Monthly Archives: September 2010

How Agile is Your IT Organization? How Do You Know?


It’s becoming increasingly important for IT organizations to be adept at rapidly and easily incorporating new technologies and methods in to the way the IT organization operates.  Given that many of the emerging technologies that are marketed based upon their claimed ‘speed to value’ are available directly to the business without the apparent need of the IT organization’s involvement (the vendors claim!), it is even more important that IT leaders understand the issues involved in becoming more agile.

The factors that enable this quality are the subject of a research project I’m currently involved in through my affiliation with Formicio.  The aim of the research is to identify the factors that make IT organizations agile and recommend how agility can be developed as a core capability.

Research Opportunity – And it’s Free!

I’d really appreciate you and your colleagues participation in this research by completing a survey here – it should take about 30 minutes to complete and I believe you will find the questions stimulating.

In return for your help we will prepare your Agility Signature based upon the results and provide comparisons with those of other companies. Should several of your colleagues also complete the survey – which is encouraged – we will give feedback on the extent to which your thinking is aligned.  There is no cost for participating in the first phase, nor commitment to participate in later stages of the research; we simply need the data to identify patterns and correlate practices with perceived levels of agility.

All information provided will be treated in the strictest confidence and will not be disclosed to any third party. When the results are presented, it will not be possible to identify any organization or participant in the research.

Details can also be found at http://www.formicio.com/research/index.html

I hope that you and your colleagues will be able to get involved in this exciting research.

Graphic courtesy of the Crackdown Wiki

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Unsure of Yourself? – Debate the Trivial!


Thanks to my colleague Roy Youngman for suggesting the theme of this (very short) post when we were comparing notes on past consulting clients.  Our discussion was about why some are so satisfying to work with while others can be so frustrating.  By the way, as I write this I am well aware of the tendency for consultants to sometimes engage in “client bashing.”  I became aware of this early in my consulting career, and was mentored early on by a very seasoned consultant who was always quick to recognize this behavior, and came down on it quickly and forcefully.

This client has shown trust in us and has engaged us to help them.  Complaining about them behind their backs is not helpful and can be potentially disruptive.  Any time you say “The client just doesn’t get it!” you are pointing to your own inadequacy in helping the client to ‘get it.’  So stop bitching and figure out how to help the client!”

A Caricature of Frustrating Client Behavior

This is a caricature of the kinds of discussion and debate we sometimes witness in our less mature clients.  The specifics are fictional – the general tone is real!

Consultant: “This is the role interaction model we are suggesting for the points of engagement between business demand and IT supply – where your Relationship Managers, Business Architects, and Solution Managers interact with their business executives to surface or explore new opportunities.”

Client Executive #1:  “I think the arrowheads should be larger!”

Client Executive #2:  “I’m not so sure about that – I was thinking they should be smaller!”

The meeting continues and becomes increasingly heated, often veering way off track.  The meeting (which started late) never produces any clarity around this important issue.  The 40 minutes of actual time we can wring out of a scheduled 1-hour meeting surfaces no light – just heat, as trivial and largely irrelevant issues get debated, while the important questions are dodged or swept under the table.  The meeting wraps up with an acknowledgment of the need to schedule more time to get into this important topic.  Unfortunately, the ‘important topic’ in question is the size of the arrow heads!

Of course, this is a caricature, and in some respects an exaggeration of the specifics.  And you could fault the consultant in this case for allowing the dialog to go so far off track.  But in many ways, it is real.  We have found time and time again, that clients who are unsure of themselves around a given topic will sometimes be quick to debate trivial points, sometimes ad nauseum, rather than wrestle with the real issue.  Over the weeks we are working with this type of client, significant chunks of otherwise productive time are wasted on trivial debates as a means of deflection and obfuscation.

Are You Debating the Trivial?

What proportion of your management discussions are around issues of significance rather than the trivial?  How does this tendency impact overall IT performance?  What can you do to change the behaviors underlying this dysfunctionality?

Image courtesy of Amrit Williams Blog

Portland’s Street People and Well-Managed IT Organizations


Yes – I can connect the unlikely subjects in this blog’s title.  But bear with me a few sentences to set the context.

I recently posted on my time in Portland, Oregon, and my love for the city.  I also mentioned the anomalous ‘street people’ scene.  Portland is so squeaky clean and seemingly well-run, and yet it seems to tolerate a thriving street person scene – some bordering on aggressive pan handling.  I personally never felt threatened by this, but it was strange that these misfits are so tolerated.

