Projects

A case study of “going to the cloud” (SaaS)

Here’s one series of questions that’s great to ask a candidate for a senior position in IT, be it in project management, development, operations, or whatever: Tell me about a recent project or initiative for which you were responsible. What was the goal, and how did you ensure that the goal was achieved? What were [...]

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The Practical CIO: Difficulties in project prioritization & selection, part 2

OK, let’s assume you’ve gotten great at picking the right projects to do to benefit the company. How do you know you can actually accomplish the ones you’ve picked with the resources you have? If you’re like most companies I’ve seen, it’s done on a wing and a prayer. But there’s a better way. Last [...]

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The Practical CIO: Difficulties in project prioritization & selection, part 1

How does your company pick which projects to undertake?  Demand outstrips available resources: nearly always, there are far more “good ideas” for things to do than can actually be done in a given time period.  So how do you decide which ones you take on? If you research this general topic, you’ll find a lot [...]

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IT, the CIO, and the business need for “roof projects”

Have you ever had to replace the roof of your house? It costs lots of money, and there’s no visible or immediate benefit. Metaphorically, that situation comes up astonishingly often in IT organizations that struggle with how to get “roof projects” prioritized and worked on.  “Roof projects” (a term of my coinage, as far as [...]

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Get multiple arrows for that quiver: selective and competitive outsourcing

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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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. [...]

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The pitfalls of the implicit “buy” bias for IT systems and services

I wrote last time about how there are twin truths to the buy vs. build dilemma: outsourcing can be a superb way to leverage external expertise and keep your own team focused on core functions; yet, outsourcing is not an easy or friction-free choice, and it’s easy to simply substitute one set of problems with [...]

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DWYSYWD: IT and the value of declaring victory

I saw a license plate recently that read DWYSYWD. I puzzled over it for a while (Google wasn’t handy), and then it suddenly flashed on me: Do What You Say You Will Do. I’ve since learned that this is a well-known phrase, used by people such as Colin Powell, among others. How does this relate [...]

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