BaconsBusiness

IT Training & IT Cuts

2010-06-03T09:22:00.030+01:00

In these days of government and corporate cost-cutting, with IT seen as good for cutting, where does IT Training stand?

And a key question:
How much money and thought is put into (a) good quality IT training & education, compared with (b) the general level of success & satisfaction with IT?

Is there a correlation?

One thing is sure. According to surveys of senior management about IT success, and of users about IT satisfaction, it's evident that IT as a whole isn't working (which makes it easier to justify the cost cuts).

Assuming for the moment that there is a correlation - that if IT Training were bigger and better then so would IT success & satisfaction as a whole be bigger & better -

- let's look at some reasons why IT Training might not be working -

IT Training needs to become more education oriented, in giving The Why.

The difference between training and education:
- Training gives you the what and the how.
- Education gives you the what and the why.

So when point & click skills are taught, are they taught within the context of the tasks, internal customers, the business processess, the organisation's context and needs, and the external customer's expectations?

But in any case, point & click skills are not where it's at:

IT Training needs to be less hands-on point & click skills, and more about being IT Savvy;
how to make it work
- for people, the organisation, and customers.

A further issue is that most IT training tends to be of the sheep-dip type (as does most training in organisations), with little or no follow-through. And yet:

IT training would be more effective if it were staged over weeks, rather than a day or two, with the longer calendar time giving superior loop learning
IT Training would also be more effective with follow-up mentoring, for example by lead-users.

Lastly, IT training tends to be treated like an orphan; considered last and grudgingly. In fact the effective use of technology is only as good as the training and education in using the technology. Therefore:

IT Training & Education needs to be a priority rather than an afterthought.

After all, if good quality education is a key factor in lifting up the prosperity of a nation, then surely it must be for organisations, in the success & satisfaction achieved with IT.

The IT Crowd: It's in the Mind

2010-05-18T11:26:00.027+01:00

The IT Crowd is a clever and funny award-winning television sitcom by Graham Lineham. It presents the characters in a small IT department fumbling their nerdish way through corporate life.

But is there any truth in The IT Crowd?

If there is, and if The IT Crowd is a true reflection of how the IT function and IT people are generally viewed in organisations, then it’s their own fault, isn’t it?

IT people are nerds who can hardly put two words together, have very little emotional intelligence, never keep their promises, are lost in their own little world, are always trying to confuse you with techno-speak, soak up too much resource, take forever to do anything, never listen to you, never give you what you want, do not understand the business, and are of little use beyond their role as Help Desk mechanics.

Best keep them in the basement “lurking below ground”, or better yet get rid of them and give the job to a remote site in India or the Philippines, which will resolve the problem and cut IT costs (which of course is the main priority).

And yet, in real organisations:

• How can we get closer to our external customers?
• How do we conquer Information Overload?
• How do we get value from Information?
• How can we get Data we can rely on?
• How do we get real value from IT?
• How do we get what we really need from IT?
• How do we reduce IT stress?

In a recent conversation with a senior manager, the notion was that IT is a “tool”. Another manager said that IT needs to start giving “users” what they want. Both of these notions miss the big picture.

Coming back to the original question:

Is there any truth in The IT Crowd? To what extent does The IT Crowd reflect the way IT is generally viewed in organisations?

The closer it is to reality (that The IT Crowd really does reflect the way IT is viewed in an organisation), the less likely that IT will benefit (a) the organisation, (b) the people who are part of it, or (c) their present and potential customers.

In comparison with “it’s their own fault” above, here are some ideas to consider. They're not very ‘sexy’, they do not provide any quick fix, and none of them involve the latest killer app.

• IT is not just a “tool”. It's a strategic lever.
• You don’t have “users”. You have (internal) customers.
• It's not what customers want. It's what they really need.
• IT is everyone’s responsibility.
• Information Value not techlology, is what IT is really all about.
• Data quality begins and ends with the internal customer/user.
• First make effective use of the technology you already have.
• Make IT training effective; don't let it be an orphan.
• There are no IT Projects; only Business Projects.
• It’s not Them that's the problem. Us-and-Them is the problem

Here’s the main point: it all begins in the mind.

Success & satisfaction with IT
is first and foremost about how we think about IT.

Powerpoint & Information

2009-08-19T15:58:00.087+01:00

This is about Information,
and how Powerpoint,
as an example of IT in common use, can be used to provide useful information
- or not.

It's also about how we may have a tendency to rely too much upon IT Itself.

For example, Powerpoint came on to the scene in 1984. Has it helped or has it hindered?

What happens when we're too reliant on Information Technology? What happens when IT becomes an end in itself, rather than a means to an end, albeit a powerful means?

What is or should be the central aim of IT
in this Information Age?
Simple! It's INFORMATION VALUE!

And how might Information Value be defined?
How about this:

The central aim of Information Technology
(at least in the business organisation working environment),
is Information Value, which is:

information for effective knowledge work,
and/or
information for customer value (including internal customers),
and/or
information for business performance,

- information that's relevant, reliable and rapidly available,

- as, where and how needed.

How does our use of Powerpoint, as an example of IT in common use, help in achieving this end-purpose & aim?

One of the next big things in computing will be natural interface with the computer. It's about the human computer interface (HCI). But will advances in HCI help or hinder, or both, or might it depend on how it's used? Will it be like Powerpoint?

When you hear you're about to sit through another Powerpoint presentation do you say something like:
Oh no, not another, boring batch of bullet bits!

The conventional, corporate way of using Powerpoint is to use standard templates complete with bullet point format.

But, as the old saying goes:
A picture (or an image) is worth a thousand words.

And then, as Albert Einstein said:
Make things as simple as possible;
but no more simple than that.

So it's a balance between:
- Information Overload via a batch of boring bullet bits
and/or
- A simplistic set of colourful, image/picture-based slides, like a children's TV programme.

What would Winston Churchill or Abraham Lincoln have thought of Powerpoint, and how might they have used it?

The NHS and Systems Thinking

2009-08-10T07:31:00.019+01:00

Break up the NHS, was the previous posting.

Now a Conservative Party think tank is saying:
Break up the NHS IT.

They say it would create huge savings for the Taxpayer.

Why?

Because the £12 billion NHS IT programme launched in 2002, which is now five years behind schedule, which is the world's largest civilian IT project, and which is already billions of pounds in the red - is too big!

So what if it's too big?

To recapitulate the tenth of the ten Systems Thinking principles in the last posting:

Every system has an optimum size beyond which it ceases to be viable, due to (1) intra-relationship complexity and, (2) for organisations and project in organisations, bureaucracy and loss of human identity with the system as a whole.

An independent review of the NHS IT, commissioned by Health Minister Stephen O'Brien, concluded that:

The project had been too centralised, making it too big, inefficient, and costly for the taxpayer
50% of the IT vendors/suppliers involved had already pulled out of the project.
The handling of the project to date had been "shambolic".
Its bureaucracy had been "hugely disruptive for the NHS " - with negative cost & care implications for patients.

When large, Stalinist, central planning government embarks on projects such as this, albeit with good intentions, they show themselves blind to the real choice-needs of people, the cost impact implications for the taxpayer - and an ignorance or denial of Systems Thinking.

For the sake of society, for the sake of us all, this and future governments need to embrace Systems Thinking.

The previous posting says why.

Break Up the NHS

2009-06-19T11:54:00.060+01:00

The NHS needs to be broken up. That's the first conclusion from the application of
Systems Thinking to the NHS.

Bottom-line: if the NHS were to fully adopt Systems Thinking
it wouldn't just save billions.

We'd also end up a lot more satisfied;
NHS people, patients, public.

