Showing posts with label Operations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Operations. Show all posts

August 24, 2013

Ballmer Led Microsoft Into The Ground

Steve Ballmer, one of the forefathers of Microsoft (with a career spanning 3 decades there) and its CEO since 2000, is finally retiring.

Well what can we say except, Thank G-d!

The Wall Street Journal reports how the markets cheered yesterday with Microsoft stock rising 7% at his exit and that's with no successor identified.

In other words, better nobody, than Steve Ballmer somebody!

Ballmer managed to take the genius of Gates and a company stock valuation of $603 billion in 2000 and turn it into less than half--$290 billion--by the time he announced he was going.

Not bad destroying over $313 billion of value in a little more than a decade.

Gates was the visionary--the inventor (with the help of Apple) of Windows and Microsoft Office.

He was brilliant and he left us with products that still today dominate desktop computing, which was predominantly what existed up until he handed the reins to Ballmer.

But since 2000--we have smartphones and tablets--bringing Microsofts's share of market to just 15% today.

Ballmer was an operations guy (not what you need in a fast-changing technology market), while Gates was a innovator (who could spearhead the change itself).

Ballmer was the wrong man for the right job.

A technology guru could've taken the lofty perch Microsoft sat on in 2000 and used it as a springboard to the technology stars and beyond, but an operations nerd could only run it into the ground.

Yes, Microsoft is still highly profitable at almost $22 billion last year on sales of $78 billion--nothing to sneeze at--but the problem is they are fighting last decades technology war.

That's why Apple, Google, and Amazon eclipse Microsoft in prestige and excitement, if not all by market share (yet).

In almost 14 years, Ballmer couldn't manage one major fully new product innovation--except Xbox in 2001 (let's cough that one up to Gates), Bing in 2009 (a Google look-alike), and Kinect in 2010 (Ok, maybe one cool thing).

Ballmer couldn't even put in a place a viable succession plan and is leaving the company in a chaotic leadership void for the top spot.

Gates was smart to sell the vast majority of his stake in Microsoft--not because they are not a great company with lots of talented people, but because without a true leader at the helm, they are lost in the vast technology sea of change without direction or innovation of their own.

Ballmer, it was 14 years too long, maybe now there is still hope for Microsoft to rise and be great again. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)


Share/Save/Bookmark

September 6, 2010

ITIL Version 3 - Serving Customers Like A Fine Restaurant

This is not a framework or vendor endorsement, but I liked this simple video explaining ITIL version 3.

It explains the five key IT service cycles by comparing them to business services in a restaurant, as follows:

1) Strategy to headquarters creating restaurant theming
2) Design to chefs developing the restaurant menu (to meet customer needs)
3) Transitions to cooks running the restaurant kitchen (reliably)
4) Operations to waiters/waitresses delivering services (and owning customer satisfaction)
5) Service Improvement to the maitre d' ensuring quality standards

The video is a little quirky in the way it cycles back and forth between ITIL and the restaurant, but overall I think the analogy works!


Share/Save/Bookmark

June 5, 2010

Reorganization Best Practices

Sometimes a leader has to consider and implement a reorganization (“reorg”) as this can benefit a organization.

Organizations are not a static environment, but rather are dynamic systems. To survive, organizations must adapt to changes in the external environment and from changing forces within, by reorganizing in ways that improve the organization’s ability to perform.

Harvard Business Review, June 2010, has a couple of important articles on this topic (the articles are actually in reverse order in the issue):

1) “Change For Change’s Sake” by Vermeulen, Puranam, and Gulati

2) “The Decision-Driven Organization” by Blenko, Mankins, and Rogers

In the first article, the authors assert that “even successful corporations have to shake things up to stay ahead of the competition.”

  • Sometimes, this can be driven by changes in the competitive landscape necessitating that we adapt to meet these head on.
  • At other times, it is because of internal organization dysfunctions such as where: routines are stifling innovation, silos are hampering collaboration, and resources have become entrenched with the powerful few—these will hamper performance and potentially destroy the organization if not disrupted.

In the second article, the authors recommend that reorganizations should focus on better decision-making, i.e. on structures that “improves the organization’s ability to make and execute key decisions better and faster than competitors.”

