How to be Taken Seriously as a Business Partner

Part of my job consists of working with General Managers & Managing Directors, talking about process and technology projects, and how we might leverage internal and external resources. I am no longer surprised that external consulting groups get more of the interesting and exciting projects - internal IT is often challenged by a lack of "latest and greatest" tech skills (in support of a modern digital strategy), available cycles (to take on the extra work), or communication & marketing skills…

IT Strategy for the Fast Twitch Crowd

This evening (Monday, 11 Feb 2013) , I did a presentation on Developing IT Strategy in a "Consumer IT" Environment - an expansion on some of the ideas that I have written about previously. I’ve posted my slides here – I realize that they do not “stand on their own”, and need some explanation, but if you weren’t in attendance and are interested in hearing more, let me know in the comments - happy to review with anyone interested. Developing IT Strategy that Connects…

Reading for Understanding – Business

You are only as good as what you know, and half of what you know comes from books Truth be told, it's not an original thought - I heard it many years ago, but it rang true for me personally. I still have many of my old college textbooks - engineering volumes bound in impressive faux leather, including a massive, near-mint copy of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics - 60th edition (note: collectors, make me an offer!). Over the years,…

Developing an IT Strategy: Approach

Previously: Timing The new year approaches, and most IT groups aspire to start out with a completed IT Budget, derived from a well thought out set of short-term Objectives, that align with an IT Strategy - that itself aligns with the overall Corporate Strategy. If your timing is a bit off, and you haven't established these connections with the process yet - where do we begin? In my last post, I talked about Timing: get in the conversation early, take…

Developing an IT Strategy: Timing

In some companies, IT struggles to find a voice amid the other functional areas of the business - Finance, Operations, Sales and Marketing, even Human Resources. "Business Alignment", a regular item on lists of Top 5 IT Concerns each year, pops up because (I believe) it's difficult to glibly draw a line connecting IT systems and projects to the changing priorities of most organizations. I will admit to a small amount of cynicism here - part of the problem is…

Coffee Shop IT

A practical analogy for operating your IT function "like a business", with emphasis on design, usability, sustainability, and rigor. Think of your team as the boutique consulting firm that it really can be. The real payoff comes when you focusing on the built-in advantages of the internal team ...

The Hegemony of Large Numbers – Ignoring Common Sense

Ok, maybe I'm stretching the meaning there, but that's a cool sounding title, and what I see as an interesting phenomenon. People get excited about Large Numbers, and think they have meaning and importance simply because they are Large Numbers. Big Errors For example - years ago, when an application manager was whirling around the office in a minor uproar, worrying that that someone accidentally keyed in a $1B line item on an invoice. That's $1,000,000,000,000 - for the Unit…

Chargebacks vs. Allocations – Defining IT’s Relationship with the Business

Some IT departments prefer chargebacks, while others do not. My own preference is to allocate IT costs to the business units, based on some reasonable balance of simplicity and accuracy. General services could be allocated by headcount, COGs, or revenues, with each business unit taking their proportional share. Some easily identifiable items might be allocated more directly - maintenance costs for specialized engineering, warehouse management, or financial systems, for example, could be allocated more directly to those departments. I've written…

Defining Business Benefits: Hard and Soft

6 July, 2010
Business Value of IT, Project Management
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All projects should have a clear objective, a practical plan, and an understanding of the costs and benefits to get the thing done. Easy to say, but a lot of project teams struggle to crisply and clearly define specific business benefits. One way to move the process forward would be to have a clear understanding of the types of business benefits you might claim. Hard benefits come from firm commitments to make measurable differences in the amount of revenue generated…

Calculating the Cost Savings of Effective Training Material

20 June, 2010
Skills Development and Training, Business Value of IT
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How can I go from "obvious idea" to tangible business ROI? Read on for some specific ideas on making the soft stuff worth your time. (Part of a series)