Why bring this up now? Well it was recently announced that Britain's National Health Service is facing a huge budget short-fall and the BBC Today programme has been canvassing opinions on "where savings might be made".

But this is not quite the issue. It's more about how the NHS organisation can be more cost-effective - which is different, because it first looks at what the organisation's real aims are (and that of each part of it), and how well they're being accomplished.

So this means not piddling about with Systems Thinking (because the NHS does have courses on Systems Thinking, and it is used for trivial issues). It means adopting Systems Thinking into the culture and fabric of the NHS.

Systems Thinking isn't about computer systems; although these are included. It's about seeing everything as a system - in fact as a system within a system, with systems within it.

You are a system. A tree is a system. The Universe is a system. You and your laptop are a system. A football team is a system. The London Stock Exchange is a system. Every business & government organisation is a system. The NHS is a system.

This may all seem a bit academic at first, but Systems Thinking is practical and proven. It's a strategic yet structured way of looking at an organisation and each part of it, especially it's processes.

Here are ten Systems Thinking principles:
1. Everything is a system within a system, with systems within it.

2. Every system has a purpose, whether known or unknown.

3. Synthesis before analysis:
first determine the subject system as a whole in terms of it's boundaries, and then the external/contextual environment with which it inter-relates.

4. Every system must inter-relate effectively with its external/contextual environment environment to survive and remain viable.

5.a. The parts must intra-relate effectively for a system to inter-relate effectively with its external/contextual environment.
5b. Human organisations need effective dialogue and collaboration to inter-relate effectively with their external/contextual environments.

6. Synergy is where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts;
it results from the actualisation of ideal intra-relationships between the parts, for the respective purpose of each intra-relationship, within the overall purpose of the system.

7. Every part of a system is dependent on the other parts.

8. If each part of a system operates as efficiently as possible in itself, then the system as a whole will be ineffective.

9. First look to the idealised design based on the purpose of the system, regardless of practical constraints.

10. Every system has an optimum size beyond which it ceases to be viable, due (1) intra-relationship complexity and, (2) for organisations and projects in organisations, bureaucracy and loss of human identity with the system as a whole.

These principles have deep implications for the NHS, and indeed for any business or government organisation. There are a few organisations around the world whose leadership has made Systems Thinking happen in their organisations, and it has made a big difference.

So which of these principles is the NHS especially in need of recognising and/or adopting?

The most apparent is that the NHS should be broken up. It's the biggest per capita organisation in the world. True, the Chinese Army and the Indian Railways are bigger, but these two countries have much bigger populations.

If it's to be more cost-effective the NHS needs to be
broken up, de-centralised, and federalised.

P.S.
One last thing: Systems Thinking cannot happen unless the leadership of an organisation gets behind it.

At the same time, neither can it happen unless NHS people are also behind it. There is a way of doing this which, like Systems Thinking, is also practical and proven. It's called Genuine Action Learning (GAL), as originally developed by Professor Reg Revans, and successfully applied in many different contexts around the world.

It's a form of DIY change management, and it has been described by a very successful business leader as "The most powerful management tool ever identified."

But this blog article is already long enough, so Genuine Action Learning must await a future posting.

How IT Can Save The World

2009-01-30T11:05:00.057Z

In our day to day working life the pressures of time, information and task naturally lead us to be concerned with the immediate issues on the plate; how to resolve this, make it easier to do that, get better at something else, or even what to do about the job itself.

But there is a huge issue which overshadows every other issue
- at least when it comes to Business and Information Technology (IT).

It's an issue that's right at the top of the Business Agenda and, if it could be resolved, it would affect for the better virtually everyone and every company, if not the national economy.

It has been called the "Holy Grail" of Information Technology in Business, and it's the issue of:
How to get Business & IT truly integrated, aligned and joined up.

By this is meant:
Joined up
Business Needs & Opportunities
with
IT Capabilities & Resources.

If it could be achieved it would lead to significant payback:
1. For people.
2. For your organisation.
3. For the national economy.

If, or perhaps when, this joining up (as it's called here) can be achieved, it will enhance our working lives in the form of reduced stress, enhanced satisfaction, and greater achievement. That is, we'll be able to get things done more effectively, efficiently and enjoyably.

It will make the organisation we work for more cost-effective, profitable, and achieving of its aims. And it will, or at least could, improve if not restore the viability of the national economy itself. Even further, it will enhance the quality of life across society as a whole.

These are grandiose claims! In fact they appear similar to the recent Freudian slip made by the head of government who claimed that financial measures about to be introduced through Parliament would "save the world".

And yet the potential rewards in the microeconomic, macroeconomic and sociological effects of joined-up Business-IT in the aggregate, across the national and international scene, are simply staggering!

Few have been able to see this Big Picture Impact of joined-up Business-IT. Many have instead been bemused or bedazzled by the technology, regardless of its people and business net-benefit.

And some will not be aware that we have a problem
- or an opportunity.

For surveys repeatedly show a huge gulf between the priorities of people and business on the one hand and what IT could contribute on the other. As evidence of this we occasionally learn of big IT failures, even though these are just the tip of the iceberg.

So there are trillions of dollars, euros, and pounds sterling being wasted every year, and thousands upon thousands of lives being negatively impacted.

But, notwithstanding the wonderful advances in IT, the answer is not in new technology, for IT in business is a double-edged sword. It can be a blessing or a curse; it all depends upon how it's developed, managed and used. So what's the answer; how do we get joined-up Business-IT?

The answer is in a holistic approach. That is to say, there is no silver bullet; not in better business process, project management, development methodology, data cleansing, protection against malware, software testing, or whatever. Joined-up Business-IT and its benefits can only be achieved through a holistic approach.

A forthcoming book by the author of this article, The JUMP Model: Joining Up Business and IT, follows upon several years of global research with leading academics, with business leaders , with people 'on the ground', and with feedback from sharing with professional and corporate audiences.

The JUMP Model and its accompanying Process is not a development methodology. It is a holistic, practical, action-oriented approach for getting Business Needs & Opportunities joined up with IT Capabilities & Resources.

As a professorial friend of mine at a leading MBA school said: "So James, do you think you've got this Alignment Thing finally sorted out? My answer: "Well since you ask, yes, I believe I have".

It's the reason why this blog posting is the first for quite a few months; the author has been busy!

P.S.
The photo of the first BlackBerry President of the United States is a supreme example of a non-IT person who has grabbed technology with both hands (or with one hand, at least), and put it to effective use in (a) beating the competition, i.e. getting elected, and (b) doing his job. An examplar for joined-up Business-IT!

IT and Your Health

2008-04-20T07:02:00.011+01:00

You hear so much bad news about big money and scarce resources being wasted on mega health projects that it's nice to get some good news about IT and your health. It's particularly nice if that good news affects your own life for the good.

To begin with, a good search engine now knows more and can tell you more than your doctor can, with whatever concerns you, either preventive or remedial. You are your own best doctor. So between you, your doctor and the Internet (and it might be a good idea to include God as well), you should be able to optimise your health situation.

And of course, not forgetting a healthy diet and exercise - on which you can also get the best advice through a good search engine. For example, it was on the internet that this writer discovered the amazing health benefits of sprouted seeds. They contain much needed enzymes to keep the stomach and digestion healthy, and are an organic, ever-fresh source of nutrients which are about 40 times more nutritious than ordinary, fresh vegetables.

But getting more specific on technology, if you have ever had to wait interminably for X-rays to be processed, or in some cases having them get lost, then the good news is that old-fashioned photos and use of snail-mail are going out.

