Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms

Hiring the Right / Wrong IT People to Achieve Alignment

Dr. George E. Strouse had a great article recently on CIO.com entitled "Are You Hiring the Wrong IT Staff to Achieve Your Alignment Goals?"  Strouse contends that the major cause of business and IT mis-alignment is that IT is not hiring the right kind of people.   He states "The right people need strong backgrounds in both business and technology. Most IT hiring managers place too much emphasis on strong technology backgrounds."  Although I cannot comment on whether or not this is the major reason for the misalignment I wholeheartedly agree with his comment on the needed background nonetheless.

The most popular post I've made (accounting for about 20+% of site visits) is one that contains what I thought was a good business analyst job description.  While this job description does contains some technical requirements as you might expect it also contains skills that are not often found in traditionally trained IT folks.  These are the types of skills that are needed for an business analyst to understand business.

Dr. Strouse contends that the reason business can not get the right people is that we are asking for people with a Computer Science degree rather than an Information Systems degree.  As a professor of information systems at York College in Pennsylvania he is eminently qualified to layout the distinction and makes a strong case.  Now before anyone with a Computer Science degree gets upset please read his article carefully.  As he points out there is a need for both types of degrees but each is better suited for different functions.

Should We Make Customers Pay For The Convenience of Doing Business With Us Over The Internet?

Yesterday, I took the family down to Minute Maid park to watch the Houston Astros play the Milwaukee Brewers.  It was a  great day.  The weather was beautiful, I got to spend some quality time with my family and enjoyed a great ball game.  The Astros won!  My daughter's favorite player, #9 Hunter Spence, hit a 2-run walk-off homer in the 12th the win it 8 to 6.  Oh Baby!

Like a lot of other things I buy, I bought the tickets over the Internet.  Buying over the Internet is nice.  I could buy them when I wanted, not just when the box office was open.  It was easy and fast and I could print my own tickets.  Without question buying tickets over the Internet was very convenient.

At the same time it is a good thing for the Astros too.  Making it easer for customers to do business with you is always a good way to promote increased sales.  It also reduces costs.  When customers print their own own tickets the Astros' printing expense is reduced.  Likewise the staffing costs for the will call and tickets sales windows are reduced.  The more people that buy over the Internet the lower the Astros' costs.

So although this would seem like the classic win-win situation there is one little catch.

Keeping Data Accurate

This weekend I got a new windshield on my car.  A few weeks ago a rock chipped the windshield and propagated and 18 inch crack within a few minutes so I arranged for a windshield repair company to come to my house to replace it.  Things were going along pretty smoothly at first.  They removed the old windshield, took off the various registration and safety inspection stickers and prepped the car for the new windshield.  Everything was going well until it came time to put in the new windshield.  That's when they found out that the windshield they brought wasn't the right one for my car.

The repairmen called their office and verified that all of the ordering information was correct.  The problem turned out to be that the database of auto glass parts that they subscribed to had the wrong information.  They finally were able to figure out the right part number, brought it out to the house and installed it.  All turned out well except that it cost them an extra 2 hours of delay.  As they were about to leave one of them commented that they recalled that they ran into this same problem the last time they worked on my model of car.  It turns out they had to work with an inaccurate database that didn't have a good means for them to update or correct when errors were found.  In this case an inaccurate database became a customer service issue.

It's a fact of life that errors will find their way into our databases.  There are things we can do to minimize this but it difficult to entirely eliminate errors.  So this begs the question - "What do we do about the errors?"

The Digital Divide: Promise versus Delivery

The "digital divide", the gap between those with access to information technology and those without, gets a lot of play in the press and with politicians.  It is always expressed as a problem that must be addressed.  You typically hear of it in socio-economic terms: 

• by the country's development level
• by age
• by economic status
• by race
• by gender
• by all of the above.

It really is an important issue worthy of thoughtful discussion - but I'm not going to discuss this in this post.  At least not this form of "digital divide" anyway.

We in corporate IT may be a little smug about the digital divide because for the most part we don't have to deal with it.  Generally, the groups we serve are all on the same level of access to technology so we don't have to worry about the divide.  There is however a digital divide that we do need to worry about.  In geo-political terms it is not nearly as important as the issues above but it is a local issue for all of us.  It is the digital divide between what technology promises (the potential of technology) and what it delivers (or how we use it).  This divide between promise and delivery expresses itself in two ways.

Zappos: Integrating Systems and Business Processes

When you run across a company the truly integrates their systems with their business processes it can be an amazing experience.  Dealing with these companies borders on fun because they take the effort to make it easy and have anticipated your needs.  Zappos, an online retailer of shoes and other accessories, is one such company.  Or more appropriately as they describe themselves: "We are a service company that happens to sell ________.

• shoes
• and handbags
• and clothing
• and eyewear
• and watches
• and accessories
• (and eventually anything and everything)"

Since I'm a customer of Zappos I'm surprised that I hadn't written about this before.  Fortunately, