How Sustainable is Your IT Portfolio?

Posted on January 17, 2008 by Vaughan Merlyn

  My post Project vs. Program vs. Portfolio back on October 15, 2007, continues to be the most popular post on my blog, day after day.  Given that, I feel compelled to drill down further into this topic.  Today, I will address IT Portfolio Management, which is at the heart and soulof leveraging IT for [...]

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Elevating Business Demand Maturity – Victim or Leader?

Posted on January 16, 2008 by Vaughan Merlyn

  I’ve touched on this theme in several posts, but I feel it’s time to call it out: don’t be a victim – be a leader!  I’m moved to get back into this because I continue to hear IT professionals bemoan the fact that “Our business partners just don’t want to use IT to innovate [...]

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Business-IT Maturity and the Trap of “Walled-off Resources”

Posted on January 15, 2008 by Vaughan Merlyn

I was consulting for a client recently, and they used the term “walled-off” resources to describe IT professionals who were dedicated to specific business units.  (As an aside, when I first heard them using this term, I thought they were saying “Waldorf resources” and could not imagine what this meant!)  Anyway, I think the principle [...]

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Six Sigma and Process Innovation

Posted on January 14, 2008 by Vaughan Merlyn

  The Enterprise Leadership site posted a nice piece on ITIL and Six Sigma back in December, and more recently on Getting Six Sigma Right.  I want to reflect on this, and expand on my own post a while back which discussed IT Improvement versus Breakthrough. Quality guru W. Edwards Deming said you can focus [...]

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Chasing Perfection?

Posted on January 11, 2008 by Vaughan Merlyn

Mark Runta posted recently on the question Are You Chasing Perfection?  He asks an important question, and makes a powerful point. I see many IT organizations that, in the interests in getting from Business-IT Maturity Level 1 to Level 2, try for perfection, and elimination of any possible risk.  This becomes one of the sticking [...]

Filed under: IS Management, IT Maturity | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

Wecome Back, Information Center – All Is Forgiven!

Posted on January 10, 2008 by Vaughan Merlyn

  Earlier in my consulting and research career, especially in the early-1980′s to mid-1990′s, an IT organizational construct typically called “The Information Center” became popular in medium to large enterprises.  The philosophy behind the Information Center (IC) could be captured in a single phrase, “teach them to fish so they’ll feed themselves for a lifetime.” [...]

Filed under: Demand Maturity, IS Management, IT Infrastructure, IT Management, IT Maturity | Tagged: , , , , | 4 Comments »

Business-IT Maturity Lessons from Capital Markets

Posted on January 9, 2008 by Vaughan Merlyn

I had a conversation yesterday with my colleague Tom Steinthal as part of my Reaching Level 3 research.  Tom has spent his working life at the cutting edge of financial services/capital markets – a space where business-IT maturity is very high – in fact, it is a requirement for survival!  I was trying to draw [...]

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IT Mission versus Vision

Posted on January 8, 2008 by Vaughan Merlyn

  I posted yesterday on how IT organizational mission changes with business-IT maturity – both in terms of satisfying an evolving demand and in shaping that demand.  In other words, as form follows function, organizational capabilities (and corresponding organizational design) follows IT organizational mission.  Typically, a change in IT capabilities or organization implies a need for, or [...]

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Business-IT Maturity and Change in Organizational Mission

Posted on January 7, 2008 by Vaughan Merlyn

As I’ve been researching human and organizational development for BSG Concours’s Reaching Level 3 multi-client research, I was reminded of the role of organizational “mission” as frequently expressed through some form of mission statement.   I’ve done a lot of work over the years (both research and consulting) on IT organizational change and transformation, much of [...]

Filed under: Demand Maturity, IS Management, IT Infrastructure, IT Management, IT Maturity, Supply Maturity | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Business-IT Maturity and Human Development Archetypes

Posted on January 4, 2008 by Vaughan Merlyn

  My post yesterday suggested that human development might be a useful metaphor for Business-IT Maturity.  In particular, we might imagine the parallels between physical, cognitive, social and economic development.  We might apply these developmental dimensions to both business maturity with information technology, and to the maturity of the IT organization.  This gives us both [...]

Filed under: Demand Maturity, IS Management, IT Management, IT Maturity, Supply Maturity | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

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