Instead, some hospitals are now scanning the image straight into a central radiology database and making it instantly available across and between hospitals and consultants. Not only that, but because the images are available on high-resolution screens, it does make it easier to scrutinise the image and make a diagnosis.

Also, speech recognition is being added for the radiologist, so as to reduce writing, typing and transcription errors, and the time involved.

The x-ray images are input, along with any drawings made by the doctor, consultant or specialist, and get integrated into your electronic patient record.

In addition, with wireless networks, it means that bedside input & output to/from the patient record becomes feasible.

It means no more lost records, more reliable data, and much faster response to patient needs.

At least this is what it means in theory. The other factors, apart from the technology, are the people, process, organisation and management (PPOM) factors. These things, more than the technology itself, are the priority for getting things right in Health Care.

P.S.
Systems Thinking; treating everything as a system, within a system, within a system, is the key to getting PPOM right, and a future article will focus on Systems Thinking.

Innovation through Customers

2008-04-16T10:31:00.022+01:00

About a year ago Dell Computers launched a community site aimed at interactive feedback with customers, for the purpose of improving products and customer service, and responding effectively to customer needs by using this Web 2.0 technology.

The site is called IdeaStorm and, judging by the comments and interactions so far, and especially the rapid response to customers enabled by the site, it seems to be a great success.

The site is powered by SalesForce.com, a SaaS purveyor of Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM), and is based on their own Ideas Exchange.

Standing back and taking the Big Picture view, what's happening here is improved innovation and product leadership through collaboration with customers through a fairly new technology tool.

It represents innovative synergy between (a) the business organisation, (b) its customers and (c) information & communications technology (ICT). The prediction is that it will benefit the Business in achieving competitive advantage, provided Dell continue to innovate, and tie in its Business Processes with the site.

How did this innovation come about at Dell? Was it a top-down thing, or was it bottom-up? The guess is that it was a bottom-up idea and, if so, it gives an object lesson in using IT and people in achieving competitive advantage.

The people at the bottom, or more correctly at the Coal face, were empowered to innovate, and the people at the top provided the Governance that explicitly or implicitly laid down the principles and set up the organisation structures to make it all happen.

This use of ICT to bring customers into the innovation circle is predicted to grow, according an article in the December, 2007 McKinsey Quarterly.

And it's a good example of what this very blog site is all about.

T5: Lessons Learned

2008-04-08T11:56:00.050+01:00

What actually went wrong in the catastrophic and highly publicised opening of the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow? Was it another systems project failure, but this time a high-profile one?

The impact was first upon people; the passengers whose lives were at the minimum disrupted and at worst seriously blighted.

The impact on British Airways (BA) and British Aiports Authority (BAA), was likewise disastrous, not just in terms of the millions of pounds lost, but in lost reputations as well.

At top-level the cause was reported to be the Baggage Handling System; thousands of pieces of baggage piled up with nowhere to go.

However, reading in and between the lines of Transport Minister Jim Fitzpatrick's 31 March statement in Parliament, the failure was due to a number of things:

A glitch in the software.
Lack of coordination between BAA and BA.
Lack of training.
Poor planning.
Lack of people integration on the ground.

Of these, web chat sites have blamed lack of training as the biggest reason for the failure.

It's significant that, out of the five reasons, only one was technology.
The others were down to people, organisation and management.

You can learn a lot from blog sites & comments, one such being Joolie Atkins, who specialises in IT training issues, and whose site with its comments gives us further reasons & insights for the T5 Failure:

The Big Bang Approach; it should have been phased.
Inadequate User Acceptance Testing (UAT).
Lack of Systems Thinking; seeing the Big Picture.
Lack of senior management involvement.
No rehearsals; no process testing.

Again, only one of these had anything to do with Technology, which was the UAT - if this can be considered Technology.

So the T5 disaster appears to have had little to do with IT!

One commentator pointed to the re-opening of St Pancras Station (a beautiful example of Victorian architecture in London), and the Eurostar Service to the Continent, which was opened by H.M. The Queen, and went without a hitch. So it can be done, even when you have no option but to use the Big Bang Approach.

So what, as Transport Minister Jim Fitzpatrick asked in his statement before Parliament, are the Lessons To Be Learned?

There is only the space to summarise - what to do next time:

Senior management governance & involvement.
Join up Business and IT.
See the Big Picture.
Assure & test the end-to-end business process.
Provide quality & early (not tacked-on at the last-minute) training, and on what people need to do the job well.

Winning the Email Battle

2008-04-06T21:04:00.050+01:00

The first thing to do in winning the email battle is to decide to do something about it; to decide to win.

That done, you'll invest a bit of time in winning the battle.

In fact you had better do something about it now, because:
The amount of information is increasing exponentially year by year!
What will happen if you don't do something about it?

Your productivity & performance will continually worsen,
and your increasing stress level will make you ill & angry!

Here's what needs to be done:

Use the Software
Make sure you have the best system for email overload.
Turn off the Alert.
Use the Spam Filter.
Get Training
Get quality training on how to effectively use your email software, and get more general training for yourself and colleagues (the people from whom you're likely to receive emails), on how to use email effectively.
Make Sure it's Relevant
Work out your:
- Explicit Goals & Objective (EGOs).
- Critical Success Factors (CSFs).
- Critical Current Issues (CCIs).
- Knowledge & Competency Areas (KCAs)
- Underlying Aims & Interests (UAIs)
Although subject to change, this is your Relevance Base.
It's only these things in which you're interested.
Delete everything else.
Be a Good Sender/Giver
- Is it relevant for and needed by the target recipient,
and those copied?
- Avoid sending a Victorian Novel!
- Have a succinct, pithy, stand-alone, action-oriented heading.
- Not more than five paragraphs, and keep them short.
- Use good English. Make it easy to read & understand
- Review for logical sequence and errors before sending.
- Never send anything angry, impolite, confrontational or insensitive.
- Action orientation: what do you want the recipient to do?
- Minimise "For Your Interest".
- Put yourself in the target recipient's shoes.
Use Information Net-Value
Use Info Net-Value and evaluate each email; what's the cost v. benefit of receiving it?
What's the cost v. benefit for the recipient of those you send?
What's the cost v. benefit of social chat and news groups?
Manage the In-Box
Manage your In-Box through the following:
- Look at emails not more than four times per day.
- Review for urgent and/or easy-to-deal-with according to the subject heading or sender.
- If urgent and/or easy to handle, do now.
- If not urgent or easy to do look at later, and handle all of these in chunks - not one at a time.
- By end of day should not have more than ten open items, and these not because of delay but because of needing further information before replying or actioning.
- All the rest should be deleted, filed or archived.
Assure Security and Regulatory Needs
Delete anything from unknown sources unless you're sure it's
(a) relevant, and (b) not malware, spam or phishing.
Don't open an attachment unless you're sure it's
(a) legitimate, and (b) needed.
Don't delete anything that may be needed later on for regulatory reasons.

Lastly, don't be over-reliant on e-mail. It's a double-edged sword. People like the personal touch, and it may be a lot more effective if not enjoyable. Use the phone, or go and see, or write an old-fashioned note.

Not Just the CIO's Responsibility

2008-03-25T11:06:00.036Z

It's not just the CIO that's responsible for the effective use of IT.

A recent survey by Gartner indicated that Chief Information Officers (CIOs) now need to have non-IT business unit management experience if they wish to pursue new CIO opportunities.

In many organisations, particularly governmental, the CIO still does not have direct report to the CEO, and does not therefore sit at the boardroom table.

Part of the reason for this is the lack of non-IT management experience, so that the CIO is still seen as a "techie", rather than a business manager.

