Misapplying the Pareto principle

8 January, 2006
Business Value of IT, Project Management
2 Comments

Here's an interesting phenomenon I've encountered before ... When analyzing a specific section of a business, people seem to naturally focus attention and conversation on the top two or three customers/products/vendors that together represent (say) 20% of the revenues/costs/contracts. Our objective is to look at the data and identify opportunities (increase revenues, cut COGS, aggregate contracts); unfortunately, processing the data for these customers/products/vendors is currently a 100% manual task. Of course; this is why there is apparently so much "opportunity"…

The “Army Rangers” model for IT Professionals

I got a chance to read over some Gartner predictions for 2006 (available $ online). One that struck me said that the job market for IT specialists will shrink 40 percent by 2010. Hey, that's only a few years away! The article makes the point that "... IT people ... must have the capacity to move fluidly and effortlessly into multiple projects, disciplines, and processes." I like to cite, as an excellent illustration of this idea, the movie Black Hawk…

Build a Framework: Your chart junk is my roadmap / vision statement

I remember in the late 90's, seeing many examples of the little train of wedgies that folks used to characterize their business processes: I've used them myself (some of the above samples are mine, I'm comfortable in admitting it) - of course, I typically don't make this stuff up, I adapt from other examples, like everyone else. As I searched for a reasonable picture / schematic / "framework" for a "supply chain", I stumbled across what I believe to be…

A clash of languages over IM (bilingual? trilingual? quadlingual?)

I've been IM'g in a work atmosphere for over a year now, with internal and external folks, and still actively networking for tech info, support, etc. That peer group has a fairly well-defined set of etiquette, jargon, and style. In my new company, we are rolling out enterprise IM, and for most folks (including IT!), this is a "foreign language". (I'm "jpm1234" in the conversations below ...) Challenge #1: I think faster than I type, so I get a bit…

To print or not to print? Depends on the life span of the content …

I've been (correctly) picked off as having an electronic preference for communications. Please don't hand me a printout - send an ecopy of that document, PowerPoint, project plan, whatever. PDF is ok, but original format preferred. Why do I like to gather information in an e-sorta way? Paper stacks up on my desk, fills up my file cabinets - it just gets in the way Paper is not searchable - I like to google my private knowledge base with Copernic…

Answering questions with questions is a quick path towards irrelevance

Why do some folks insist on answering questions with questions? Or, answering questions with roadblocks? It's not surprising when you hear IT complain about their inability to connect with the business, of not being included, etc. - and then demonstrate a style of investigation / requirements gathering / support / feedback that is a bit antagonistic. Business: How long would it take you to do X? IT: Why X? Why not Y? ... or IT: Why X? What are the…

Hand writing recognition – harder than colored bubbles

As I sit in meetings, I find myself thinking through "process" of what we are doing at this moment, as much as I think about what the meeting is about. Then I am writing these short notes to myself for future blog items. Good? Bad? Psychotic? It makes me wish for easier tools to convert notes to complete text - but look at this chicken scratch ... I like these pseudo-postings for process think because I am lazy at heart,…

Of course we can pay for that … if it makes business sense

Had a good conversation with a vendor last week. They were looking to increase their business with us, no surprise there, but the rep was actually a bit cynical (in a nice way), and (probably wisely) asked directly what the chances were that we could actually get Project X off the ground? I've seen these great ideas start, but then some manager complains that they have no budget for this kind of thing. In retrospect, it is almost a rude…

Open Source as bargaining chip – driving business value of IT

I had a fun time this week proposing an open source alternative for an aging component of our EAI infrastructure. The reaction was so classic - the instant some IT folks saw the words "open source" in large type on the piece of paper, they smiled, crossed their arms, and tut-tutted the idea away. Oh, I heard all the classic shoot-down arguments ... "... critical piece of our day to day business transactions ..." "... I rarely need to call,…

Subdivide a huge project list to simplify the prioritization process

27 October, 2005
PMO, Business Value of IT
0 Comments

A classic problem for many project-oriented organizations (IT, R&D, Engineering, Operations) ... how can resource prioritization be simplified, yet repeatable? It's a fairly involved topic, but a common approach is to group projects into a workable number of "chunks" ... we'll use the term Initiatives. How will this help? Challenge: Clarify the team's priorities, alignment, and resource levels - without going into the details The CEO asks a question – what Projects are on the to-do list for IT? [Do…