1st Edition

Best Practices in Business Technology Management

By Stephen J. Andriole Copyright 2008
    368 Pages 67 B/W Illustrations
    by Auerbach Publications

    Despite the exponential growth of computing and communications technology, the inertia of old business technology management practices still drives most investment decisions in this area. Companies spend too much money on new technology, while their business models and processes underutilize the resources they already have. Written in a compelling, conversational manner, Best Practices in Business Technology Management advises those who buy, install, and support all types of computing and communications technology, empowering them to optimize their systems in new and innovative ways.

    Divided into six chapters, the book provides insight into the field, discussing decision-making, trends, alignment, optimization, processes, timing, and other areas. It includes practical hands-on advice that explores organization, the challenges of working with people, acquisition and measurement of technology, operational effectiveness, and strategic effectiveness. The best practices presented are not theoretical or untested. Rather, they are the result of trench warfare and real applications. The insights contained in this volume represent what successful companies have done—and continue to do—to optimize the business technology relationship.

    A nationally-known business technology veteran, author Stephen J. Andriole has developed a perspective on the optimization of computing and communications technology based on years of experience from government, industry, academia, and the venture capital business. In this book, he demonstrates how those who buy and deploy technology can optimize their technology in a way that saves costs and provides maximum performance.

     

    Perspectives
    The 5 × 7 Business Technology Strategy
    Revisiting the "IT Doesn’t Matter" Argument
    Ten Things IT Should Tell Management
    Ten "New Rules" for IT
    Ten Questions for Everyone
    Still Too Many Dollars
    Preparing for the Tsunami
    IT’s All about Processes
    Does Any of This Sound Familiar?
    Markets, Pills, and Timing
    That Was Then, This Is Now
    Trends That (Really) Matter
    What They’re Doing
    Business Technology Trends to Worry About
    Collaborate/Integrate: What to Do about Business Technology
    Strategy, Anyone?

    Organization
    Five Flavors of Alignment
    Cost versus Profit Centers
    Should Boards of Directors Govern Technology?
    Just Enough Organization
    Tuning-Up the Business Technology Organization
    Would You Survive an Alignment Audit?
    You Report to Who?
    Who’s Minding the Technology Store?
    Five Hours to Influence
    Grading Industry Cultures
    Whatever Happened to Mentoring, Meritocracies, and Sabbaticals?
    Has Anyone Been to Nordstrom’s?
    Do You Have a CTMO?
    Another Audit
    The Whole Context and Nothing but the (Whole) Context
    What Kind of Technology Center Are You, Really?
    Who’s in Control?
    Discipline
    Making Money with IT: Three Ideas for Revenue Generation
    A Little Exercise Goes a Long Way: Internal Focus Group Problem
    Of PMOs, VMOs, and XMOs: Why So Many Management Offices?

    People
    Time for New Skills: People Readiness for the Second Digital
    Feel My Pain
    IT Begins in the Classroom
    Decision-Making Discipline: An Executive Course on Multicriteria
    Theory versus Practice: Who Owns IT Education and Training?
    Tweaking Business Technology Leadership: What Academia Can
    How’s the Team Doing? An Unbalanced Scorecard
    Three Brands for the Millennium
    Can We Handle the Truth?
    The Real Truth
    Do You Speak Business?
    Leadership, Likability, and Life
    Politics, Culture, and You
    Consultants in the Hen House

    Acquisition and Measurement
    Many Happy Returns
    Sourcing, Sourcing Everywhere
    Concepts to Clusters: The Real Technology Chasm
    Vendors, Vendors Everywhere … Who’s the Fairest of Them All?
    Three Reasons More Outsourcing Is Inevitable
    Squeezing Willing—and Not-So-Willing—Vendors
    Guerilla Budgeting
    Dissenting Opinions about Outsourcing
    Selling Tough Projects
    What’s Your Core IT Competency? Really?
    Who Pays for All This Stuff?
    Who’s Measuring All This Stuff?
    Security Solutions Outsourcing: It’s Time
    Project Management—Yes, Again …
    What to Do? Triangulating on Requirements
    Sourcing the Sources: Who Does What Today? Who Wins Tomorrow?
    Strategy, Applications, and Architecture Sourcing: Where There Are
    Advanced Vendor Management: A Graduate Course in the Project Management Rigor (or Rigor Mortis)

    Operational Effectiveness
    Thin Is Beautiful
    Vinfrastructure
    Another Look at Open Source Software
    Commodities: Where Premiums Meet Payments
    Who Needs PCs?
    Where Does Software Come From?
    Everyone to the Woodshed
    What You Need to Know about Pervasive Analytical Computing
    Ten Things You Can Do Tomorrow to Improve Biz/IT Convergence
    Killer Apps
    Communications
    Data’s Still King
    Don’t Forget the Plumbing
    Standards Now or (Lots of) Cash Later
    Should You Buy or Rent?
    Don’t Crack the Box
    Data Information and Decision Making: Platforms, Analysis, and Open Source Software Redux

    Strategic Effectiveness
    Appropriate CRM
    Web 2.0 and the Enterprise
    Thinking about Web 2.0: The Right Questions for the Right Impact
    The Reality of New
    It’s the Data, Stupid
    They Know What We Like—And Where We Are!
    Back to the Future: Herding 3,000 Cats through a Worm Hole
    The Consumer’s Internet: Thin Clients and Fat Hosts for Everyone
    Commercializing Information Technology: A Four-Step Methodology
    Business Intelligence in the Early Twenty-First Century: Models and Master Data Management for Business Intelligence and Customer
    Strategies and Tactics around "New": Time for a Reality Check
    Profiling Your Strategic Technology Alliances

    Epilogue
    Index

    Biography

    Stephen J. Andriole