From Portand’s Streets…

A recent Portland Tribune front page article asked, “Would Rudy Giuliani Put Up With This?” under a picture of a lavishly tattooed street person sitting in front of a rather blunt epithet I won’t quote on this blog.  The article recounted the history behind the remarkable street and crime clean-up that took place under Rudy’s watch.  The article said:

Then, in 1994, Police Chief William Bratton and Mayor Rudy Giuliani, within a matter of months instituted Draconian measures that changed the (New York) street culture in ways that remain in place today.”

The article goes on to recount:

Bratton, who initially led the transit police, first cracked down on subway turnstile jumpers and panhandlers – arresting them.  In the process, they found that many of those arrested had outstanding warrants for more serious crimes.  Making quality-of-life arrests on the subway reversed the momentum of declining ridership… and created a momentum that allowed law-abiding New Yorkers to reclaim public transportation.”

…to IT Meetings

So, what’s the connection to well-managed IT organizations?  I’ve noticed over years of consulting that well-run IT organizations pay attention to the apparently small things – such as the discipline around scheduling and running meetings.  Meetings start and end on time, have pre-published agendas, published results, with action items and assignments.  They make sure meetings are necessary and productive, and that the right people (and only, the right people) are there.

Yes, I know we all tend to complain about “too many meetings.”  But the reality is, for knowledge workers (yes, that’s us) meetings are an important part of our work.

IT Leaders Model the Culture They Want

IT cultures are set from the top.  When the CIO and the IT leadership team pay attention to meeting discipline – modeling excellent behaviors, and calling out sloppy meeting behaviors – just like turnstile jumping, people pay attention, discipline increases, and everyone benefits.  On the other hand, when turnstile jumpers are tolerated – i.e., sloppy meetings are taken as ok, then discipline around all sorts of behaviors degrades, and IT performance drops.  I guess there’s an analogy with ‘quality of life crime.’  Being late for a meeting is not a ‘crime’.  But in terms of its impact on organizational cohesion and performance, it’s a ‘quality of organizational life crime.’  So is a lack of clear roles and accountabilities.  So is an ‘entitlement culture’ where poor performers are tolerated.

Like a well-run ship (sorry, too many analogies here!) a well run IT organization is disciplined at the most fundamental level.  It’s a manifestation of mutual respect and collective accountability.  When I turn up late for a meeting at which I’m needed and expected, I am disrespecting my colleagues.  The ones that show up at the appointed time sit there twiddling their thumbs.  It’s as if the message I want to send is, “My time is so valuable I couldn’t be here on time – and all your time is so worthless, it’s no problem if y’all sit there waiting for me.”

And, of course, late meetings beget late meetings – these things escalate.  I’m always bemused and angered when a plane is late “Due to a late arrival of the inbound flight” like that’s a valid excuse.  As an Atlantan, most of my flying over the years has been on Delta.  Each time they announce this excuse, it’s as if they are denying any culpability in the late flight.  “It wasn’t our fault – it was the damn inbound flight you should blame!”  Or, “The ground crew is not all here yet!”  So, I wonder, who was responsible for the late inbound flight?  Yep – Delta!

Enough ranting.  You get the point.  If you want to do a ‘quick and dirty’ IT Capability Maturity assessment, look no further than at how well you run IT meetings – including starting and ending on time.  As goes the meeting discipline, so goes the IT capability performance – and the credibility you have with and value perceived by your business partners!

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Account Teams and Business-IT Relationship Management


I’ve posted quite frequently on this blog about the role of the Business-IT Relationship Manager. It’s a key role – crucial, in fact, at mid-levels of Business-IT maturity.  It’s a role that typically does not work well at lower maturity, yet is essential to reaching higher maturity. It’s also a role that is hard to get right!  But went you get it right, it can contribute significantly to business value realization from IT assets and investments.

An Account Teaming Approach to Relationship Management

I’ve found myself re-immersed in the Relationship Management (RM) domain lately.  I’m working on a significant RM development program with one current client, and helping another client fine tune their IT Operating Model.

With the first client, I got involved in a benchmarking exercise, going back to two former clients where I had led extensive RM training a few years back.  The purpose of the benchmarking was to find out how their RM approach had evolved, what was working well, and where they still had challenges.  In both cases, the clients had converged on an Account Management Teaming approach – essentially, a set of business unit-facing account teams comprising a very senior Relationship Manager (rarely called that, by the way), a Solutions Manager and an Enterprise Architect.

