Strategies and Trends for Information Technology Leaders
As 2011 gets into high-gear, we are seeing the predicted IT spending increases come to pass; with companies often shifting their focus from cost-cutting initiatives to growth and innovation projects. Accompanying this spending increase is a shift in the role of the CIO towards an architect for business innovation. This increased, highly visible responsibility creates…
By the numbers Another look at our data on “business metrics” shows that the top three measurements are: business process impact metrics, business activity metrics, and metrics to show end user effectiveness in interacting with applications. Classic SLA/OLA metrics came in fourth. Other business metrics included metrics to show end user application preferences, and then…
In my last column, How to Make User Experience Count, I wrote about user experience management (UEM), and how I believed it was a continuum of customer experience management and business impact. The reason why is that all IT services are ultimately consumed by flesh-and-blood mammals (most often of the homo sapiens genus), and how…
Loyalty to one company and working towards a career is no longer an expectation. The blurring or industry boundaries has diluted brands, and the ups and downs of the market has eroded consumer confidence. Recognizing the chaotic forces in the organization is the first step toward adopting and adapting best practices that balance the forces…
by Donn DiNunno of EM&I These are uncertain times, and changes bring both frustrations and opportunities to organizations that are working to sustain stability long enough to return value from the previous round of changes. It’s a delicate balance to hold on to in a chaotic environment, but one that can be sustained if, oddly,…
Cloud has been at the forefront of every IT discussion in 2011 and will continue to be due to the potential system optimization and cost savings that are associated with it. However, industry-wide motivation and business impact behind cloud implementation remains unclear. To better understand the top end-user business requirements for cloud computing and determine…
As companies become increasingly more complex and, simultaneously, more integrated, the need for additional cross collaboration and more effective leveraging of the resources at their disposal is becoming increasingly significant. The shared services organization (SSO) concept can help because it consolidates support operations into a service-oriented organizational unit and can substantially improve operating efficiencies by…
Quality practices (e.g., quality management, quality assurance, quality control, quality improvement) apply to a broad range of topics and tasks, and this broad scope has created some dangerous myths about applying quality principles and practices. Here are a few misconceptions that should be cleared up to avoid the cost of poor quality: 1. Quality is…
Wouldn’t it be great if you could predict the future? If you could solve tomorrow’s problems… before they happen? If you could have what I call a “flash foresight” — a sudden burst of insight about the future that produces a new and radically different way of doing something by opening up invisible opportunities and…
In business as in life, bad ideas are ubiquitous. In life, we often get a chance to grow up, be forgiven, and learn from our mistakes, but bad ideas in business can be devastating and unrecoverable. So, when they begin to take root and start damaging morale, blocking innovation, and destroying value, you must recognize…