IT Value Stack

Google Health

As John D. Halamka, MD points out, Google Health has hit the market. It has a noble aim of providing a single view of its users' health information.

This raises a few of interesting points. Google has the reach to do this and as such could short circuit multi billion dollar initiatives such as the UK's Connecting for Health. Better still it is a global offering. It feels a  bit like Wifi obviating 3G. Whilst Google is perhaps relatively primitive, its pay per click model will probably enable it to self-fund its evolution.

The scary point is that Google is a commercial outfit and thus has no board of governors focused on the well being of the patients.

However, once they work out the correlation between web viewing and general health they may well be in a genuinely valuable position of detecting illness.

The Tech Pay Cut

Ben Worthen writes on WSJ.com that IT staff are seeing a downturn in salary for the first time since the dotcom crash. His comments are based on a survey carried out by Information Week on 10,000 IT professionals. 

Ben reflects on whether this is an indicator of the diminishing role technologists have in how users lever IT for business advantage, or simply poor benchmarking as a result of the HR function's generally poor grip on IT roles.

I believe both to be true. I work closely with the IT recruitment industry and am seeing a trend away from pure play technologists towards more rounded hybrid business technologists with a broader portfolio of skills and knowledge that embrace business.

These guys are much sought after and buyers are still prepared to pay top dollar for say a socially skilled solution architect with strong knowledge of retail. They represent the tip of the value ladder in respect of IT roles. Those technologist that choose to ignore the impact globalisation is having on the IT landscape will continue to see their pay cheques erode.

The issue of role categorisation is not one that the HR function has created. It is an industry wide problem. My project manager is your team leader? My system administrator is your operator? There are no universal standards for role definitions. HR functions however should be putting pressure on the IT industry to get its act together on this front.

I am supporting the UK government and major employers in this respect in an advisory capacity, and there is much work to be done. Until we have global agreement on role definitions then such salary surveys have to be treated with some caution.

The Rock Star in the Computer Room

I'd like to thank Phil and David at The Slacker Manager for asking me to write a guest post for their blog:

How many IT people do you see holding court at parties? How many of us hope to be seated next to a technical architect on our next flight?

Introduce yourself as an IT person at a party (I know, I’ve done this) and they all start telling stories about how IT has let them down. When you try to defend the IT industry by explaining that there are, for example, limitations to IP addressing, or that distributed databases lack mathematical rigor, they just laugh, if they’re even listening at all.

>>>Read the rest of The Rock Star in the Computer Room, my guest post at The Slacker Manager.

Tech Addiction

The Internet permeates every aspect of our lives. For many the Internet offers an alternative form of escapism. But when does that pastime seque into addiction? Recently the Business Technology Blog talked to Dr. Jerald Block about pathological computer use. Dr Block has developed an Internet-addiction quiz. You might want to try it! Click here to give it a try.-

I have been advised to ease back a bit on Internet usage, but appear to have my usage under control! How about you?

The Real Silver Bullet

John Schmidt has written an interesting piece on his perspective on what will solve the IT-industry issue of poor delivery. He provides compelling evidence for this condition just in case there is any doubt. I am in full agreement with his conclusion that the industry lacks leadership; not so much on the sell side as in the IT function of end user organisations.

John proposes a silver bullet that comprises: configuration management, systems integration, program management and information architecture. Get these right and suddenly IT projects are delivered on time and IT systems deliver real business value. He points out that software engineering is not a key element because the IT industry already does that very well. In my experience software engineering peaked as a concept in the eighties and has slid downhill ever since.  So it is my view that software engineering needs tighter leadership.

John disagrees with the notion that executives become more tech savvy as a step towards better business-IT communications. He thinks this is akin to asking executives to prepare themselves to build their own systems if they really want them built correctly. This is an extreme take on executive technology education. My view is that executives do need to be tech savvy but only to the extent that enables them to govern IT in respect of maximising the return on this often expensive asset. So absolving executives from having to embrace IT is to send them down the path of poor corporate governance.

In any case silver bullets focused purely on technology action will do no more than solve technology management issues. But if one is interested in yielding greater value from one's IT investment then the silver bullet needs to embrace business strategy and processes, people and service. Until we address the 'IT problem' in its wider business context we are in danger of simply making IT more efficiently ineffective.

That said John makes a variety of interesting points and invariably when so many points are made in such a relatively short piece it is easy for the likes of me to find issue!

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.