  • Reorgs are seen as necessary for creating the right structure to perform: “Like Generals, they [CEO’s] see their job as putting the right collection of troops in the right place…Nearly half of all CEOs launch a reorg during their first two years on the job.”
  • Results of reorgs are generally poor: According to a Bain and Company study of 57 reorganizations, “fewer than one-third produced any meaningful improvement in performance. Most had no affect, and some actually destroyed value.”
  • Start with a “decision audit”: “Instead of beginning a reorg with an analysis of Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats [SWOT], structural changes need to start with what we call a decision audit. The goals of the audit are to understand the set of decisions that are critical to the success of your company’s strategy and to determine the organizational level at which those decision should be made and executed to create the most value.”
  • Align organizational elements to optimize decision-making: Organize assets, capabilities, and structures to “make the essential decisions and get those decisions right more often than not.” Similarly, align “incentives, information flows, and processes with those related to decision-making.”
  • Avoid conducting reorgs that degenerate into turf battles and horse-trading: “Powerful managers grad decision rights they shouldn’t really own while weak ones surrender rights they really should own. [Further,] people end up with responsibilities hat are defined too broadly or too narrowly, given the decision they need to make…without a focus on decisions, these power struggles too often lead too creeping complexity in an organization’s infrastructure.”

In my opinion, reorganizations are likely to be most successful when they have specific goals such as adapting to changes, creating new opportunities, closing gaps, and fixing misalignments. Simply “shaking things up” is not enough reason.

Secondly, aligning the organization around execution is as important as better planning/decision-making. Therefore, we should restructure around two areas—strategy (i.e. planning and decision-making) and operations. For example, in Information Technology, we could restructure and align the organization to improve:

1) Strategy formulation: This involves reorganizing to improve architecture and planning, investment decision-making, project management oversight, customer relationship management, and performance measurement. (Reference: The CIO Support Services Framework)

2) Operational execution: This involves reorganizing to improve IT execution of network and operations, systems lifecycle, information management, and information assurance.

Thirdly, success depends on implementing the reorg with people, funding, and other tangible changes that will help the reorg to meet its goals. This advances it from “redrawing the map” to giving it “the legs” to work on the ground, and is the most exciting stage in seeing the vision be fulfilled.

By reorganizing with specific goals, focusing on better decision-making and execution, and on fully implementing the reorganization with enabling structural and process changes, executives can broadly and deeply impact the performance of the organization for the better.


Share/Save/Bookmark

November 10, 2009

Supercapitalism and Enterprise Architecture

As a nation are we overworked? Are we just showing up, doing what we're told, and making the same mistakes again and again?

Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary and Professor at University of California at Berkeley, says that we are more than ever a nation of workaholics.

Reich’s book, Supercapitalism, talks about how we have to work harder to make ends meet for the following reasons:

  • Globalization—“our real incomes are under assault from technology and low-wage workers in other countries.”
  • Greater competition—“all barriers to entry have fallen, competition is more intense than ever, and if we don’t work hard, we may be in danger of losing clients, customers, or investors.”
  • Rapid pace of change—“today most people have no ability to predict what they’re going to be doing from year to year, and job descriptions are not worth the paper they’re written on because jobs are changing so fast.”

Reich says to temper our workaholic lifestyles, we need to “understand that the quality of work is much more important than the quantity.” Honestly, that doesn’t seem to answer the question, since quality (not just quantity) takes hard work and a lot of time too.

In terms of supercharged programs, I have seen enterprise architecture programs working "fast and furious," others that were steady, and still some that were just slow and sometimes to the point of "all stop" in terms of any productivity or forward momentum.

Unlike IT operations that have to keep the lights on, the servers humming, and phones working, EA tends to be considered all too often as pure “overhead” that can be cut at the slightest whim of budget hawks. This can be a huge strategic mistake for CIOs and organizational leaders who thus behave in a penny-wise and dollar foolish manner. Sure, operations keep the lights on, but EA ensures that IT investments are planned, strategically aligned, compliant, technically sound, and cost-effective.

