1st Edition
IT's All about the People Technology Management That Overcomes Disaffected People, Stupid Processes, and Deranged Corporate Cultures
By and large, cost-effective information technology (IT) management is more about people, personal relationships, and corporate culture than it is about the technology itself. Simply put, IT doesn’t work if you are surrounded by bad people and stupid processes in a deranged corporate culture.
IT's All about the People: Technology Management That Overcomes Disaffected People, Stupid Processes, and Deranged Corporate Cultures explains how to achieve dramatic improvements in service and agility by enhancing the people, processes, and culture within your organization. It details the various roles within the technology management process and supplies authoritative insight into the realities of human behavior—including the range of best and worst behaviors from managers, executives, and corporate culture.
Industry veteran Stephen J. Andriole explains the reason behind why many business cases fail and includes helpful insights on new governance models, organic transformation, guerilla budgeting, and open source software. Providing a fresh perspective on the old basics of IT management through a twenty-first-century lens, this book arms you with the methods needed to master the soft art of IT management as well as purchasing, deployment, and technological support.
People
No One Knows What the Hell "Architecture" Is
Technology Is Operational, not Strategic—at Least for Now
Vendor Management Is an Oxymoron: No One Does it Well
Software Costs Way too Much (Way, Way too Much)
Can You Handle the Truth?
When Reason, Logic, and Business Cases Fail
Soft Skills from the Dark Side
What Will You (Really) Be Doing in a Few Years?
The (Really) Perfect CIO (You Know the Type)
Will You Work for Results?
Sometimes You Must Go Negative
Pay Very Close Attention to New Era Skills
Everyone to the Woodshed
Politics, Culture, and You
Can You Smell Change?
The Consolidating Technology Industry
Major Changes in the Value and Location of Skill Sets
Innovation at Risk
Leadership, Likeability, and Life
Do You Speak Business?
Pain → Pleasure
Credibility → Influence
Operations → Strategy
Three Easy First Steps
Whatever Happened to Mentoring, Meritocracies, and Sabbaticals?
Three Brands for the Millennium
Final Thoughts About People
Organization
"I Want a Divorce"
New Governance Versus Organizational Terrorism
Driving Trends
All New Governance Models
Core Competency Challenges
Enterprise Business Technology Architecture Challenges
Alternative Hardware and Software Delivery Model Challenges
User-Managed Web 2.0 Technology Challenges
Web Transaction Platform Challenges
Globalization Challenges
Organizational Implications
Why You Need a Business Technology Management Office
What to Do When the Regions Rebel
Processes, Clear and Messy
Process World
Process Control
Process Improvement
Process Incentives
Takeaways
The Subtle, Sublime, and Nefarious (or, Watch Your Back)
Training to Obsolescence
CAPEX Versus Expensing
Those Things Are Expensive
Sourcing
Telecommuting’s Not for Everyone
Change for Their Own Sake
Having IT Both Ways, You Bastards
Save Money Today and Make Money Tomorrow
Stop Worrying About Devices
Software and Hardware Are Already Services
Open-Source is Safe, Honestly
There’s Gold in Them There Processes
Web 2.0 Is Really Your Friend
Data Without Analytics Are Useless
Organizational Surgery Is No Longer Elective
Loosen Up
It’s Getting Cloudy Out There
Five Hours to Influence
Ten Things the IT Department Should Tell Management
Final Thoughts About Organization
Management
Really Stupid Meetings
Many Happy Returns
A Crisis Is a Terrible Thing to Waste
Changing Our Minds (About Everything)
Vitamin Pills Versus Painkillers
Save Money, Make Money, or Go Home
Ten "New Rules" for IT
Guerilla Budgeting
Another Audit?
Innovation in Flight
Innovation Parameters
Incentives
Governance
Funding
Initiatives
Assessment
Why Strategic Risk Management Is So Important
Strategic Risk Management
The New Risk Equation
Innovation on the Cheap; Moving Forward While Standing Still
Way Overdue—Yet Still Really Cheap: BPM
Crowdsourcing for Fun and Profit
Tell Them You Love Them—To Innovate
Social Media (Poor Man’s Marketing, Customer Service) and Innovation
Innovation Talent Development That You Actually Mean
Tough Love Business Cases
Tough Love
Web 2.0
Alternative Delivery Models
People
Organizations
Strategy
Technology Adoption—One More Time
Final Thoughts About Management
Sourcing
Vendors Vendors Everywhere
Has Anyone Been to Nordstroms?