It's a a chicken-and-egg situation: the best way of getting general management experience is for the CIO to sit at the boardroom table, and yet the CIO is often prevented from gaining general management experience by being barred from the boardroom table.

It's a fundamental block in the effective use of IT, and aligning IT with Business needs.

An even more fundamental block is the implicit assumption that the effective use of IT is the job of the CIO and the CIO alone.

Even that most excellent of magazines CIO, both the USA and UK versions, appears to have the underlying assumption that everything connected with IT is the job of the CIO.

If this were the case, then the effective use of people would be the job of the HR Director alone.

And the effective use of Money & Finance would be the job of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) alone.

Responsibilities like these, IT, HR, Money & Finance, and other key resources - are the job of every manager.

In fact an implication in IT Governance (see the Weill & Ross book), is that although the CIO is obviously at the forefront, the ultimate responsibility for the effective use of IT rests with the whole senior management team.

Education and experience therefore cuts both ways. If business is to get full value with IT then business managers need education and experience in IT.

That is, while it is true that general management experience will help the CIO, it is equally true that appropriate IT education & experience of senior management - and of every non-IT manager - will enable more effective use of IT, and alignment of IT with Business needs.

The HR function has a vital role to play in all of this, because it doesn't just come down to education and training in Business-with-IT. There is also the issue of changed mental models and business change programmes, so as to get Business and IT in a Partnership Paradigm, rather than the Us v. Them Paradigm that frequently prevails.

P.S.
We're not talking education in point-and-click. By appropriate education we mean MBA-type IT education - of a practical and integrated nature.

And by IT experience we mean nitty-gritty experience like business process mapping, preparation of development testing and use cases, and side-by-side collaboration with IT people.

Easter Greetings in Irish

2008-03-19T16:29:00.051Z

If you go to the Aran Islands at this time of year, and if you greet an Aran Islander with:
Ta Criost eirithel!

- they will respond with:
Go deimhin, ta se eirithel!

It's the Irish for
Christ is risen!
and He is risen indeed!

The Aran Islands were made famous by John Millington Synge who, after studying Irish and Hebrew at Trinity College, Dublin, spent several summers there perfecting his knowledge of Irish and absorbing the culture.

This led to his masterpiece The Playboy of the Western World, which caused riots when it was first performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, in 1907. It's a quirky comedy about Christy Mahon, a young man whose claim to fame is that he has killed his father by bashing him over the head with a garden spade.

It's the way he tells his story (and who are better story-tellers than the Irish?), that makes the women fall in love with him.

Unfortunately for Christy, his supposedly dead father comes back from the dead, albeit a bit worse for wear, and Christy loses the respect and love of his admirers.

So in a way, Playboy of the Western World has a parallel with Easter, when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In this case however, it's an event that is either the biggest myth and con-trick ever perpetrated, or is the miraculous, non-fiction, actual happening which historians at the time reported it to be.

One of these Historians was Luke, a physician, who "carefully investigated everything from the beginning" in order to write his history for a new Christian by the name of Theophilus, who must have been a very important person for Luke to go to all this trouble; a bit like having your own Alpha Course.

Incidentally, the Aran Isands are/were the home of Father Ted, another quirky if not hilarious Irish comedy about Fr. Ted (himself), his zany young side-kick Fr. Dougal, the drunken priest Fr. Jack, and Mrs Doyle, who would NOT take no for an answer ("ah go on!"), in offering you that cup of tea!

May the joy and gladness of Easter be with us all at this time of year.

Caisc shona duit! Happy Easter!

PRINCE2 Cost v. Benefit

2008-03-12T10:23:00.044Z

Prince2 is a Project Mgt. method used internationally.

But what's the cost v. benefit? It's mandated in UK govt. projects, but this has not prevented some recent, classsic failures.

Which of these statements do you lean toward?

Prince2 assures the discipline, governance, quality & risk control, alignment with business goals, documentation and guaranteed deliverables needed in an IT project, without which there would be anarchy and failure.
Prince2 is a fat, heavy-handed method that goes back to the 1970s, before the world became the fast-changing global village, Internet-enabled place that it is today, and it is a source of competitive disadvantage in preventing IT from meeting customer business needs in the time needed, and getting product & service to market.

The primary advantage of Prince2 is the Business Case, and the business analysis and IT governance that goes with it. It seeks to ensure that the project is rigorously aligned with business aims, and is likely to add value to the business.

The rest of Prince2 is all about the management & control of each stage of the project so as bring about expected deliverables and benefits, as promised in the Business Case.

The issue is that you don't necessarily need Prince2 - and perhaps the bureaucracy that goes with it - to have a good Business Case.

So Prince2 is a double-edged sword; required rigour on the one hand, and bestial bureaucracy on the other.

For example, there is a great deal of documentation, formal approvals, inspections and co-ordination needed in a Prince2 project. Is all of this really needed? Will the documentation actually serve any real purpose?

Arguably, this all adds time to the project. And yet, IT customers may be needing the deliverables - or at least the core component of them - sooner than later; much sooner, owing to business environment and/or competitive pressures.

A second issue is the old chestnut of paralysis by analysis which, arguably, a Prince2 culture fosters. When you have to allow for your business and systems analysis being subjected to severe scrutiny, with no errors allowed, you tend to make sure that it's iron-clad.

Whereas, supposing IT were working in a closer, more iterative, less formal, ego-less mode with its customers, what would happen then?

A third issue is that Prince2 virtually assumes no change, whereas this is one thing you can depend on: change. Consequently, one of the major problems in systems development and its project management is Requirements Creep. After all, it's often impossible for IT customers to know up front what's really needed.

A fourth issue is that Prince2 arguably dis-empowers IT people, and controls rather than trusts. What would happen if IT people became much more in the business picture, really and truly part of it, and were empowered with the (1) business knowledge, (2) tools, (3) business guidelines, and (4) trust as to what's needed and when, albeit with frequent interaction between customers and IT?

In other words, would it be possible to have our cake and eat it?

Might we adhere to Prince2 as a model,
and use its principles as guidelines,
while avoiding the bureaucracy?

Making Mobile Working Work

2008-03-03T08:51:00.057Z

Mobile working
is accelerating.

It's a priority item on the agendas of many CIOs, and is an example of advances in ICT being used for competitive advantage - or just catching up.

Achieving competitive advantage with mobile working, and the information & communication technologies behind it, depends on:

Being an early adopter on the New Technology Adoption Curve.
Doing it right.

And doing it right depends on taking a systemic approach. In other words, it's not just a technology project, and not just a business project. It's a technology & business & people project. It has a big sociological content.

So, first of all, why is mobile working accelerating?

It's being greatly enabled by the advances in telecommunication and human-computer interface (HCI) technologies.
It enables a more cost-effective organisation.
It facilitates quicker & easier networking.
Given the need for business organisations to be increasingly agile, flexible and responsive, it enables better use of the three paramount resources of the Information Age: People, Time and Information.
It means that people on the go in this Global Village can stay in touch and keep the pot boiling.
It makes it possible for people to have a better quality of life in being able to work at home and telecommute - thus avoiding the need to drive/train/bus commute into the business centre every day. We can live a rural life if we want to (see photo).
Green Thinking and the cost of fuel. We're trying to reduce global warming and minimise carbon emissions and pollution from electrical & electronic devices, and car/plane/train use. Besides, the prices are going up and up at the pumps!

So it's evident that mobile working represents a sea-change; a tectonic movement; a paradigm shift in the use of ICT & HCI, in the way people work and live, in business & organisation models that we've been used to, in cost structures, in the ways that customer service & value might be delivered, and even in society itself.

What can be done, therefore, in approaching mobile working in a way that is not techno-centric, but rather takes a broader, systemic approach? How can we do it right?