A solid EA program takes us out of the day-to-day firefighting mode and operational morass, and puts the CIO and business leaders back in the strategic "driver's seat" for transforming and modernizating the organization.

In fact, enterprise architecture addresses the very concerns that Reich points to in our Supercapitalistic times: To address the big issues of globalization, competition, and the rapid pace of change, we need genuine planning and governance, not just knee jerk reactions and firefighting. Big, important, high impact problems generally don't get solved by themselves, but rather they need high-level attention, innovative thinking, and group problem solving, and general committment and resources to make headway. This means we can't just focus on the daily grind. We need to extricate ourselves and think beyond today. And that's exactly what real enterprise architecture is all about.

Recently, I heard some colleagues at a IT conference say that EA was all bluster and wasn't worth the work and investment. I strongly disagree. Perhaps, a poorly implemented architecture program may not be worth the paper it's plans are printed on. And unfortunately, there are too many of these faux enterprise architecture programs around and these give the rest a bad rap. However, a genuine user-centric enterprise architecture and IT governance program is invaluable in keeping the IT organization from running on a diet of daily chaos: not a good thing for the mission and business that IT supports.

Organizations can and will work smarter, rather than just harder, with strong enterprise architecture, sound IT governance, and sound business and IT processes. It the nature of planning ahead rather than just hoping for the best.


Share/Save/Bookmark

October 26, 2008

IT Planning, Governance and The Total CIO

CIOs are consumed by day-to-day tactical/operational IT issues and firefighting IT problems, and as a result, there is a lack of focus on IT planning and governance—two of the biggest problems facing CIOs today.

ISACA, an organization serving IT governance professionals, conducted a survey consisting of 695 interviews with CEO/CIO-level executives in 22 countries, and published the results in IT Governance Global Status Report 2006.

Here are some of the amazing findings from this study.

Firefighting predominates: “Organizations are suffering from IT operational problems…only 7% of the respondents experienced no IT problems at all in the previous year…Operational failures and incidents…are mentioned by approximately 40 percent of respondents.”

IT’s alignment with Business is weak: Only 56% of the organizations surveyed “understands and supports the business users’ needs.”

Strategic Planning is underrated by CIOs: “More than 93 percent of business leaders recognize that IT is import for delivering organization strategy…Somewhat paradoxically, general management perceives the importance…slightly higher than does IT management.” In fact, in the public sector, IT was viewed as a commodity versus strategically by 47% of respondents!

IT governance is lagging: “CIOs recognize the need for better governance over IT,” to align IT strategy and manage risks. Yet, “when asked if they intend to do or plan IT governance measures, only 40 percent replied in the affirmative.”

Liza Lowery Massey, who previously served as CIO of Los Angeles, says in Government Technology, 9 July 2007:

“Establishing IT governance up front is the No. 1 thing I would do over in my career. IT governance is crucial to a CIO’s sanity.

Further, Liza wrote in Government Technology, 14 April 2008:

“Now when I help my clients implement IT governance, I see the benefits firsthand. They include shrinking your IT department’s to-do list, achieving IT/business alignment, putting teeth into policies and standards, and focusing departments on business needs rather than technology. My work life would certainly have been smoother had I set up governance to address these issues instead of trying to handle them all myself.”

CIO Magazine, 1 November 2006, has an article by Gary Beach, entitled “Most CIOs Fail to Convince Top Management That IT Can Transform Business.”

In this article, Gary notes that the rate of investment in IT is half the rate of corporate profit growth, and he asks why?

Certainly, the failure to align with business, and effectively plan and govern IT is hindering CIO’s ability to succeed.

The unfortunate result, as Andy McCue reported in Silicon.com on 26 April 2007, is that “CIOs and the IT department are in danger of being relegated to the role of support function because of a lack of vision and technology innovation.”

The answer is clearly for CIOs to “stabilize the patient” and get out of firefighting mode, and allocate sufficient time, attention, and resources to IT planning and governance. Only in this way will CIOs effectively align IT with business requirements, solve genuine business problems, innovate and transform the enterprise, and fulfill the strategic role that the business is looking for from them.


Share/Save/Bookmark

October 19, 2008

Balancing Strategy and Operations and The Total CIO

How should a CIO allocate their time between strategy and operations?