In the client where we are fine tuning the IT Operating Model, one such account team had formed fairly naturally.  Nobody told them to organize that way.  One of the RM’s met with a business architect and a solution manager and decided they needed to set time aside to meet and talk and strategize in order to present a cleaner, simpler face to the business client.  They wanted to be more deliberate and proactive in shaping business demand rather than simply respond to it.  They saw the formation of the account team as a sort of experiment.  They did not ask permission – just went ahead and tried it.  (I’d describe this as a fairly sophisticated client in an information intensive industry, with an exceptional quality of IT leadership and management.)

This Seems to be Working – Let’s Generalize It!

I met recently with the account team and other architects, RM’s and solution managers to talk about how to generalize the model and duplicate it for the other business units and their RM’s.  We analyzed what had changed as a result of the account team approach – both from the perspective of the individual IT roles, and from the business client’s perspective.  It was an impressive story with impressive results.

So, how to ‘codify’ the approach and generalize it?  The responses from the account team members were surprising and distressing on the one hand, yet obvious and comforting on the other.  Their counsel was, “Don’t try to codify this too much.  It won’t work!”  and, “Remember, we formed into a team because we wanted to, not because we were told to!”

Not So Fast, Tonto!

The business-IT interface is an extremely complex space.  The Account Teaming approach works because it is organic, and was emergent.  It works because the team members have mutual trust and respect.  It is the role of the team that is important and brings the magic, not the roles of the team members.  They talk about “having each others backs covered.”  About the fact that the client executives know that they can talk to any of the team and reach the whole team at the same time.  About the fact that any business-IT conversation quickly and automatically gains the perspectives of enterprise architecture, solution delivery and relationship management.  The business executives don’t need to be concerned about who to call for what.  Nor do they have to sit down with five IT folk to get anything done!

The Power of Self-Organization

Ralph D. Stacey, in his great book, “The Chaos Frontier” defines Self-Organization as:

A process in which the components of a system in effect spontaneously communicate with each other and abruptly cooperate in coordinated and concerted common behavior.”

I believe that viewing organizational spaces such as the business-IT interface as a complex system, operating at the ‘edge of chaos’ (scientifically speaking) reveals the insights that:

  1. Variety, randomness, paradox, information, and interconnection are sources of creativity.
  2. Organization is a natural, spontaneous act – to force otherwise is not sustainable or effective.
  3. Systems have a capacity to self-organize to great effect – given the opportunity to do so.

The danger feared by the Account Team was that as an organizational consultant, I would take the model and create organizational charters, role descriptions, competency models, and so on, and in so doing squeeze the life out of the account team concept.  And I use the word “life” deliberately.  Everything we know about complex emergent behavior tells us that for life forms such as this type of account team to really work, they have to behave like living organisms – with porous boundaries, guided by a common sense of mission and purpose, a ‘genetic code’ if you will, not sealed off from their world by hard boundaries and deterministic rules.

Image courtesy of The Savvy CIO

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I’m Leaving My Heart in Portland! – Part 2


From Portland Street Music…

Street Music at the Portland Farmers Market

I wrote in a previous post about Portland when I was part way through my stay.  Now I’m just about finished here any my love for this place is as strong as ever!

Last time, I mentioned the Portland street people – with their crazy hair do’s, facial hair to match (for the males, anyway) and typically, dogs in tow!  The other great Portland street tradition is the street music scene.  For example, in addition to the wandering troubadours, the famous Saturday Market (also open Sunday during the summer) boasts a couple of stages where all variety of bands perform.

I was particularly taken by a band called ‘All The Apparatus’, an uniquely eclectic mix of accordions, guitars, wind instruments, all sort of percussion instruments, playing a blend rock, folk, gypsy music, blues, sea shanties, and so on.  Quite something to see and hear!

The ‘always happenin’ Pioneer Square regularly features live music (“Noon Tunes”), movies (Flicks on the Bricks), and all sorts of funky events (e.g., Sand in the City!)

…to Street Food!

Another Portland treat is the food (and drink!) – lots of wonderful restaurants of all persuasions and great brew pubs.  We found the food to be from very good to outstanding, with service to match and some of the more creative menus and cocktails I have seen anywhere!  And the prices are very reasonable – dirt cheap by comparison with New York, and cheap by comparison with Atlanta.

