Comments on: Financial Forensics as a Clue to Dysfunctional IT

By: Dysfunctional IT « A Dime a Dozen Small Business, Tech and Talk

Dysfunctional IT « A Dime a Dozen Small Business, Tech and Talk — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:11:14 +0000

[...] SMB, SME, business, process, technology | Tags: Vaughan Merlyn | The following quote by Vaughan Merlyn is geared towards large [...]

By: Lack of Accountability: Who’s Dirty Little Secret? « IT Organization Circa 2017

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:07:40 +0000

[...] for those that try. If you are interested in this topic, please check out my recent posts: Financial Forensics as a Clue to Dysfunctional IT, and Measuring the Business Value of IT – Where You Can Win By Simply [...]

By: NewssyLee

NewssyLee — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:07:18 +0000

Thanks to you

By: itorganization2017

itorganization2017 — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:34:51 +0000

Good clarification, Esteban. It takes two to tango! I’ve often said, “businesses get the IT they deserve,” and I believe the corollary is equally true, “IT gets the business leadership and engagement it deserves.” I never see IT supply and business demand maturities get too far out of whack. There’s always the natural governor in that if demand gets too far ahead, there’s eventually a change of CIO. Similarly, if supply gets too far ahead, there’s eventually a change of CIO!

Companies who are successfully exploiting change in the world, have found a virtuous cycle, where good IT begets good business which begets good IT, and so on. IT steps up to the plate with increased transparency and accountability, which encourages complementary behaviors from the business.

By: NovaSphere Blog

NovaSphere Blog — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:01:35 +0000

Vaughan, while I agree with your analysis, I just want to point out that the business is rarely the only guilty party.

In this case, we agree on the evidence 100%, but based on my experience doing similar work, I tend to find a different culprit, or at least a heavily involved co-conspirator:

The business may misbehave regarding IT as you indicate above, but most IT shops fight like mad against portfolio management because it brings with it–shock!!–accountability and transparency.

The two most successful portfolio management engagements I worked on were both driven by regulatory threat. It was comply or die. In the process, we “snuck in” the real value of managing an IT portfolio well.

In most other cases, attention to portfolio management from IT itself has often been ceremonial. IT needs to take portfolio management seriously, fund it, pay attention to it, show it off to the business…or it will find itself with a “guilty” verdict when the detective work is truly done!

By: itorganization2017

itorganization2017 — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:10:52 +0000

I agree completely – thanks for adding your observation. In my client work, when we draw a normative IT capability model, we typically show the primary “value chain” of Discover, Deliver, and Support as the central construct, enabled by Operate, Source and Manage underneath, and governed/aligned by Customer Relationships, Portfolio, and Enterprise Architecture above. i.e., we see EA and Portfolio, plus Customer Relationship Management as the key governing/aligning mechanisms. It is this combination of the 3 that provides the strongest possible alignment. Even then, to your point, without good cost history, the value of all these alignment mechanisms is degraded. So we encourage our clients to get serious about measurement – inputs, outputs and outcomes – as a key learning mechanism.

Thanks for your observation, Jerome!

By: mots

mots — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:41:22 +0000

Vaughan,

I agree with your diagnostic, without an enterprise-wide prioritization and system, optimization takes place at BU level.

A strong portfolio management process is ideal. But, often, full costs are difficult to be calculated without a good cost history, and then project costs are difficult to be planned.

Another prioritization system which may complement the previous is Enterprise Architecture which plan with an Enterprise-wide view projects, then Strategy, roadmap, vision, balance the weakness of Full costs system.

Regards

Jerome Capirossi
http://enta.wordpress.com