Some CIOs are all operations; they are concerned solely with the utility computing aspects of IT like keeping the desktops humming and the phones ringing. Availability and reliability are two of their key performance measurement areas. These CIOs are focused on managing the day-to-day IT operations, and given some extra budget dollars, will sooner spend them on new operational capabilities to deploy in the field today.

Other CIOs are all strategy; they are focused on setting the vision for the organization, aligned closely to the business, and communicating the way ahead. Efficiency and effectiveness are two of their key performance measurement areas. These CIOs are often set apart from the rest of the IT division (i.e. the Office of the CIO focuses on the Strategy and the IT division does the ops) and given some extra budget dollars, will likely spend them on modernization and transformation, providing capabilities for the end-user of tomorrow.

Finally, the third category of CIOs, balances both strategy and operations. They view the operations as the fundamentals that need to be provided for the business here and now. But at the same time, they recognize that the IT must evolve over time and enable future capabilities for the end-user. These CIOs, given some extra budget dollars, have to have a split personality and allocate funding between the needs of today and tomorrow.

Government Technology, Public CIO Magazine has an article by Liza Lowery Massey on “Balancing Strategy with Tactics Isn’t Easy for CIOs.”

Ms. Massey advocates for the third category, where the CIO balances strategy and operations. She compares it to “have one foot in today and one in tomorrow…making today’s decisions while considering tomorrow’s impacts.”

How much time a CIO spends on strategy versus operations, Ms. Massey says is based on the maturity of the IT operations. If ops are unreliable or not available, then the CIO goes into survival mode—focused on getting these up and running and stable. However, when IT operations are more mature and stable, then the CIO has more ability to focus on the to-be architecture of the organization.

For the Total CIO, it is indeed a delicate balance between strategy and operations. Focus on strategy to the detriment of IT operations, to the extent that mission is jeopardized, and you are toast. Spend too much time, energy, and resources on IT operations, to the extent that you jeopardize the strategy and solutions needed to address emerging business and end-user requirements, and you will lose credibility and quickly be divorced by the business.

The answer is the Total CIO must walk a fine line. Mission cannot fail today, but survivability and success of the enterprise cannot be jeopardized either. The Total CIO must walk and chew gum at the same time!

Additionally, while this concept is not completely unique to CIOs, and can be applied to all CXOs, CIOs have an added pressure on the strategy side due to the rapid pace of emerging technology and its effects on everything business.


Share/Save/Bookmark

October 14, 2008

The Enlightened Enterprise and the Total CIO

The Total CIO is responsible for the strategy, operations, and governance of everything IT.

The strategy ensures that we are doing the right things and doing them the right way. It’s the CIO’s vision, goals, and objectives for developing IT solutions that meet business requirements.

The operations is providing for core IT functions like voice and data communications, information, applications, infrastructure, security, and so forth,

The governance is how we make decisions about IT. Through good governance we enhance visibility of IT requirements and projects, enable better communication and vetting, share risks, and prioritize, authorize, and control IT investments.

Architecture and Governance Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 2, has a good article titled “Bringing IT Governance from Theory to Action.” (by Davin Gellego and Jon Borg-Breen)

The problem is complexity:

“Even as technology has simplified and become almost invisible to most audiences, the complexity of maintaining technology is reaching a breaking point for information technology organizations…little time is invested between the lines of business and IT to communicate corporate goals and how technology can support these goals. The mandate is simply ‘do more with less.’”

The solution is governance:

Lines of business and IT can no longer work in their respective vacuums. This new interconnectedness means that what affects one now affects all. If problems are no longer confined to one functional area, solutions can’t be either. IT governance defines accountability and decision making and simplifies the challenges of consolidation, outsourcing, and increased visibility—ensuring IT expenditures deliver real business value.