In addition to the plethora of permanent dining establishments are the quirky “food carts”.  This is a great phenomenon, where vacant lots are turned into mini-dining areas – reminiscent of the Hawker Centers in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.  In Portland, food carts are a fun and easy way to eat all variety of food – from burgers and tacos, to Indian, Thai, Italian, Mediterranean, Vietnamese, and so on.  Among our favorites were The Frying Scotsman, and Ciao Chow – great places to eat reasonable portions of excellent nosh at a great price!  In the words of the Food Carts Portland blog:

Portland has a proliferation of Food Carts and they seem to be growing in numbers and locations. Some might call them lunch wagons, taco trucks or even snack shacks, but whatever you call them, they are truly a phenomenon in Portland. Set up in parking lots, sidewalks, and even parks (sometimes in large groups and sometimes solo), one might nosh on a fresh tortilla Baja fish taco one day, a rib-sticking bowl of traditional goulash the next, have a coffee and pastry for an afternoon snack, and then take home a giant Indian combo box for dinner.”

Food Carts on 4th Avenue, Portland

They really are a treat – some of them quite gourmet, highly varied, very inexpensive and, most importantly – very clean and sanitary.  According to Portland Monthly, which has a special on Food Carts in its September Magazine, only 2 out of the 137 food borne illnesses reported in 2009 were traced back to food carts – they are strictly regulated.

…to Spectacular Scenery

We did rent a car a couple of days.  We took a trip into the Willamette Valley, and stopped at a Lavender nursery, Llama farm, and a winery – all delightful and easy to visit.  We explored the magnificent Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum, where I went inside the unbelievably enormous Spruce Goose, ogled my favorite flying machine, the SR-71 Blackbird and drooled over a treasure trove of air and space memorabilia (I’m a sucker for large, radial airplane engines, jet engines and rockets!)

We visited the Columbia River Gorge with its many beautiful waterfalls and climbed the largest, Multnomah Falls.  We took the winding road up to Larch Mountain (oh, to be on a motorcycle for that!) and hiked to Sherrard Point.  From there we had amazing views of five major volcanic peaks (Rainier, Adams, the much flattened St. Helens, the mighty Hood and Jefferson).

We visited the famous International Rose Test Garden, which truly is breathtaking, and the tranquil Portland Japanese Garden nearby – a great setting to contemplate the mysteries of IT value realization!

Much of the great scenery is viewable from within the city, surrounded by hills as it is, and the two picturesque rivers.  As an example, I rented a bicycle for an afternoon, and rode along the East and West embankments of the Willamette River on a beautiful sunny day – splendid!  Yes, Portland is not only a walkable city – it’s also very bike friendly!

Portland – “The City That Works!”

Portland proudly sports the official motto, “The City that Works.”  From nearly three months up close and personal, I don’t know how true that is, but it does seem to be an apt description.  I know we saw Portland and the environs at its best – in the wonderful summer months.

Even the staunchest boosters admit that the winters can be hard to take.  I’m not a lover of rain.  To be more precise, I actually enjoy the torrential thunderstorms we get in the Southern US from time to time – at least from the comfort of my house!  But the seemingly constant damp of London was one of the reasons my wife and I uprooted and made the US our home some 35 years ago, and I understand that Portland can feel somewhat like London in terms of the rain.

I’m looking forward to completing my consulting assignment, but I will miss the vibe and efficient ease of Portland, where getting to or from the airport is a $2.30, 40 minute streetcar ride from a couple of blocks from my downtown hotel (thank you, Marriott Courtyard for taking such great care of my wife and me, and being such a great ‘home from home’! One of the most comfortable and best-run Courtyards in the USA!)

I will also miss the stimulation of working with a superb client team – they’ve been a real privilege to work with!  As is usually the case with my best clients, I’ve learned a lot from them, and leave the engagement with greater insight into Business-IT maturity and IT Operating Models than I arrived with.  I hope they feel the same about my short time with them!

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I’m Leaving My Heart in Portland! – Part 1


Vintage Streetcar on 4th Avenue, Downtown Portland, OR

One of my ambitions in moving to “semi-retirement” a year ago was having the freedom to pick my consulting clients and to mitigate the horrendous challenge of virtually non-stop air travel.  I used to wear my 5 million frequent flier miles as a ‘badge of courage’ until I realized how unbearable air travel had become – especially in the US – and what a significant negative impact it was having on my health and mood.

