What To Do When Your IT Project Is Late And Over Budget
Here’s a scary statistic. According to four prominent research firms, only around 20% of all IT projects are finished in a timely manner. By “timely” the researchers mean without loss of quality or being over budget. They go on to say the average project runs approximately 200 percent late, roughly 200 percent over budget, and contains only 2/3 of the original functionality.
http://www.ctoupdate.com/2003/1223.html
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12.23.03 |
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The
Training Trap
Lots
of my clients call me up to ask that I train their staffs in
various skills. The concerns usually sound like, “These guys
need to learn to communicate” or “They just can’t seem to get
things done” or “Our customers always seem upset with us.”
http://www.ctoupdate.com/2003/1112.html
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11.12.03 |
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Appreciative
Inquiry: A Powerful Project Leadership Tool
was recently introduced to a concept called appreciative inquiry
(AI) at a conference in Phoenix, Arizona, called Amplifying
Your Effectiveness. I was so excited about the possibility of
using AI with project teams that I searched the internet to
find more information. I discovered that Dr. David L. Cooperrider
of Case Western Reserve University is one of AI's primary originators.
AI originally grew out of the organization development (OD)
field as far back as the 1970s.
http://www.ctoupdate.com/2003/1105.html
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11.05.03 |
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Ten
Ways to Spend Less Time at Work
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CTOs:
Think Like An Archaeologist
If
you’d like your IT projects and department to run more efficiently
and effectively, you probably need to develop a keen appreciation
of the work of archeologists. That’s right, real archeologists.
I’m not talking about the Indiana Jones variety of adventurous
grave-robbers, but of those men and women who spend their summers
patiently digging in the dirt with trowels, dental picks and
paint brushes looking for sticks, stones and bones.
http://www.ctoupdate.com/2003/1010.html
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10.10.03 |
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The
More Ideas for Implementing MSF
The
Microsoft Solutions Framework is a comprehensive collection
of best practices derived from over 20 years of software development
and deployment experience at Microsoft. Taken together, it supplies
answers to three categories of questions:
http://www.ctoupdate.com/2003/0917.html
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09.17.03 |
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Dealing
With Salespeople
We
can train Schnauzers. We can train seals. Can we train salespeople?
Are there ways to make salespeople understand your needs and
constraints and work for you rather than against you?
http://www.ctoupdate.com/2003/0911.html
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09.11.03 |
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The
People Factor: Collaborative Decision-Making
Times
are, um, interesting: companies are either stripping down to
the bare necessities or recreating their business models so
they can be ready for the future in new ways. In your company,
you may be creating new strategic initiatives or hiring/firing/reorganizing
staff. You might be adopting CRM technology or extending your
current technology into other departments. You're rebranding.
You're repositioning products.
http://www.ctoupdate.com/2003/0826.html
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08.26.03 |
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The
Decision Dynamic
In
today's business environment, companies face tremendous challenges
as critical factors such as opportunity, risk, time, talent
and capital constraints weigh down on their decisions. What
have companies learned over the past year's roller coaster of
problems and conflicts, downturns, and disasters? Poor decisions
can destroy multibillion dollar corporate giants virtually overnight.
http://www.ctoupdate.com/2003/0811.html
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08.11.03 |
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Boosting
The ROI On Your Investment In People – Part 4
In
the first three articles in this series, we discussed clarifying
your purpose in transforming your organization, selecting the
appropriate combination of tools to do so, and building the
change team.
http://www.ctoupdate.com/2003/0721.html
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07.21.03 |
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Boosting
the ROI on Your Investment in People - Part 3
In
this third article in the series, we will look into preparing
to implement your changes. More specifically, we will examine
how to structure a team of your people to ensure the best chances
getting the desired benefits from your change program.
http://www.ctoupdate.com/2003/0623.html
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06.23.03 |
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Boosting
the ROI on Your Investment in People - Part 2
The
first article of this series discussed the process of clarifying
the desired future state of your organization as the first step
in improving the productivity of your group. The clarification
phase is the one most often skipped when trying to deal with
organizational issues. Managers commonly try to jump directly
into the second phase, planning, often with disastrous results.
http://www.ctoupdate.com/2003/0612.html
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06.12.03 |
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Boosting
the ROI on Your Investment in People - Part 1
More
and more, technical executives and managers are challenged to
measure and improve the ROI on projects and infrastructure investments.
Yet, rarely does anyone think about improving the ROI on one
of the biggest line items in the budget - the people. But, you
probably should.
http://www.ctoupdate.com/2003/0528.html
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05.28.03 |
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The
Politics Of Purchase Approval
The
way to play this game - and yes, it is a game - is to start
from the position of a profit center. Hey, we’ve all seen the
ad on TV where the various VPs of the company are asked to get
up from a conference table and give their seats to the CIO based
on a rate of return of 170% - a CIO who indulged probably wrote
the ad.
http://www.ctoupdate.com/2003/0422.html
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04.22.03 |
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What
Is Configuration Management?
Configuration,
"to form from or after," derives from the Latin com-, meaning
"with" or "together," and figurare, "to form." It also means
"a relative arrangement of parts or elements." Configuration
management therefore refers to managing a relative arrangement
of parts or elements. It's as simple as that.
http://www.ctoupdate.com/2003/0410.html
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04.10.03 |
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Gartner
and Highly Effective Messaging
The
challenge of doing more with less has never been greater. Today,
business integration initiatives demand that IT organizations
re-use backend systems without incurring exponentially increasing
integration costs.
http://www.ctoupdate.com/2003/0225.html
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02.25.03 |
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