Pillars of Purview

Start simple: a corporate desktop/laptop refresh model

Here’s a topic that frankly shouldn’t even merit a post — it’s that much of a no-brainer if you think about it.Yet, in the real world, I’ve found that it’s anything but a no-brainer, at both small and large companies.  What I’m referring to is the need for organizations to track their laptops and desktops.Shockingly, [...]

4 comments Read the full article →

Executive questions, IT answers, pizza parlors, and speed chess

Let’s mix some metaphors today, and attempt to relate them all to the world of information technology and project management.I have a good friend and colleague, one of the top IT consultants I know.  He’s able to execute crisply at the detail level while keeping the big picture in mind; he’s especially good at balancing [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

Why status reports really do matter

Do a poll: many IT folks regard doing status reports as their least favorite task.  My point here, though, will be that a lot of people, management and workers alike, don’t fully understand the real purpose of status reports, and that status reports should actually be a “must-have” arrow in your management quiver.  How a [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

Nuts: the biggest trap of all for IT stakeholders

As I promised last time, there’s one more key way, the biggest way of all, not to get what you want from your IT organization.  This is, in fact, the trap I have seen virtually every entity I’ve ever worked for fall into to some degree, some to the point of actually destroying the company. [...]

11 comments Read the full article →

How not to get what you want from IT

As much as any part of your company that supports the key prongs of the corporate mission (deliver product, sell the product, support the product), IT is constantly on the hook to deliver more and more.  As I’ve written before, expectations are deservedly high, and getting higher all the time.  And when expectations are so [...]

4 comments Read the full article →

Using feedback loops to improve IT department service

As I’ve written here before, I strongly advocate thinking of IT in general as a service organization to the rest of the business. Any service organization needs one or more forms of “feedback loop” to be able to gauge whether it is successfully accomplishing its mission.  However, I’ve observed relatively few IT organizations that actively [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

Financial metrics for IT: the holy grail of ROI and how it misses the point: Part 2

As I promised in my previous post on this, and along the lines of the “intensely practical” goal of this blog, we’ll now take a look at the financial cost analysis for a specific project.  This is only an example, with details changed or obscured, but it is based on a real proposal from a [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

Financial metrics for IT: the holy grail of ROI, and how it misses the point: Part 1

Let’s talk some more about one of my favorite topics, project portfolio management (PPM). A lot of literature on PPM tends to focus on evaluating risks and returns. An excellent article on IT governance last week in The Wall Street Journal had the following sage advice: “Create an IT portfolio by evaluating risks and returns. [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →