Leveraging the Cloud to Accelerate IT Renewal

(Note:  This post was originally written for the Cloud Commons). This is the first in a multi-part post on what I’m referring to as “IT Renewal.”  Some people call this “IT Transformation” or “IT Transition”. Others don’t name it – they just do it as a natural part of how they run and continuously improve [...]

The Decline and Fall of the IT Organization?

With apologies to Ed Yourdon for my plagiarism of his original the book title, published back in 1993, “The Decline and Fall of the American Programmer“.  (Though I don’t recall if Ed gave apologies to Gibbon for first using this line!) For a blog entitled “IT Organization 2017″ and for a management consultant who has [...]

Do You Have IT Organizational Clarity – Part 3

This picks up on Part 1 and Part 2 in this series on IT Organizational Clarity. In Part 1, I discussed the importance of IT Organizational Clarity, the symptoms when clarity is compromised, and the challenges of trying to address those symptoms rather than the root causes that lead to compromised clarity.  Part 1 closed [...]

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 [...]

IT Organizational Implications of Cloud Computing

First off, let me make myself clear.  I firmly believe that Cloud Computing, in its various forms, is real, absolutely inevitable and will completely revolutionize the form and role of the IT Organization.  Some readers will look at that sentence and laugh – it’s like saying “day will pass into night.”  Obvious, beyond dispute, devoid [...]

IT Leadership – Caught between Two Realities?

It’s always been tough being an IT leader.  The “Career Is Over” distortion of the CIO acronym is humorous because of the real world challenges associated with the CIO job.  I think that today is an especially challenging time for IT leaders.  I say that because these jobs are typically caught somewhere between two very [...]

Design Thinking 2.0: Enabling Innovation with Web 2.0 – Part 2

In my first post in this series, “Design Thinking 2.0: How Web 2.0 Might Foster and Enable an Innovation Revolution” I summarized the concepts of Design Thinking and raised the question of how Web 2.0 might enable increased innovation.  (For an interesting perspective on Design Thinking by Business Week’s Bruce Nussbaum, see his excellent essay [...]

Exploring an IT Operating Model for Enterprise 2.0 – Part 4: IT Governance

In Part 1 of this series, I suggested that the implications of Enterprise 2.0 for the IT organization are dramatic.  I also suggested that the ways of designing and executing an IT Operating Model in a Web 2.0 context are quite different from traditional approaches.  In Part 2, I outlined the major elements of an [...]

The Challenge of Sustainable Software

Just about everyone has become attuned over the last few years to the concept of sustainability.  Except, it seems, when it comes to software practices.  In most IT environments, by far the largest chunk of costs associated with a given piece of software, surface after it is initially delivered.  That is true of purchased packages, [...]

Selling Enterprise Architecture Through Analogy

I use analogies a lot – in my teaching, consulting, and just about everywhere else!  By no means a panacea, a well chosen analogy can make things “click” for people who might otherwise not “get it.” “Selling” Enterprise Architecture I’ve blogged frequently about Enterprise Architecture (and its subset, IT Architecture) because I believe it is [...]

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