The first thing to do would be to:

Flag mobile working as the bigger issue that it is
Establish a senior-level Mobile Work Group
of business and IT executives

- to address the opportunities and challenges in mobile working.

The group should (a) seek the big picture, (b) brainstorm, (c) evaluate, and (d) govern & guide. The goal would be to put the organisation on the right footing, in harnessing mobile working and its enabling technologies, so that it works for the business, its people, and its customers.

Here are some ideas for the Group:

Look at the impact of mobile working on work practices, and evaluate where we are now.
Consider how present work practices, routines and processes might be guided for added value, better payback and people satisfaction through mobile working technology.
Take a big-picture look at all the technologies impacting mobile working, including video-conferencing, WiMax, 3G and Bluetooth, and the ones coming down the road, such as flexible screens, the Windows Mobile 7 operating system and high speed uplink packet access, with the objective of standardising the mobile infrastructure and avoid infrastructure anarchy.
Evaluate the technologies for innovative ways in which mobile working might be used to deliver better service and value to customers.
Ditto for cost savings and time savings.
Identify those areas where selective outsourcing might be considered, so as to delegate infrastructure management to specialists in these areas.
Make explicit the business goals & objectives that need to drive mobile working.
Get IT people out into the field and/or operating at the coal-face, to get first-hand experience of mobile working by internal customers, collaborating to make it more effective.
Look at how mobile working might be used in optimising quality of life for people as, for example, with flexible working, shared jobs and home-working.
Assess the risk aspects with mobile working such as malware & viruses, identity theft, data loss, regulatory compliance and social networking.
Consider the Green Issues and impact.

No doubt the Mobile Work Group could come up with other if not better ideas as to how the mobile working should be approached in a systemic manner. The above gives us a start.

Firefox & Mitchell Baker

2008-02-26T22:39:00.082Z

The soon-to-be-released V3.0
of the Firefox open-source browser will make mobile working easier.

What's more interesting is the useful lessons to be learned from The Firefox Way - of doing business.

It is, after all, a consumer product facing tough competition. In fact the company is a giant-killer - with Microsoft & Internet Explorer being the giant.

Starting with one employee in 2002, the company now has 150 - not counting the thousands of volunteers around the world.

The first lesson to be learned from Firefox is that achieving competitive advantage with IT can just as easily come from the bottom as from the top.

When Mozilla 1.0 came out it was a suite of Internet applications that included a browser. It was a flop, and it could have been the end. But two developers, Blake Ross and David Hyatt, had been working on a lean & secure version of the browser module. They were (a) motivated and (b) empowered. As a result, this bottom-up initiative became Firefox business strategy.

This leads to the second lesson; self-organising teams. You don't need layer upon layer of managers, giving a tall pyramid, which does not make for effective organisation in today's rapid-change environment. What you need is motivated and empowered people who, being guided and coached by their managers, with simple rules to keep them in sync with business aims, can do the business themselves.

Firefox has pushed the boundaries on this one, enabling and facilitating its thousands of volunteer programmers around the world to self-organise themselves into such teams.

The third lesson to be learned is that you don't need to be a Computer Science graduate - to succeed with IT. CEO Mitchell Baker (see photo) studied Asian Studies @ undergraduate, then went to Law School and practised as as a corporate lawer. She worked for Netscape then AOL, got fired in a round of layoffs, got involved in the Open Source Applications Foundation, and then started up the Mozilla Foundation.

She is also a skilled trapeze artist, flying several times a week, speaks Mandarin Chinese, and is married with one son. Now that's a well-rounded life!

The fourth lesson: CEO Mitchell has a simple yet powerful Vision for Firefox: safe & simple browsing. As it says in the book of Proverbs, Where there is no vision, we perish (29: 18). With Vision, Mitchell has the direction, ability and passion to lead and motivate others in the Firefox story. So Leadership & Vision is another lesson we can learn.

The fifth lesson is collaborative management style. It's quite evident that Mitchell is a Theory Y Manager. See also the Mozilla School of Management Simple Secrets of Successful Management.

In fact, a lesson in itself is that Mitchell uses a blog site, which gives output on what she's thinking and gets input on what others think.

It's not a bad idea; using blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 technologies to optimise communication, collaboration, meeting of minds and team-working.

The sixth lesson is that concerning motivation @ work. What motivates people? How does Mozilla motivate its thousands of volunteers around the globe? How might this apply to the more conventional working environment?

The simple answer is treat people like volunteers, who work because they want to, who are motivated not so much by money or position but by (a) the work itself, and the satisfaction that comes from doing a good job, (b) mutual recognition & respect from working colleagues, and (c) the camaraderie that comes from team-working with others in a shared vision.

Senior Management Guidance & Suport - is the seventh and final lesson. Mozilla has a Steering Committee which undertakes the top-management role of proactively carrying out the following:

Overall guidance.
Empowering people
Setting & monitoring progress for business goals
Tracking overall progress
Allocation & provision of resources
Overall co-ordination of activities
Spotting opportunities
Addressing strategic problem areas
Providing Leadership
Seeing the big picture

As Mitchell Baker says, senior management's job is to guide and support, then get out of the way and enable people to do theirs.

P.S.
CJB had occasion to visit the main hospital in Oxford recently, the John Radcliffe, and had a look at the application icons on the nurse's computer screens. The browser they were using was Mozilla Firefox.

Information Governance: I

2008-02-21T06:22:00.103Z

The big fuss in parliament over the lost DNA disc is about the risk to the UK public, as a result of vital information on criminal activities having been ignored.

It's the latest episode in a series of lost information catastrophes in government departments.

And there is a blame-game going on that may or may not get to the root of the problem: the need for effective Information Governance.

In this latest case, last year the Dutch Police sent a disc with 2,000 DNA profiles from crime scenes to the Crown Prosecution Service, to be checked against the UK's database. But the checks did not start until this month - and so far 15 matches have already been found. The Police are now urgently looking for the matching individuals suspected of serious and violent crimes.

What was the systemic reason for the failure? Is it true that the information was left in the desk of an official away on sick leave?

There is a parallel here with lost information in Financial Services, resulting in heavy fines and/or significant financial risk - and also financial losses for the UK public.

Even though every case involves Information Systems & Technology (IST), this is not about IST as such. It's about the overall system, the organisation, and the management of information; in fact it's about Information Governance.

Unfortunately, Information Governance in current parlance has a restricted meaning, in referring to the security & compliance issues. But this is only a sub-set (albeit a critical one), of a deeper need - the management of Information Itself in business organisations (as opposed to the library setting). This is what real Information Governance in business organisations is about!

It's similar to COBIT (Control Objectives for Information Technology), being wrongly described as IT Governance. It's not. Or at least, it's a restricted, security & compliance view of IT Governance (for a book on real IT Governance see Peter Weill & Jeanne Ross).

This is a fundamental problem with IST - too many misnomers!
It's a bit like Humpty Dumpty, who said "When I use a word . . . it means just what I choose it to mean". But getting back to Information Governance:

Is Information Itself a strategic resource?
Does it need to be managed as a strategic resource?
Would this make a difference to the type of losses mentioned?
What are the principles of Genuine Information Governance?

