From the category archives:

Communication

Yes we can, yes we must: the ongoing case for IT/Business alignment

March 18, 2010

How do we (IT executives) get away from being typecast as technologists, unconsulted on core business issues and approaches? Face it, that’s a common situation and dilemma that we all encounter, early and often, and it’s the grist for a constant mill of articles and blog posts and books on business/IT alignment.
Lately, though, a part [...]

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IT transparency is good. But how transparent should you be?

November 24, 2009

A few years back, I had an extremely surprising and unpleasant experience as CTO. The director of my Program Management Office ran a weekly status meeting for project stakeholders, where we’d all methodically go through the current project portfolio, in order to communicate on issues, gather necessary feedback, and align everyone’s expectations. I typically attended [...]

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Complexity isn’t simple: multiple causes of IT failure

November 16, 2009

Roger Sessions recently published a white paper on IT complexity and its role in IT project failure: “The IT Complexity Crisis: Danger and Opportunity”.  It’s certainly possible to quarrel with bits and pieces of his analysis, and thereby tweak his numbers, but the overall thrust remains undeniable: IT failures are costing the world incredible amounts [...]

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“Getting” Twitter, from the technology executive’s perspective

April 7, 2009

I don’t want this to be just another post about Twitter, the current hot trend of the Internet.  Rather, I’d like to relate this new Twitter fad to a long-planned important topic here.
Specifically, what can we in technology do to keep current and stay up-to-speed on our various areas of interest and expertise? There’s more [...]

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Speed vs. bureaucracy: management issues confronted by companies in transition

August 21, 2008

I was at a relatively young company once where a senior executive suddenly sent out a message to the entire employee base, asking for general input on the  cause and treatment of the following concerns:

“There is a feeling that the company is not able to move fast enough or nimbly enough — we’re not delivering [...]

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IT, States of Denial, and more Peterisms

July 15, 2008

Yes, I admit it’s an old and hackneyed play on words, but I’ll repeat it anyway: in the course of my career, I’ve worked in IT positions in the fine States of New York, California, and Washington, but I’d have to say that the most frequent state I’ve encountered in IT matters has been the [...]

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Serving your IT customers: be careful of being The Wizard of Oz

July 10, 2008

Cultural references are among the most powerful language tools around.  The old cliche may be true that a picture is worth a thousand words, but equally, a well-targeted cultural reference, used as an analogy, can stream light onto a subject better than dozens of droning paragraphs of prose.So here’s one that comes to mind over [...]

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Starve your voice mail, feed your e-mail

June 17, 2008

I’ve touched on this topic briefly before, but here’s a lengthier discussion on why, in general, I find e-mail to be vastly preferable to voice mail for communication in the business world.
Here’s my stance: voice mail works reasonably well on a small scale in the home (i.e., personal voice mail implemented usually with answering machines), [...]

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