Executives seem to agree that IT people – technicians and their leaders – do not understand the business very well. This causes all sorts of trouble when making financial decisions on major IT projects. Why don’t IT people “get” the business?
Maybe there’s something you can do about this.
Why don’t IT people understand our business?
May 16, 2012
Risk Management in IT
April 25, 2012
Risk management is a key area for financial leaders. When we look at IT development projects, we’re usually focused on opportunities rather than risks. But IT investments have risks beyond security and privacy issues. Project failure can lead to losses even beyond the intended investment. Here are seven ways to look at IT development projects from a risk management point of view.
Trust, truth and talking things through
April 10, 2012
It’s actually easier to do the right thing
March 26, 2012
The right thing is to plan, organize and execute with long-term results in mind. But nearly every manager is so driven by short-term metrics that they fail to account for longer-term effects of their decisions and actions. As a result, they accomplish less for themselves and for their organizations, making them less effective and less [...]
Success always looks easy
March 13, 2012
Stranger ways to fail
February 29, 2012
In the last article, I gave three reasons for IT project failure. These are not the only ways to fail! In this article I describe failure modes I’ve seen that are much less conventional – and harder to overcome without serious dedication at the top. Here are the three reasons from last time: They’re not [...]
Three causes of IT project failure
February 13, 2012
IT projects often don’t get done. Not just done late, but not done at all. Industry statistics show that over 50% of major IT projects are not regarded as successful. They get abandoned because they’re too late or because they’re so far over budget that the sponsors give up. Many more deliver something, but not [...]
Software, software everywhere
January 23, 2012
Software is different from other technical stuff. It’s abstract, invisible, and runs at extremely high speed. So the people who are good at working with software tend to be different from “ordinary” engineers. They have to be good at visualizing the abstract processes and the mathematical algorithms that make up the procedures implemented in software. [...]
How can IT management fail to understand business goals?
January 10, 2012
“Now more than ever, IT must invest the time to understand specific business goals and translate IT metrics to reflect an impact against these business goals. Often there is a gap between what IT reports and what is of interest to the business.” – An Introductory Overview of ITIL V3, itSMF, 2007, p. 38 There’s [...]
Agile Clouds
December 21, 2011