Post #4 in the Series: Focusing on Results versus Process

Dr. George Westerman of MIT writes:

Business says: “I want it this way.”

IT says: “We can’t do it that way.”

“In too many companies, the CIO is seen as the “CI-No.”

To many on the business side, the way things should work seems simple enough. They want IT changes—new mobile devices, maybe, or new system functionality—and they don’t see why IT can’t deliver what they want. But obviously there’s more to the story.

IT leaders know it’s not that simple. They need to be sure that any changes don’t compromise the safety of the company’s IT systems and business processes. And they know the downsides of introducing nonstandard devices or unnecessary software customizations. Exceptions create complexity, and complexity is the major driver of extra cost and risk in IT.

The key in bridging the gap is for IT leaders to explain clearly the reasoning behind saying “no.” If they give the business side enough insight, future requests might even be more reasonable. IT people also need to be open to exceptions when the new approach is much better than the standard approach, or when there is another good reason for it. Meanwhile, business people should aim to say what they want to do without requiring it to be done a certain way.

For example, in a major energy company, when people request something that won’t work well, the CIO says, “Give me a couple of weeks.” Soon, he’s able to say, “Here are the costs, benefits and risks of doing it your way. And here are two other options that do what you want, but are better.”

Tom’s Take:

At the end of the day, our job is to deliver results in the most cost-effective way possible.  We’re also lucky to work with many smart clients, typically IT people themselves, who do not waste time – or their investment in our services – by explaining to us how to do our technical work (unless, of course, we need to do something in a different or specific way to stay in compliance with their standards). So while we’re usually in complete agreement with customers on the work to be done, we still look for ways to add value beyond the stated objectives.

For example, Intertech recently was working with a firm specializing in product lifecycle management and 3D modeling. Using an agile software development process, our team was able to deliver all of our core requirements and more several weeks early. In fact, most of our team was able to roll off the project earlier allowing our customer to reallocate the funds to other projects.

Post #3 in The Series: IT Cost and Performance

Dr. George Westerman of MIT writes:

Business says: “IT costs too much; we’re not getting the service we’re paying for.”

IT says: “Given our budget constraints, we’re doing really well.”

Who is right and who is wrong? Without a clear understanding of IT performance, there’s no way to know.

Here’s an example: The IT unit in a multibillion-dollar auto retail firm was considered “fat and happy” by those outside of IT. Was it too expensive? Perhaps. But happy? Not at all. IT people were trying to do a good job, but all they heard were complaints about costs and failures.

The first step in fixing the situation was to understand exactly what IT costs and performance really were, not just what they seemed to be. IT leaders started tracking downtime and problem-resolution time, as well as project and budget performance. They made the information available in ways that everyone could understand.

The informed verdict: IT wasn’t as good as the IT people thought and it wasn’t as bad as the business side thought. Most important, everyone now knew exactly where things stood and what needed to be done. Over the next few years, IT costs dropped while performance improved. Satisfaction increased for both business and IT people.

Business leaders started to trust the IT leaders more. Plus, the new clarity led to easier decisions during budget time. Before all this, when a major outage occurred, business executives called for the CIO’s head. When a similar outage happened five years later, business chiefs took it in stride, saying, “They’re doing a great job. Everyone has a hiccup from time to time.”

Tom’s Take:

When companies hire IT vendors such as ours, costs can be handled on either a fixed-bid or time-and-materials basis. We prefer working on a time-and-materials basis so we can work in a collaborative manner.

While responsible vendors must find ways to add value no matter what the billing arrangements, we’ve moved from the waterfall approach to an Agile/Scrum approach.  The heart of Scrum is an iterative and incremental method for managing projects.  A result is more frequent deliverables.

Clients appreciate this approach, which gets software into the hands of end-users much faster than waiting until an entire project is finished. Business managers who must manage expectations on a quarterly basis especially like how this approach yields tangible results quickly and efficiently.