And so , in this first article on the subject, let's try to put down some Principles of Genuine Information Governance:

Information is a strategic resource - and it needs to be managed as such.
There needs to be a specific responsibility for managing Information Itself.
The responsibility for managing Information Itself must include that of managing Information Overload - InfoLoad - and its consequence of vital information lost & buried.
Information relevance is the paramount need for managers and organisations - and the primary goal in all information.
Information quality is dependent on the data from which it is formed - data quality.
Data quality - and security - is largely dependent, first, on the business process (has it been mapped collaboratively end-to-end to make it rapid & reliable?), and second, on the IST that supports the process.
Effective business process has seamless linkages both internally and externally to the organisation.
Optimising Information Net-Value (the value of information less its real & total cost), is the basic aim, in conjunction with information relevance, of Information Governance.
An Information Architecture, defining & describing (a) the main elements or entities of information, (b) their linkages across the organisation, (c) where the information elements reside and where used, and (d) the external interfaces, is mapped out and managed.
Security-sensitive and critical information needs to be tagged as such, in some form.

However, Genuine Information Governance is not about technology, as such. It's about governance, i.e. the overall management of Information Itself. So it might, for example, concern itself with collaboratively developing principles & policies concerning email practices, but not the detailed technology of alternatives such as wikis and blogs.

And it might be concerned with Information Lifecycle Management, Business Process Management and Customer Relationship Management in terms of principles & policies, but not the detailed technology or practice. Again it's governance, rather than management.

Any comments?

Senior Management Education

2008-02-17T15:03:00.065Z

The photo is about the Lloyds TSB card scheme at the 2012 Olympics. It was the lead story in the 14 Feb. Computing.

A letter from CJB was also printed about management education, in response to an article which had the key phrase:

There are no longer IT decisions; only business decisions.

In other words, IT is normal management. For example, HR and Finance are specialised functions, but every manager is still responsible for people and money - and IT. It can't be a separate hand-off. IT is normal business.

Getting back to the letter, it was interesting that the letter printed was quite different from the letter submitted - not that there would be much disagreement with the letter as printed - here it is:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tom Young's article Business must see IT as everyday task, is highly relevant to a core problem in Business with Information Systems & Technology (IST).

The initial issue is that people too often lack relevant information, have limited opportunity for knowledge sharing, are kept in pigeon-holes, are penalised for initiative, and are greatly under-used.

Secondly, IST is itself, also, greatly under-used.

Consequently, there is limited synergy between people & IST.

The place to start in addressing the core problem could well be to follow the philosophy presented in the editorial:

- Start with appropriate education for senior management people.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

What was omitted from the letter as submitted was that, if there are no longer IT decisions only business decisions, then every single manager needs to be Business-IT savvy.

This does not mean the point-and-click skills that Bill Gates talks about. What it means is - - that kind of wisdom which comes from a big-picture, integrated view of Business & IT.

And how would this savvy & wisdom come about? Well for starters, and what could make all the difference, would be the right kind of Business-IT education for senior management people!

However, and notwithstanding the omission, the editor of Computing came up with a better letter!

Any comments?
What do you think?

Information Overload Help: II

2008-02-04T19:54:00.011Z

It was recently announced that Intel has produced a microprocessor, that can contain two billion transistors; so Moore's Law continues.

Moore's Law says the number of transistors on a microchip doubles every two years.

So far, so good, for the computer scientists at Intel. But what are the implications for Information Overload and the users of business information?

Last month's first article on Information Overload, or InfoLoad, identified the main causes of the Information Tsunami breaking over the shores of business organisations, and into the Read & Do Baskets of already-overloaded business information users.

Now, with Intel's announcement and the implication that it will soon be more feasible to increase the deluge of information coming at us, seems a good time to address the second part of the InfoLoad issue - namely the Effects & Business Consequences of InfoLoad:

InfoLoad can have a hyper-stress effect on the InfoUser.
The sense of the stress is captured in Richard Wurman's book Information Anxiety. Literally & physically, InfoLoad can make you ill, impair your performance, (for example in decision-making and in reaction time), and shorten your life.
If there is one thing that we cannot waste today, it is time. In fact it can be a source of competitive advantage - or disadvantage. But that's what InfoLoad leads to; wasted time, because there is so much filtering, sorting and reading to do, and much of the InfoLoad is marginally useful information.
And Bacon's Law: bad information drives out good. That is, the really relevant and critical information gets buried and lost. You're in a meeting and have to acknowledge you weren't aware of a key piece of information - it got lost in the pile. Or that vital information needed for complying with regulatory requirements - it somehow got lost in the shuffle.
It makes us lose focus and stray from what's important.
We get mesmerised and, in trying to stay abreast and catch up with the pile of information, we lose sight of key goals & objectives.
Lastly, InfoLoad wastes money. January's article on InfoLoad made the point that one of the causes is the assumption that information is a free good. But it isn't!

One of the latest trends in computer operations is virtualisation of servers and memory which, through clever software sitting above the operating system, frees up a lot of the space currently used. But this, and any other technology, is only putting off the day of reckoning, because storage volume requirements are at least doubling every three years.

There is so much information clogging up hardware resources that organisations are running out of space and money to store all this information, having to buy more and more hardware.

And yet, hardware is only the tip of the ice berg. The real waste is in the waste of human resouces in producing and maintaining the less-than-useful information that makes up much of the InfoLoad Mountain.

Next month we'll start looking at key remedies
for addressing InfoLoad.

In the meantime, do you have any war stories concerning Information Overload, or do you have ideas that might possibly help?

Share Prices & IT

2008-01-22T10:01:00.000Z

As share prices and the stock market head south, and as companies hunker down to survive the down cycle, there may be few that realise the impact that corporate IT can have on share price and survival.

In the short term, financial markets are largely driven by emotion. But in the medium to long term they are driven by fundamentals such as profitability & growth, which is where IT comes in.

Take Standard Life, for example, the Edinburgh based life & pensions company.

Last year, in 2007, Operating profit shot up by 71% and new business grew by 31%, after the company started to focus seriously (a couple of years ago), on achieving the promise & potential in IT.

Another example is British Airways (BA) whose return to financial health is largely due to its corporate IT, and particularly its customer-reaching e-ticketing and e-check-in sysem

But Standard Life and BA are not isolated cases. There are other examples of business organisations ramping up performance through IT. MIT's Centre for Information Systems Research, for example, has a number of studies showing the connection between IT performance and business performance.

The main point is this:
If the promise & potential of IT were achieved in business organisations it would (ceteris paribus), have a significant impact on satisfacion, value and purpose, with this impact being shown @ the bottom line in profitability, growth, and shareholder returns.

In the case of Standard life, the company turnaround came largely through the following.

A change of mental models, as for example in the 'traditional' separation between Business on the one hand, and IT on the other. Everyone started speaking the same language.
Close collaboration & synergy between IT specialists and Business client/users. In fact IT people got out into the business areas and worked alongside their client/users, with the third party in the equation being the customer - what might be referred to as Synergy Circles.
Business process re-design (BPR), which has a lot to do with total quality management (TQM), to squeeze out the parts that add cost and take time, and optimise the parts that add customer value and cut time.
Lean/agile development, which is the IT version of BPR, re-designing the development & support processes so as to be lean & mean and rapidly responsive.
A flexible/integrated IT architecture, which enabled rapid response to business needs.

But the secret ingredient as it were, in all of this, in any organisation that wishes to fulfil the promise and potential of IT, is senior management if not Board active involvement & support.

After all, if IT really does have the promise and potential to significantly impact profitability and growth, then the need for senior management if not Board active involvement & support, is evident.

Do you have experience with IT making a difference
to business performanc?
What, in your view, were the key things that made it happen?

Change & Rapid Response

2008-01-13T19:05:00.007Z

Martin Fowler is one of those rare people who combine deep knowledge of information technology with the ability to write lucid articles about Business with IT.

His article The New Methodology, posted on his web site, which is about Agile Computing, is for anyone seeking an easy read on new ways of responding rapidly to changing business needs.

