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Computers are incredily fast, accurate, and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination. – Albert Einstein
In a prior post I introduced the concept of Newtonian physics as it applies to IT organizations. This post continues the examination of one aspect of this, namely mass.
What is the mass of your IT organization?
Conceptually, we can think of mass as the collection of quantitative and qualitative attributes that can describe not only the size of an organization, but also the ability to deliver results to their customers. Mass connotes weight and with it inertia. Those people who have plied their trade in organizational change are all too familiar with the joys and pains of the inertia which allows organizations in motion to stay in motion, and organizations at rest to stay at rest.
Assets.
When asked “How large is your organization?” the common answer is typically framed in terms of headcount. Another way of looking at this is through the lens of assets. Looking at the balance sheet of an organization, assets are listed providing a representation of the organization. IT organizations have assets which they can bring to bear in the provision of services to their business unit customers. In some cases these assets are physical assets, in others they are services which they provide.
- Computers. Once upon a time the inventory of computers consisted to a mainframe computer and a set of 3270 terminals. Now this list is very diverse. There may be mainframe and mid range computers. There will certainly be servers, desktop, and laptop computers, and increasingly likely to find netbooks within the organization. Depending on the organization, there may be specialty computers such as tablets and function specific devices. There may be blackberries, iPhones, and other smart phone. The number of devices within an organization which are supported by IT is growing in a non-linear manner and skills to support the variety and number of these devices are required to grow along a similar path.
- Telephony and Communications. While data and voice communications have converged under the IT organization some time ago, VOIP technology has raised the level of integration between voice, data, applications, and general solution provisioning. Instant messaging is the standard form of communication with certain workforce demographics. Video Conferencing is becoming ever more popular as easy to use (and free) applications are finding there way onto employee desktops. In supporting the wide variety of means and modes of communication, some of it is managed directly by the IT organization (PBX, routers, switches, leased lines, etc) and part of this is managed in the cloud by service providers (Skype, Google, AOL, etc).
- Application portfolio. Depending on the extent an organization has embraced enterprise organizations, they will have between dozens and hundreds of applications which will be supported by the IT organization. If you add in all the widgets, gadgets, applets, and phone applications the count may move into the thousands. Supporting applications is not easy. At one time, many organizations dedicated >80% of the budget to staff required to remove defects and add enhancements to internally developed software. While the numbers may have changed, or at least accounted for differently, it is safe to say that the application portfolio is a clear measure of mass for the IT organization.
- Service catalog. In some cases, this can be thought of as a more sophisticated version of an application portfolio, in other cases it is a supplement to the application portfolio. For organizations which are higher on the maturity scale, service catalogs are more common. At the end of the day, being able to inform your customers of the services you provide is an essential part of bringing value to market. Within large companies, companies with federated IT organizations, and especially companies which are heavily siloed in the business units, the service catalog is a clear means of sharing the knowledge of what is available from the IT organization, and how it can be of benefit to the various business units. The number and types of services which are provided by these organizations are also a means of representing the mass of an IT organization.
These assets colletively provide a mass to the IT organization. This mass requires care and feeding, and in return they enable the IT customers to execute the business of business.
Again, I like this perspective, but feel a need to take it further – to something with diagnostic and, ultimately, prescriptive value. For example, isn’t it better to have capability without mass? Mass slows you down – consumes energy just for “being”. One can think of cloud computing of being relatively “mass-less” – providing an opportunity to shift mass from my data center to someone else’s. In a similar vein, one could think of outsourcing a data center to be the equivalent of getting rid of mass (sometimes, literally moving stuff off the balance sheet).
I’m watching your Physics of IT with great interest and anticipation!
I fully agree that it would be good to carry this line of thinking further. While this blog is intended to tee up concepts, there are tools which can be provided at each step of the way which will take things to the next level.
Like your comment on a scorecard for people (which would be immensely eye opening for executives), a similar scorecard for assets required to deliver IT services would be equally valuable. Analysis of assets for the purpose of charge-backs will cover some of this, albeit for a different (and somewhat contentious purpose). By taking a composite view, it is possible to tell a more accurate story about the IT organization, it’s mass, the capabilities it provides, etc. This can tie directly to value add discussions with executives and show a direct line of sight from current mass to future mass and what the value would be in moving from one state to another, or retrospectively, what the change of mass within the organization has meant to the IT organization and value it brings to the company.