From the monthly archives:

January 2008

Buy vs. build, and why Scott McNealy thinks the CIO doesn’t need a staff

January 30, 2008

I’m going to unabashedly steal someone else’s anecdote for this post. I’ll justify doing so on the grounds that the anecdote has stuck with me since I heard it; I’ll talk about why, and why I tend to repeat it to my staff at opportune moments. Starting with this post, I plan to [...]

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Cementing a formal work initiation process for IT projects

January 25, 2008

I’ve written before on how the most important thing that a CTO/CIO deals with is the proper allocation of resources. I’ve discussed how doing proper resource allocation isn’t just a matter of deciding exactly what Sam or Mary will work on this week, but actually figuring out the whole project portfolio, including sustainment activity, [...]

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Is there any CIO/CTO out there who is still inclined to answer a desk phone?

January 21, 2008

Just a quick one, this time, in what may become an ongoing motif of describing some of the pet peeves I’ve developed in this role.
For years now, I’ve been unable to answer my desk phone. Or rather, I’ve been unwilling to answer it, at least for calls that I can tell are coming from [...]

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Why the CIO should air the dirty laundry

January 15, 2008

Trust. It’s important. And a company typically instills a huge amount of trust in its IT department, particularly (as is often the case today) if that IT department is responsible for the operation of systems (such as web sites) that contribute significantly to the bottom line.
I’ve been at the helm of several IT departments [...]

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Software development’s classic mistakes and the role of the CTO/CIO

January 7, 2008

Here’s a post of a type I rarely do: a reaction to an item recently posted to the Internet. Specifically, a day or two ago, Steve McConnell’s firm Construx, Inc. released their update of McConnell’s list of classic software development mistakes. This survey and its results is worth everyone’s time to read (and [...]

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