CIO Role in Digital Transformation

Dateline: June 26, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. As cloud-based apps increase in capability, relevancy and functionality, IT leaders are increasingly concerned that their business partners will move away from internal IT systems and embrace these external solutions.  According to a column written by IT Strategic Advisor and … [Read more...]

What CIOs can Learn From Nordstrom’s Digital Transformation

Dateline: June 19, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. Retail giant Nordstrom's has undergoing a digital transformation.  Researchers Jeanne Ross, Cynthia Beath and Ina Sebastian from the MIT Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) published an article in the Harvard Business Review titled, Why Nordstrom's Digital Strategy … [Read more...]

The Brand of Your IT Department

Dateline: June 12, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. This week's idea is functional branding...the reputation your IT organization has in your business.  Doron Gordon, an entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Samanage, a provider of cloud-based IT service  management systems, wrote about functional branding in a blog at … [Read more...]

Bots or Humans?

Dateline: June 5, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. A recent article at Information Week, Bots Outpace Humans Online, reported on a study by Distil Networks that humans were responsible for only 41% of the traffic online.  Good bots, those who add value to the site, and bad bots make up the rest. In 2013, human beings were … [Read more...]

NASA’s 20-year Technology Roadmap

Dateline: May 29, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. Recently NASA released it's technology roadmap for space exploration for the next 20 years.  While most of us have difficulty putting together plans for 5 years, NASA must plan that far out in order to create the future. Roadmaps are a set of documents that consider a wide range … [Read more...]

Designing for IT Service Delivery Not Hierarchical Efficiency

Dateline: May 22, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. Shifting chairs around on a sinking ship does nothing to stop the root cause of the ship's problem: sinking.  Likewise, moving boxes around on an org chart does nothing to stop the root cause of bad IT service delivery.  Recently I ran across a blog that nicely laid out this … [Read more...]

Design Mistakes of IT Organizational Structure

Dateline: May 15, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. In updating my textbook on Managing and Using Information: A Strategic Approach, I came across an interested blog post by author Lex Sisney titled The 5 Classic Mistakes in Organizational Structure. In this must read post, Lex shares his take on mistakes he's seen that get in the … [Read more...]

The Value of an Analytics Competency

Dateline: May 8, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. Understanding the value your analytics investment bring to your organization is a complex matter.  Recently, I ran across a short summary at INFORMS of the different areas that might be included in the value calculation: Big data Finding hidden clues to improve customer … [Read more...]

Leading IT Projects: Knowing when to Speed Up and when to Slow Down

Dateline: May 1, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. How fast can IT make something happen?  In most organizations it's never fast enough.  "Slow" is not the adjective we want associated with IT (or for that matter, with any process).   However, to minimize risks and project failure, projects must go slow enough to insure … [Read more...]

It’s the People who Make or Break Project Success

Dateline: April 24, 2015 Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend. Professors Fabian J. Sting, Christoph H. Loch and Roto Frank Head of Engineering Dirk Stempfhuber recently published an article in Sloan Management Review titled, Accelerating Projects by Encouraging Help, that highlights the importance of managing behavioral issues as much as … [Read more...]