The traditional organizational paradigm was silos. Everyone works for their particular unit, division, line of business and so on. Each is functionally and organizationally independent. Each develops their own strategy, products and services, customer base, and so on. Each has their own profit and loss statement. Working with other divisions, conducting joint product development, sharing information or ideas, cross-selling, and other collaborative efforts are discouraged, shunned, minimized, and looked at with suspicion. It’s every line of business or man for themselves. A unit that is not “producing” gets disciplined, downsized, reorganized, spun off, or otherwise eliminated. A division head that isn’t meeting their targets is toast! (Interestingly enough, people traditionally work in a “division”—that very word connotes separation, distinctiveness, and divisiveness.)

The enlightened paradigm is cross-functional. Everyone works for the enterprise. Each unit of the enterprise is part of a functional whole. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Collaboration, integrated product teams, working groups, information sharing, cross selling, corporate brand, interoperability, standards, component re-use, and other unifying activities are encouraged, taught, mandated, recognized, and rewarded. Performance measures take into account not only how your division is doing, but how it is contributing to overall mission of the organization. The goals of each individual and unit are aligned to the enterprise.

In the enlightened enterprise, The CIO is not running “the IT division,” but rather is providing IT services and solutions to the enterprise. In this paradigm, the CIO requires a structured and mature governance process, so that all stakeholders have a voice at the table and can influence the decision process and ensure more successful project delivery. IT governance provides for a consistent, collaborative decision process. Governance bring business and IT subject matter experts together to communicate, make visible, align, share risks, vet, prioritize, and issue decisions.

“The most successful enterprises engage in both business and IT in investment decisions. IT governance strengthens and clarifies the connection between corporate goals and IT initiatives. And with both business and IT aware of the strategic benefits of a given initiative, the initiative has a far greater chance of company-wide adoption and success.”

In the enlightened enterprise, “no line of business or IT department is an island. What affects one, affects all.” And in this environment, it is The Total CIO who can reach out across the enterprise bringing a unifying IT strategy, a sound, reliable, secure, and cost-effective operations platform, and a governance process to communicate, make visible, share risks, and make better decisions through the participation of all the pertinent IT stakeholders.


Share/Save/Bookmark

October 13, 2008

Brand and The Total CIO

David F. D’Allesandro, the CEO of John Hancock insurance group has a bunch of wonderful books on building brand and career, such as “Brand Warfare”, “Career Warfare” and “Executive Warfare”.

All the books have three things in common. One, they are about the importance of brand. Two, they are about moving ahead in the corporate world. And three, they all end in “warfare.”

Brand is critical for building value. Brand is our reputation. It’s how we are known to others. It’s what people think and say about us. It’s a representation of our values and integrity.

We all know corporate brands such as those from consumer product companies and fashion designers. Those that have a “good” brand, tend to convey a higher status and cost a premium. We trust those brands and many people wear the brand labels as a status symbol.

We all carry a brand. Like a mark of “Grade A” or “Prime Beef” seared on a side of a hide of cattle, a brand is mark of distinction for us.

At work, we are branded as honest or not, fair or not, hard working or not, team players or not and so on and so forth.

As the CIO, it is imperative to have a brand that synthesizes the best of business and technology for the organization.

On one hand, many view the CIO as the technical leader for the organization; the wang-bang guru that leads the enterprise through the often confusing and fast-changing technology landscape. In this role, the CIO can make or break the future of the organization with wise or poor technical decisions that can put the enterprise on the cutting-edge, build competitive advantage, and increase revenue/profits, market share, and customer satisfaction. Or the CIO can lead the organization down a technical sinkhole with failed IT projects that jeopardize mission, alienate customers, drive out good employees out, and waste millions of dollars.

On the other hand, many like to say that the CIO is not and should not be tech-focused, but should be about the business—understanding the business strategy, operations, and requirements and then driving an IT organization that is responsive to it. Taken to an extreme, the CIO may not be required to have a technology background, an IT degree or even a technical certificate. This person may be from the business side of the house and could almost alien to the CIO organization and therefore, may not easily garner the respect of his more technical people.

The true successful CIO melds business and technology together. Their brand is one where business drives technology and where strategy is paramount, but operations is a given! This CIO is someone who can be relied on to make wise technical decisions today that will enhance the strategic success of the organization tomorrow. The CIO is a leader who manages not only upward, but who reaches across the organization to build partnership and understanding; who inspires, motivates, trains, recognizes, and rewards his people; and who conducts outreach and brings in best practices from beyond the strict organizational boundaries. This CIO is loyal, dedicated, hard-working, smart, and has the trust and confidence to get the job done!