Mitigating travel meant:

  1. Doing more over the Internet
  2. Finding clients in or near my home town, or,
  3. Moving to live in the towns of my clients.

I do conduct much of my work via the Internet – that has been an important tool in reducing the pain and cost of travel.  Finding local clients has never worked well for me.  Living in the Atlanta, Georgia suburbs means that a local clientele trades the horrors of air travel for the horrors of road travel – Atlanta has some of the worst traffic problems in the US!  Also, I’ve never  done well at finding local clients – never being here enough to effectively ‘network’.  Also, it seems that you aren’t taken seriously as a consultant unless you climb off a ‘plane!  But, I have found the strategy of being selective with clients and moving to live temporarily in the towns of my clients works splendidly!

From the Ridiculous…

For example, last year we moved to New York City (Murray Hill in the Borough of Manhattan) for about 3 months and loved it!  We arranged for a ‘house sitter’ to keep our primary residence in good shape, our cat fed and fondled, and our cars in working condition.  With that organized, my wife and I took up temporary residence in The Big Apple.  It was a rich experience – busy, noisy, exciting, cultural and VERY EXPENSIVE!

…to the Sublime

This year, we did the same thing only this time it was to Portland, Oregon that we ventured.  This was a double win as it meant leaving Atlanta at the absolute height of the summer!  I love the Atlanta climate most of the year – four distinct seasons with lots of sunshine.  But mid-July to mid-September can be all but unbearable – unending 90+ degree Fahrenheit days with humidity to match!

Portland this time of year is spectacular – almost unending sun, virtually no humidity and enough variability in the temperature (from warm to hot) to make life interesting.  The other bonus to my Portland experience was finding an excellent client – some of the smartest IT executives and managers I have ever worked with, in a very well run company!

Portland has a unique vibe to it – definitely a Pacific Northwest feel, but with more than a touch of ‘funky weirdness.’

From Streetcars…

I think it has one of the best public transportation systems in the US – an integrated combination of bus, heavy and light streetcars.  The latter even sports a vintage edition that runs on limited routes on Sundays – manned by equally vintage operators and conductors in vintage refinery.  There’s an aerial tram from the South Waterfront to the Oregon Health and Science University’s main campus offering breathtaking mountain views stretching from Mt. St. Helens to Mt. Hood.   Transportation on the streetcars in the large downtown area is free, and even without this, Portland is relatively compact and highly walkable!  As a result of this and Portland’s “green” value system, automobile traffic downtown is virtually zero!  My wife and I were just reviewing our 400+ photo collection and that reinforced for us our impression that the streets seemed to be always devoid of traffic – what a blessing!

The streets are spotlessly clean and we felt safe in any part of the city at just about any time.

…to Street People

It’s good that the streets are so clean, given that they seem to be home to a motley collection of “street people.”  On the one hand, there’s something quite incongruous about this collection of young and old, some down and out, some passing through, and others just ‘out’.  The city is so squeaky clean that you don’t expect to see such a collection – many sporting more piercings than a kabob, and more body art than The Louvre.  And yet they seem to be tolerated – almost encouraged – and sit quietly, many with cardboard signs suggesting a ‘donation’ (“Will eat for food” was among my favorites!) and others strumming guitars or playing improvised drums making quiet music.

Young "Punk" Ladies at the Incredible Portland Saturday Market!

I was researching this phenomenon and came across an eloquent description on Calbert Travels blog.  An example of the images Brenda Calbert describes:

Young girls on different corners, 20ish, sitting on the sidewalk surrounded by backpacks, pillows, shoes – very organized – kind of like they all belonged to a club with the same set up. The girls sat alone, not in groups, and did not hold signs, money cans, or ask for money. Young guys, also 20ish, but in groups of two or three huddled with their stuff, but always with a sign, some creative like, “visions of pizza.” The boys also made noise either drumming the same beat over and over again on plastic buckets or talking loud to be seen and heard. All had a container to drop money in. Older women, no teeth, wrapped in blankets with their money can rattling, usually near the light rail. They always tried to get our attention. An agitated man, with hair out of control to match his actions. He was washing his bloody forearms (looked scratched and picked at) in a fancy four spout drinking fountain on street corner. He was ranting to the people nearby who were waiting for a bus.”

Enhanced by ZemantaThe hairstyles (does it make sense to call them “styles”?), clothing and general appearance can be quite incredible! A feast for the eyeballs!
More in Part 2.