Technology Life in the Clouds
What Start-Ups and Wind-Downs Do Now
Start-Up Tactics
Wind-Down Tactics
Sourcing Sourcing Everywhere
New Ways to Deliver Old Services for Less Money
Clashing Rocks
Open-Source Software
Web 2.0 Technologies
Hardware-as-a-Service
Software-as-a-Service
Thin Client Architectures
Caution to the Rocks
Why Crowdsourcing Makes Sense
IT’s a Done Deal
Enterprise Software: Now You See IT—Now You Don’t
What the Early Twenty-First Century (in Ruins) Is Teaching Us About Technology Delivery
Renegotiations
Subsidies
Technology Trends Assessments
Alternative Delivery Models
Final Thoughts About Sourcing
Organic Transformation
People
Processes
Governance
Rationalization
Sourcing
Innovation
Management "Best Practices"
Internal Consulting—Go for IT
Internal Versus External Consultants
The Consulting Process: Identifying Meaningful Problems
The Consulting Process: Assessing the Appetite for Solutions
The Consulting Process: Determining Likely Costs and Risks
The Consulting Process: Finding the Right Sponsors
The Consulting Process: Developing Compelling Business Cases
The Consulting Process: Realistically Defining Projects
The Consulting Process: Chunking
The Consulting Process: Executing
The Consulting Process: Revisiting Value/Cost/Risk
The Consulting Process: Reporting
Consulting Knowledge and Skills
Knowledge of the Business and Functional Business Areas
Knowledge of Technology
Skills, Abilities, and Behavior
Culture, Organization, and Politics
What Next?
Epilogue
Index
Biography
Steve Andriole’s career has focused on the development, application, and management of information technology and analytical methodology to complex business problems. These problems have been in government and industry; Dr. Andriole has addressed them from academia, government, his own consulting company, a global insurance and financial services company, and from the unique perspective of a venture capitalist.
He was the Director of the Cybernetics Technology Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) where he managed a program of research and development that led to a number of important scientific and technological advances in the broad-based information, decision and computing sciences.
Dr. Andriole served as the Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. where he was responsible for identifying technology trends, translating that insight into the Safeguard investment strategy, and leveraging trends analyses with the Safeguard partner companies to help them develop business and marketing strategies.
Dr. Andriole was the Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President for Technology Strategy at CIGNA Corporation, where he was responsible for the enterprise information architecture, computing standards, the technology research & development program, and data security, as well as the overall alignment of enterprise information technology investments with CIGNA's multiple lines of business.
He is currently the Thomas G. Labrecque Professor of Business Technology at Villanova University’s Villanova School of Business where he teaches and directs applied research in business/technology alignment and pervasive computing. He is also a founding partner of The Acentio Group, a technology optimization consulting organization comprised of senior business technology professionals.
He is formerly a Professor of Information Systems & Electrical & Computer Engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and a member of the faculty of George Mason University as a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Information Systems & Systems Engineering.
Some of Dr. Andriole’s thirty books include Interactive Computer-Based Systems Design and Development (Petrocelli Books, Inc., 1983), Microcomputer Decision Support Systems (QED Information Sciences, Inc., 1985), Applications in Artificial Intelligence (Petrocelli Books, Inc., 1986), Information System Design Principles for the 90s (AFCEA International Press, 1990), the Sourcebook of Applied Artificial Intelligence (McGraw-Hill, 1992), a (co-authored with Len Adelman) book on user interface technology for Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. entitled Cognitive Systems Engineering (1995) and a book for McGraw-Hill entitled Managing Systems Requirements: Methods, Tools & Cases (1996). Dr. Andriole’s most recent books include, The 2nd Digital Revolution (IGI Publishing, 2005), Best Practices in Business Technology Management (Auerbach Publishing, 2008) and Technology Due Diligence (IGI Publishing, 2008).
Dr. Andriole received his BA from LaSalle University and his Masters and Doctorate degrees from the University of Maryland. His masters and doctoral work was supported by a National Defense Education Act fellowship. His Ph.D. dissertation was funded by DARPA.