So what with the “warfare” part in the books?

Well, unfortunately not everyone wants us to succeed. So, we must work on our brand to build it and make it shine, but at the same time, there are others inside and outside the organization who for various reasons would like to tarnish our brand: perhaps, they are jealous, competitive, nay-sayers, change resistant, oppositional, confrontational, troubled, or just plain crooked.

What D’Allesandro says is that to be successful, what sets us apart, is our ability to build relationship with others, even when it is challenging.

To be a successful CIO, we need a terrific personal brand, but more than that we need to have courage and conviction to stand by our beliefs and the vision and the ability to articulate it to guide and influence others to advance the organization’s long-term business and technical success.
Share/Save/Bookmark

May 1, 2008

“Glocalization” and Enterprise Architecture

Glocal is a combination of the words global and local. It is a best practice in business where organizations conducts business operations globally, but tailor their offerings to meet local tastes and needs.

Essentially doing business glocally means that you are architecting your business to perform operations both effectively and efficiently—i.e. your business is doing the right thing by growing without geopolitical constraints and you’re doing it the right way, by being sensitive to the customers’ specific needs wherever they are located.

The Wall Street Journal, 1 May 2008, reports that “Kraft became the No. 1 biscuit maker in China by tailoring the Oreo to local tastes.”

“The Oreo has long been the top-selling cookie in the U.S. Market. But Kraft Foods, Inc. had to reinvent the Oreo to make it sell well in the world’s most populous nation.”

“Unlike its iconic American counterpart, the Oreo sold in China is frequently long, thin, four-layered and coated in chocolate. But both kinds of cookies have one thing in common: They are now best sellers.”

40% of Kraft’s revenue is internationally-based, so their strategy to go glocal is critical to improving their market share and profitability.

To increase growth at Kraft, the CEO “has been putting more power in the hands of Kraft’s various business units around the globe, telling employees that decisions about Kraft products shouldn’t all be made by the people at the Northfield, Ill. headquarters.”

Similarly, to market the Chinese Oreo’s, one of innovative things Kraft did was to have Chinese university students ride around on bicycles outfitted with wheel covers resembling Oreos and handing out cookies.

The CEO stated this was “a stroke of genius that only could have come from local managers. The more opportunity our local managers have to deal with local conditions will be a source of competitive advantage for us.”

Glocalization, the customization to local markets, is far removed from the original Ford Model T (the most influential car of the twentieth century according to Wikipedia) set in 1908 that was based on standardization and assembly-line production, rather than individually hand-crafted.

From an enterprise architecture perspective, going glocal and customizing (or tailoring) business products and services to local tastes is also quite the opposite of what most enterprise architects try to do, which is to standardize their products and services to increase interoperability, simplify the infrastructure and operations, and achieve cost-efficiencies.

So what is more important, standardization or customization?

I suppose it depends on your perspective. If you’re in operations, then standardization is the dominant factor in order to streamline business processes and achieve cost-efficiencies. However, if you’re in sales and marketing, then customization is key to market penetration and customer satisfaction.

This leads me to the role of the enterprise architect, which is to balance the conflicting needs of the organization and simultaneously drive standardization in business processes and technologies, but customization to local requirements for sales and marketing. So EA serves Oreos to everyone!


Share/Save/Bookmark

October 26, 2007

CIO and Enterprise Architecture

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) is the executive in charge of information technology in an organization. All information systems design, development, operations & maintenance, datacenter and support operations fall under CIO jurisdiction. Increasingly, CIOs are involved in creating business and e-business opportunities through information technology. Collaborating with other executives, CIOs are often working at the core of business development within the organization. (adapted from PCMAG.COM)

From this definition, we see two important roles for the CIO.

  1. Operations—the CIO is responsible for the IT operations of the organization (systems, datacenter, and so on).
  2. Strategy—the CIO plays a critical role in strategy and architecture (business and e-business opportunities).

