From the category archives:

General

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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Must-read books on the human factors of IT — part 1, the 70s

January 6, 2010

What is it that sets apart a top-notch IT executive from others of his calling? To my mind, one mark of today’s true professional, especially at the senior executive level, is to be deeply familiar with the seminal books in his or her field. The dilemma for an IT professional, though, comes from the ongoing [...]

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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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On Twitter, if you follow back reflexively, the spammers win

September 13, 2009

Are you among those who believe that if you don’t follow someone back on Twitter, you’re being snobby and arrogant?  Then this post is meant for you. My purpose here, quite candidly, is to persuade you that reflexively following someone back is not only a habit which encourages spam, but is in fact a major [...]

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Get multiple arrows for that quiver: selective and competitive outsourcing

May 6, 2009

As I’ve written before (“Offshore development: target the destination, even if you never go there“), the reality of the CTO/CIO’s life is to be constantly challenged to produce more. Most technology executives, given that challenge, focus on squeezing out greater efficiency from existing processes, which is of course a necessary and constant push. What many [...]

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Canaries in the coal mine: Why your IT department may be in worse shape than you think

May 1, 2009

Think about it: you can’t really tell the difference, on a day-to-day basis, between a car that has had its oil changed every 3,000 miles and one that has had its oil changed every year or two.  Only eventually.
Similarly, the stability of most IT departments proves very difficult to discern from outside.  Even insiders within [...]

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Mantra for IT: “Participate in the process rather than confront results”

November 4, 2008

Let’s sail into a stretch of a metaphor this time. You probably know by now how much I embrace metaphors as a way to impart, often via a concrete example, ideas and concepts that are hard to grasp. So let’s go way back and talk about a metaphorical influence from long ago.
When I was in [...]

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“Hot stove” lessons, part II: development and operations

October 28, 2008

I noted last time, once again, that “IT is hard. In fact, it’s so hard that it seems most people have to learn certain core lessons by themselves.  It seems like everyone needs to burn his or her own hand on the hot stove.”  I went through some examples of this sort of “hot stove” lessons particular [...]

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