IT leaders need a seat at the table. But getting the organizational credibility to be accepted as a strategic colleague is an art. Of course you need to build relationships with the C-team. And you need to pull your weight strategically. Here’s a non-scientific, self-test you can take to assess whether you’re on the right track: Question Scoring your answer 1. What percentage of your budget is devoted to projects with no visible upside? [...]
Gartner’s forecast of a 75 percent BUILD-NOT-BUY rate for digital business applications raises the question of how IT executives keep their hard-won seats at the table. The success rate of software development projects hovers around 65 percent. That’s an F. No matter who is doing the building—in house or appdev vendor, the buck stops with the IT leadership. Even if they can get all the money back for a dev project that’s gone south, they [...]
I finally got around to unpacking that last box of stuff from our move last summer. I pulled out a pile of articles and reports I had written over the years—mostly when I was a senior executive at Accenture’s Institute for Strategic Change. What was on the top of the pile? “Capping the Gusher,” a management report on information strategy-how organizations leverage information to create value in a dynamic business environment.[*] Copyright date: 2001. Of [...]
Put your skeptic’s hat on… this is going to be out there. NPR aired a segment yesterday about an economist’s view of suspense and surprise. Suspense means wondering what’s going to happen, and surprise means getting an abrupt change of perspective. Economists[1] argue that suspense and surprise make an activity engaging, and that there are ways to optimize both to heighten the effect. Too little and the activity is boring; too much and it’s overwhelming. [...]
My first large fiber art wall hanging—four feet square—has been lying on the floor of my studio (aka guest bedroom) for two weeks now. Normally I lay out my pieces as I work on them to allow them to soak in. I walk away then come back to them again and again with fresh eyes and new ideas. Sometimes I take photos along the way so I can glance at them in odd moments for [...]
Maybe we should define Business Intelligence (BI). According to CIO magazine,“Business intelligence, or BI, is an umbrella term that refers to a variety of software applications used to analyze an organization’s raw data. BI as a discipline is made up of several related activities, including data mining, online analytical processing, querying and reporting. Companies use BI to improve decision making, cut costs and identify new business opportunities. BI is more than just corporate reporting [...]
Call me weird, but I love some of my things. I can’t quite explain what makes a suitcase or a computer system lovable, but I swear there’s a difference between the things that just tickle me and those that don’t. Of course, there’s the IKEA effect. It’s real. If I’ve put some energy into assembling or enhancing something, I love it more. This matters even if I didn’t have to do all the work myself. [...]
One of my wonderful step daughters and her husband taught me something about leadership recently. Keven has a responsible position in an environmental engineering firm and has been receiving leadership training lately as part of his company’s career development program. Keven’s summary comment? It all seems like common sense. Nonetheless leadership was on Keven’s mind when we got together, along with 25 other members of the family, for a long-weekend housewarming at our place. Yes, [...]
Dr. Jane Linder, Managing Director, has been named to The Channel Company’s prestigious 2015 CRN® Women of the Channel, and has been recognized as one of this year’s Power 50. The annual list honors outstanding female executives across solution provider organizations prominently involved in the IT channel ecosystem for their achievements and the far-reaching impact they are having on the technology industry going forward. We wanted to get a little more information about what the [...]
Who doesn’t want fact-based management in the public sector? Wouldn’t it be great to have ready, reliable answers to those legislative questions that seem to arrive just when things are busiest? Wouldn’t it be much more efficient to settle stakeholder disagreements with evidence rather than opinion? Yes! There’s no question that fact-based management has the power to give organizations an order of magnitude improvement in effectiveness. Service will improve, organizational relationships will strengthen, and well-placed [...]