IT and Your Health

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

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

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:

1. Senior management governance & involvement.
2. Join up Business and IT.
3. See the Big Picture.
4. Assure & test the end-to-end business process.
5. 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

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:

1. Use the Software
   Make sure you have the best system for email overload.
   Turn off the Alert.
   Use the Spam Filter.
   
2. 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.
   
3. 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.
   
4. 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.
   
5. 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?
   
6. 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.
7. 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

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

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

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

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?

1. It's being greatly enabled by the advances in telecommunication and human-computer interface (HCI) technologies.
2. It enables a more cost-effective organisation.
3. It facilitates quicker & easier networking.
4. 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.
   
5. It means that people on the go in this Global Village can stay in touch and keep the pot boiling.
   
6. 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).
7. 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.