somewhat technology-management centric in his thinking on IT leadership and possibly misses my points on the IT leadership implications beyond the technology/ information architecture  piece. Most notably strategic, people, service and value implications. My key point is that the IT industry needs to 'grow up' if it is to deliver real business value. A radical change in thinking is required in terms of responsibilities in respect of reaping value from the IT investment and how this is addressed. Any book that challenges the status quo in these respects gets my vote.

In any case I have found Ron's comments stimulating. And look forward to continuing the discussion. I also look forward to following up on Ron's reading recommendation!

Decide whether to decide

'Three ways to make great decision's' highlights three simple ways to improve decision making. Their apparent simplicity however belies their complexity.  'Interpret information' is nothing less than knowledge management, one of the greatest challenges facing service based organisations across the planet. One's ability to interpret information determines what value one yield's from that information. Where decisions involve more than one person, perhaps a corporation, the interpretation challenge grows exponentially.

'Know your options' - again a knowledge management issue. Do you have access to the knowledge resident in your colleague's heads (perhaps globally distributed) to build a complete picture of your options? The same being true for 'Know your negotiables and non-negotiables'.

I would add a fourth point ' Decide whether to decide'. Often the pressures of business and life cause us to treat our responsibilities as a 'to do' list to work through. Smart people recognise when focused procrastination is the best course of action. A delayed response often has the benefit of recency value in respect of new information coming to light.

Those that make the best decisions(including the decision not to decide) win in both life and business. As more decisions involve  highly intermeshed globally distributed communities decision making becomes a boardroom challenge.

Women Pose a Security Risk When Chocolate is Involved

According to an Infosecurity survey women were four times more likely than men to give away their passwords. When people masquerading as researchers asked members of the public to complete a survey, which included revealing their password in return for a bar of chocolate, they discovered that 45% of women were happy to comply as opposed to 10% of men. 

Companies are encouraged to develop desensitisation programmes to help wean vulnerable staff off this potentially compromising addiction. Or alternatively provide free chocolate so that criminals are unable to capitalise on vulnerable staff during their cold turkey periods.

Less Tech, More Policies

Pui-Wing Tam reminds us that "...it’s not always about throwing more tech at a problem. Instead, companies also need to rely on better IT policies and tech training." (The complete post: Promoting Less Tech But More Tech Policies.)

Spot on piece. The issue is that many CIOs believe they are judged on the delivery of IT systems rather than enabling users to do their job better. In their opinion what the users do on receipt of the system is their problem.

As an ex-developer I was appalled at how little attention was given to userware. I suspect the problem is that techies like technology as it is predictable. Users, with their analogue spectrum of attitudes, moods and learning compliancy, will be far too threatening for most digital-oriented technologists to handle.

Discussion with EMC's Chuck Hollis

I had a very constructive conversation with Chuck Hollis of EMC recently where we covered such concepts as the CIO as the 'CFO of information'. Chuck suggesting that this analogy would encourage the organisation to see information as an asset to be exploited. It would also encourage the CIO to be more focused on those aspects of IT that best serve the business.

We also touched on how web 2.0 / social networking will lead to organisations having to relinquish control over their staff and their brand messaging.

We both felt that the role of the CIO and the  IT function was morphing. It likely being the case that for the IT function to remain relevant it will need to reinvent itself as the Business Process department. Similarly CIOs will need to move from tech-centric and operations focused to business-centric and boardroom-ready.

I'll post a link on this blog when the discussion is printed in EMC's ON magazine.

Too Much Information

Ben Worthen writes It’s Official: There’s Too Much Information. 

My take: There is only too much information if some of the information isn't contributing to making better business decisions. I am sure Wal-Mart's 1 billion records per hour helps it to understand the buying trends of the market. The danger comes when the data is captured on the off chance it might be used, or because the CIO feels that it is what the users are likely to want without consulting them.

Strictly speaking the issue is too much data. Information is what you infer from the data. Though admittedly beyond a certain point the benefits of information discovery yield a diminishing return in business advantage.

IT and the Future of Oil

There are many influential people across the globe who believe that the availability of oil against demand has peaked and that we are now hurtling uncontrollably towards what might be called the post hydrocarbon man' period where the oil based goods and services we have taken for granted become only affordable to a limited few. Given the role the IT industry has in the consumption of oil through component development and operational delivery, it is appalling to see how off the pace we are in the data centre.

Only market forces will stimulate a change in this situation. Users will eventually boycott organisations with poor green credentials as will corporate buyers. But it is taking time to come into effect.

I would like to see a smarter relationship between business and society. Rather than pump all that surplus heat out into the atmosphere, why not set one's data centres up next to, for example, sports centres? The excess heat could be used to heat the swimming pool. Or funnel the excess heat into some type of biosphere construction thus enabling the production of tropical fruit in non-tropical countries. Just a thought.

(For more on this you may want to read Lean & Green — Reducing Energy Drain for IT Business Gain)

Making Money from Social Networks?

In her post On the Monetization of Social Networks, Gladys Priso writes:

"An article on the economics of social networks published by the Economist Online, concludes that “social networking may end up being everywhere, and yet nowhere,” because it is not clear how companies will be able to monetize that pattern of behavior."

Experience suggests that migrating a free-service to a paid service rarely pays off. The content would need to be unique in terms of either content, accessibility or connectivity to like-minded people. LinkedIn appears to provide services that allow payers to see everything about every LinkedIn member. I happen to know many people who find that service of great value.

So perhaps the users continue to get access to social networks for free, but the advertisers, marketers and recruitment consultants provide the revenue stream for the site owners. However I do feel that with good brand management the social networking sites can cultivate the exclusivity effect needed to attract impressionable cash-rich surfers.