Tag Archives: people
Margin Notes
…Another tool I have found is to review margin notes of managers, directors, and above. When available, if you are able to take a look at meeting agenda’s, presentation handouts, status reports, and the like you may notice something quite interesting. The handwriting which people place on these documents are far more than simple markings. The handwriting which in the margins is the individual’s personal take on specific items. In a similar way that handwriting analysts are able to understand a writer from their handwriting (based a direct connection from brain to pen to paper), margin notes are created in the same way… Continue reading
Leading at the Edge
…At the edge, the action is about change. The action is about identifying a vision and working towards transformation of an organization. In the post noted above, Edge IT is defined as functions and services that rhyme with IT Strategy, workforce planning, financial and operational modelling, scalability and capacity planning. This is an area where leadership makes all the difference… Continue reading
Managing at the Core
…This is also the area where truly great IT organizations separate themselves from their peers. Organizations which are able to articulate the problems to solve, the benefits and costs in doing so, and have develop a well though through approach in addressing the problem have a huge leg up. By doing so, the organization can avoid false starts and mis-direction, early involvement of stakeholders instead of late, and the projects have a better chance of running to conclusion. In general, this will provide a more efficient use of capital. Continue reading
IT Cost Management via Your Ecosystem
“Cut your costs by 15%, I’ll need your report on how you will do this by Friday.”
Ominous words, but words which are all too common these days. People are stretched pretty thin as it is and if your company is like most people, the work being done isn’t going away. How will you do this? Continue reading
IT Farming
…One interesting aspect to explore here is not the comments or absence of them, but how the situations being commented on came to be. While many times these comments can refer to specific events, more often than not, when you dig beneath the surface, you will find that what is being reacted to is a systemic condition, the seeds (either crop or weeds) of which had been planted long ago. Continue reading
Hey CIO, How Are Your HR/OD Skills?
Organizations morph. Sometimes the change is slow over time, sometimes rapid as part of a merger. What was effective structurally at one point inevitable deconstructs as the organization it supports changes. As people move in and out of the organization personalities change the roles and by association how the work gets done. Informal structures emerge and at some point the formal organization becomes a hinderance as opposed to a means to facilitate and support successful results. Continue reading
Hey CIO, How Are Your Marketing Skills?
Marketing skills cannot be left to those in the marketing department. There is a heavy dose of marketing in IT. The job of the CIO depends on getting the marketing part right. Continue reading
Physics of IT – The Forces You Bring With You
Achieving meaningful change is hard – and the greater the mass, or greater the force of headwinds, the more difficult it is to succeed. It begs the question of “what forces can we marshall to achieve the change we need?” Continue reading
Physics of IT – How Massive is my IT Organization?
As we have moved from an industrial to informational mindset, the pendulum has swung somewhat. While capabilities are still paramount, the bulk associated with what is required to provide these capabilities (assets and headcount) is no longer seen as necessarily being required. Over the last several years being nimble has been a mandate (spoken or unspoken). Use of external labor and business process outsourcing is seen as a way of providing capability while shedding mass (becoming more nimble). Cloud computing, similarly, is seen as a way to provide assets to an organization without directly adding mass to the organization. Continue reading
Physics of IT – Mass (of People)
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. Continue reading