In short, we can summarize the role of the CIO as follows:

CIO = Strategy + Operations

While the CIO has traditionally managed IT operations, we can see the CIO’s role and responsibility expanding more and more into strategy and architecture. Here are some other examples of this:

• “Typically, a CIO is involved with analyzing and reworking existing business processes, with identifying and developing the capability to use new tools, with reshaping the enterprise's physical infrastructure and network access, and with identifying and exploiting the enterprise's knowledge resources. Many CIOs head the enterprise's efforts to integrate the Internet and the World Wide Web into both its long-term strategy and its immediate business plans.” (TechTarget.Com)

• “The Chief Information Officer of an executive agency shall be responsible for…developing, maintaining, and facilitating the implementation of a sound and integrated information technology architecture for the executive agency”. (Clinger-Cohen Act).

More and more, we see the CIO focusing on architecture and the overall policy and planning of IT, while the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) handles day-to-day IT operations.

Share/Save/Bookmark

October 25, 2007

User Concerns (Finally) Answered and Enterprise Architecture

There are a number of prominent issues or concerns that many users seem to voice or have about EA (and I have seen these as common across most organizations).

Here are the concerns:
  1. What’s in it for me (WIIFM)—everyone wants to know the answers to these questions: What do I get out of this? Why collaborate? Why cooperate? Why share information (“information is power” and information is currency”)? Why is EA on my turf?
  2. Perceived obstacle—EA provides for IT governance, but why do we need that? Doesn’t it stifle innovation? Isn’t it better to be ‘free’ to implement what you like, when you like? Why all this bureaucracy?
  3. The knowledge gambit—EA is not technical, what do you know about IT? EA is not operations, what does EA know about the business of the organization?
  4. Unhealthy competition—why is EA competing for management attention, influence, resources, and so on?
It is the job of the chief enterprise architect to address these concerns.
  1. EA is about trust and collaboration; we’re not working for ourselves and against each other, we’re working for the good of the organization. By sharing information, you will also get information from others that will enhance your understanding of the enterprise and enable you to do your job better. If everyone shares, then everyone (and the enterprise, as a whole) benefits!
  2. Governance, when designed right, is a help for users—and not a hindrance or obstacle to progress or innovation. The governance process is owned by the executive decision makers in the organization, usually the Investment Review Board, made up of senior decision-makers from across the organization (both business and IT). The IRB authorizes, prioritizes, and funds new IT investments. EA facilitates the investment review process by providing valuable input to the decision makers in terms of technical review and architecture assessments of new IT projects, products, and standards. EA helps make projects a success by providing business and technical input, and best practice guidance. By bringing subject matter experts together to review and vet ideas before they actually get implemented, we get a better end-product. Innovation is valued and encouraged by EA and moreover, information sharing through EA helps drive innovation and collaboration in the organization.
  3. EA synthesizes business and technology and therefore, is a bridge between the business and technical experts in the organization. While EA is not the ‘subject matter expert’ in either area, EA is an honest broker and functions as a competent facilitator translating business and information requirements to IT and conferring on technology solutions, plans and governance with the business.
  4. There is no competition between EA strategy and operations. The organization needs operations and strategy to not only coexist, but also to complement each other. Strategy and operations are co-dependent. One without the other would not only be suboptimal, but would actually not make sense. You need a strategy and you need to execute—period.

Share/Save/Bookmark

August 4, 2007

Is Strategy or Operations King?

Strategy (read EA) and operations are two sides of the same coin — both ultimately seek to provide service and support to the end-user — and both are critical to making IT “work” as a functional whole.

In the Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2007, a number of prominent CIOs weigh in on the future of these two facets of IT.

Frank Modruson, the CIO of Accenture, predicts that within ten years, “you will see CIOs focus even more on strategy, whereas operations will be industrialized and outsourced…”

Similarly, Steve Squeri, the CIO of American Express, foresees that “the days of tech leaders as relationship managers and ‘order takers’ will go by the wayside… technical architecture will become a core function of IT departments.”

Both CIOs provide compelling visions of strategy and architecture playing an ever more central role in the enterprise for meeting business needs.

Do you agree with their visions? How important is EA in your organizations?


Share/Save/Bookmark