In today's rapidly changing and Black Swan environment, a Critical Success Factor (CSF), is how to get rapid IT response in the real world of changing Business-Client needs - which is often driven by changes in the external, competitive, sociological and regulatory environment.

That is, in addition to pro-active changes for innovation through IT.

The interesting thing is that rapid response is not (apart from a flexible/integrated enterprise architecture), about technology.

Rapid response is about people synergy. In other words, the key to meeting the Business-IT CSF of rapid response is effective collaboration between business managers and IT people.

Yet it's unlikely you'll get this without Theory Y management (which is much simpler than it sounds), as described in one of the most important books on management, and is a must-read book:
The Human Side of Enterprise, by the late Douglas McGregor.

What's needed is a Theory Y Culture, both in IT and in the organisation as a whole, if there is to be rapid IT response to business change.

This is demonstrated by another lucid writer on Businesss with IT, Alistair Cockburn, who says (in a highly interesting article), that project success depends on people characteristics, that is, more than methodology or project discipline.

For example, minimalist documentation works best (especially if you have self-documenting code), because heavy documentation is a burden and a chore, and slows down the project, even causing it to fail. Besides, it won't be used, because people don't trust it and prefer to "look around".

Finally the Client/User, notwithstanding business responsibilities, may need to embrace a role as Business Information Systems (BIS) Designer, not just Specifier. This, instead of getting more point-and-click skills, is more likely to add value for the Client/User, and the business.

P.S.
In coal-face systems, it may be well to bring the external customer into the equation as well, to form a Synergy Circle.

What are your experience & thoughts on this?
What are the issues in getting rapid,
if not pro-active & innovative response, to business change?

Competitive Advantage & IT

2008-01-07T23:42:00.000Z

Paul Otelellini, head of Intel, says that more powerful mobile devices with Wimax connection will deliver a more personal internet within five years.

And Bill Gates, head of Microsoft, says that the human-computer interface (HCI), or the way people interact with computers will change dramatically, and within five years the keyboard and mouse will become obsolete.

Not only that, but so will the desk-top become redundant, as we all migrate to more mobile working & computing.

Perhaps no surprises with any of this, but what has it to do with
Competitive Advantage & IT?

One of the big debates in Business with Information Systems & Technology is this: Should (a) innovative applications of IT be used to achieve competitive advantage, or (b) business strategy be supported by innovative applications of IT?

For example, suppose you are a CIO, a Project Manager, or other IT Manager, seeking to exceed client/user expectations. Should you be looking for innovative ways (e.g. XML and the Asus Eee PC) of using IT for reduced cost, added value or customer benefit?

Or suppose you are a business manager or executive, pursuing a new or improved product, service or business process. Should you be turning to your IT advisors for advice on how best to achieve this with innovative ways of using IT?

In other words, from which direction should the initiative come; from Business or from IT? This is what the debate is about:
Achieving competitive advantage with IT - whose job is it?

Perhaps there is no debate. Perhaps innovation & initiative with and through IT should come pro-actively & collaboratively from both directions. Therefore, what are the organisation structures, culture and development processes like; do they encourage this collaboration?

But there's a third party ; present or prospective external customers; how are they brought into into the picture? Case studies in the use of IT for competitive advantage tell us that collaboration with and through this third party, the external customer, can be vital.

Getting back to (a) better work-mobility through & with IT, and (b) better Human Computer Interface/Interaction, should the seemingly inevitable changes be seen and used pro-actively for competitive advantage, and if so, by whom and how?

We have new/improved information & communications technology (ICT) coming down the road; how might we put it to good use? We're developing this new/improved product, service or business process; how might we use ICT innovatively for competitive advantage?

The changes forecasted by Paul Otellini and Bill Gates may not be surprising, and therefore not leading and especially not bleeding edge technology. But they do provide opportunities for achieving competitive advantage with IT/ICT, and achieving this depends on the good use of people, organisation and management.

The bottom line is this:
Competitive advantage with IT is not necessarily achieved through the use of leading or bleeding edge technology.
It is often achieved
- through innovative ideas for existing technology,
and this is down to synergy in people, organisation and management.

Nonetheless, knowing what new technology is coming down the road
- and knowing how you are going to use it before it becomes available, can give serious competitive advantage.

What's your experience of using IT innovatively?
What's your opinion?

Information OverLoad Help: I

2008-01-04T22:00:00.001Z

This year, 2008, may be
The Year of Information Overload,
rather than new technology.

Because, in this competitive, global-village, information-based, IT-enabled economy in which we work, organisations are Information Factories, giving, grinding and getting more and more information.

It seems to be increasing at a geometric rate, and we're not just talking about information available via the Web.

What are the real costs of Information Overload or InfoLoad where, for example, we have hundreds of incoming emails arriving daily, with every probability that this will increase in 2008?

It would be one thing if all this information were relevant, reliable and rapid, but a large part of it is not, and lacking in real value.

It's not what this Part 1 on Information Overload Help is about, but what might be needed is an Information Resource & Knowledge Manager, who would, as a key responsibility, act to cut InfoLoad. Such an overall responsibility may happen when InfoLoad reaches a tipping point, when the high cost of irrelevant and poor quality information is uncovered.

Until then, there are things that might be done, starting with a recognition of the Five General Causes of InfoLoad:

1. The View of Information as a Free Good
When you give or get an email, telephone call, written report or letter, or have a meeting, it's costing you and the other person(s) time and therefore money. It's not free, so is it relevant & required? What's the purpose? Can it be made shorter, or more structured, so as to be easier to process? In fact, is it needed?

For example, do you ever give or get something along the lines of "you might find this interesting", or turgid, complex, Victorian Novel type of letters that need to be read three times? What can you do about this?

2. Ritualistic & Indiscriminate Information-Giving
Does this happen in your organisation; the organisational version of Junk Mail? Can you influence it? What about your external and internal customers; does the information you give and they get provide net value both ways? Is there a need to audit the Information Net-Value
of routine internal & external information flows?

3. Lack of Explicit Goals & Objectives (EGOs)
There should be a purpose, goal, or objective in getting and giving information, and the more explicit it is, the better. It's likely that, of those hundreds of emails you send/receive, many have questionable value. Is there a need for a short course and/or dialogue on Giving & Getting Email?

However, it's also business information systems and business processes where the real, ingrained InfoLoad is lurking, and where explicit goals & objectives (EGOs) in information may need to be assessed. For every information flow that you receive and send, you may need to ask: what purpose is served; what's the added value?

4. Everything but the Kitchen Sink
Often, we get and give much more information than is really needed. This is because the Information System has the functionality to give it to us, and so we're given everything but the kitchen sink. That is, everything we need, and then some. The user/client might have a need for this information, so let's give it them. The Technology Tail is wagging the Business Dog.

The evidence is that giving 'em the kitchen sink, and thus bringing about InfoLoad, has a negative impact on decision making quality.
So again, we might consider Information Net-Value.

5. Ineffective Organisation
This asks whether:

The individual knowledge worker, manager and executive
is effectively organised.
The business organisation itself is effective and fit for purpose in its structure and culture.
Business Information systems are aligned & integrated.
Business processes avoid duplication and make-work.
Data is integrated, administered and managed effectively.

As examples of evident remedies, InfoLoad is much less of a problem if you're personaly organised. And the organisation is effective and fit for purpose if bureaucracy is minimised.

In Part 2 we'll look at the Effects of InfoLoad,
and in Parts 3 & 4 we shall take a better look at Remedies.

In the meantime:
What's your experience with InfoLoad?
What are the big causes of it for you?

Does IT Really Matter?

2007-12-28T16:35:00.000Z

Did IT (information technology) really matter for you in the past year, in 2007?
Will IT matter for you in 2008?

Did it matter to you, for example, that Microsoft (above left) came out with Vista, its latest operating system, aimed at improving system security?

Did it or might it matter to you that Intel (above right) came out with a replacement for silicon, the metal hafnium, aimed at improving its processor performance?

If you have read the book Does IT Matter?: Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage, you'd know that former editor of the Harvard Business Review, Nicholas G. Carr believes that IT does not matter; it's just a commodity.

What really matters, according to authors Howard Smith & Peter Fingar, is not so much information technology as Business Process Management.

This site takes the view that, although both IT and business process management matter a lot, what really matters, in using IT to achieve satisfaction, value and purpose in business, are people, organisation and management.

And what matters most of all is that mystical thing called Synergy.

Synergy, in the present context, is where you get:
1. People
2. Organisation
3. Management
4. Business Process
5. Information & Communications Technology
6. Development, acquisition & support of information systems
7. Data

- All combining emergently to provide Information Net-Value
to people, the organisation, and customers.

In other words, it's a holistic, or systemic approach that's needed.

At least, that's what they say in the book Making the Invisible Visible: How Companies Win with the Right Information, People and IT, by Donald Marchand et al.

For example, how do People think about IT:
- Problem oriented or customer-value oriented?
- In the box or out of the box?
- Cutting costs or getting value?
- Their problem or our problem?
- Wants or needs?
- Tactical tool or strategic resource?

In terms of Organisation, what kind of barriers are there between business managers and IT advisors, and how is the organisation set up to get real value from IT?

And what are the causes in the sensational security failures we read about, is it the Information Technology (which it might be), or is it Business Process Management?

So, yes, IT does matter, as has been shown in a number of studies.

However, people, organisation and management, in using IT to achieve satisfaction, value and purpose in business, would seem to be more critical than IT itself. These are the things that really matter.

What do you think; what matters most,
in achieving satisfaction, value and purpose with IT?

Angela & the Baby Jesus

2007-12-21T23:44:00.001Z

The story of Angela and the Baby Jesus, by Frank McCourt, is a heart-touching, modern Nativity Story about a six-year old Irish girl, Angela, who thinks that the baby Jesus must be freezing in the Christmas crib, in church.

She decides to steal him from the crib, and take him through the dark, damp and deeply-cold streets of Dublin, back to her bed, to make Him warm.

Angela gets into trouble with the authorities of course, in the form of her father, the policeman, and the priest, who have little sympathy for Angela's good intentions.

Perhaps they needed a little more understanding, patience, kindness, gentleness, forgiveness, joy and love; all those things that make up the Spirit of Christmas.

In this Christmas season of 2007, and since this is a discussion site about modern technology in business; its people, organisation and management issues, it seems fitting to include this brief reference to a modern Nativity Story.

May the Spirit of Christmas be with us all this Christmas
and in the coming year.

Feliz Navidad; Happy Christmas.

Should U Facebook?

2007-12-21T08:06:00.000Z

Social networking through Facebook, MySpace, and relative newcomers such as Yuwie, can represent a heavy use of time, and people who use these sites may need to evaluate the cost v. benefit of using them.

There is a strong connection between (a) information, (b) time, and (c) money. How do we use our time, and other people's, in getting, grinding and giving information?

Does the time and implicitly the money we spend in using and processing information through Facebook add Information Net-Value
to our lives and other people's? Could we use Information and Time more usefully?

And what is Information for? Is it:

For decision-making, as university textbooks assume.
Simply for knowledge work.
For taking some kind of action.
For social exchange & satisfaction, as implicit with Facebook.

Or is it for all these reasons, and more?

Whatever the reason and purpose for getting, grinding and giving information (Facebook being a notable example), is it worth it?

In fact there is a connection between (a) the Information we get, grind and give, (b) our use of Time, (c) the Money we spend (directly or indirectly), in buying and using IT, and (d) the Net Value we get, in some form or another, at the end of it all.

And what is IT (Information Technology) for? Same as above? The fact is that IT (or ICT - information & communications technology), and the use we make of it - such as Facebook, is a double-edged sword.

ICT can save work, and make work.
It can enable things we couldn't do before, and it can make us do things we didn't have to do before.
ICT enables information which may, or may not, be useful.
It can help in making things easier, and can make things harder.
It can light up our life in networking with other people, or blight our life in adding stress and information overload.
We can spend time & money on it usefully, or uselessly.
It can reduce risk, or lead to increased risk.

We might therefore say that the social life of ICT-enabled information almost always has an upside and a downside to it.

The negative-net-value in Facebook Addiction (with its implications for social, moral and productivity issues in using a social networking site during business hours), is a further example of the downside.

So this article is not just about Facebook Addiction, nor is it about Should you get paid to Facebook?

What this article is really about is: Information Net-Value.
So, should U Facebook?

What do you think; should U Facebook?

Bill Gates Has IT Wrong!

2007-12-16T17:46:00.001Z

Bill Gates has got IT wrong! At least, Bill Gates is dangerously half-right, in telling us that IT skills are undervalued.

IT skills are obviously important, but the challenge in business and government organisations is not the technology itself, but how to use it usefully.

Point & cllick is not where it ends, it's where it begins.

When Bill Gates went before government and business leaders in Edinburgh he gave us a Christmas present of the great man's thoughts on the skills you need to succeed in business. Was he right? It seems that everyone thinks so, judging by the enthusiastic support he received from his audience, and responses received on the BBC website.

According to Mr Gates, what we need to do, to impact productivity and profit, and enhance value and satisfaction in business life (if not life itself), is to acquire these IT skills.

But according to the 500 UK business leaders surveyed by Microsoft earlier this year, the things we need first and foremost are skills such as team working, interpersonal skills, initiative, verbal communication and analysing & problem-solving. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Microsoft survey concluded: computer knowledge 'undervalued'.

This is what Bill Gates himself said about software innovation:
"Software innovation, like almost every other innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs".

Which points to the conclusion that, in order to get innovative software products, the pre-eminent skills needed are things like team working, interpersonal skills, initiative, verbal communication and analysing & problem-solving!

Another group of senior executives who also seem to disagree with Mr Gates are the 650 senior executives surveyed in the 2007 survey of Technology Issues for Financial Executives. They said that Joining Up Business and IT (or Business-IT Alignment as they call it), is the paramount issue. Training Staff in New IT Skills, in fact, comes in at No. 16 on the list.

What's more important for these executives, below the No. 1 issue of joined-up Business-IT, are things like getting dialogue between Business and IT, improving business processes, prioritising IT investments, and achieving the expected benefits from IT.

Interestingly, at No. 14 in the Top 20, just ahead of Training Staff in New IT Skills, is Educating Senior Management on the Value of IT. So the point and click stuff, while important, is not where it's at for these business leaders.

The reason why Bill Gates is dangerously half right is that there is nothing more deceiving, nothing more likely to get our focus wrong and prevent us from winning, than a half-truth. If, for example, a business spends money on the latest version of a software product or business system and it fails to satisfy (and the majority do fail to satisfy), what is likely to have gone wrong?

The operation was successful (we got the technology right), but the patient died. There are three fundamentals that are likely to have gone wrong but which must, imperatively, be got right for business if not society itself, to harness the true value of IT. And it's not rocket science. These three fundamentals are:
- people
- organisation
- management.

Which may have resonance for Aussies & Kiwis as it give us POM!
Never mind about enhanced IT skills. First get the POM right in thinking about and developing and acquiring IT. Then productivity and profit, together with enhanced value and satisfaction in business life, is more likely to follow.

What do you think; has Bill Gates got IT wrong?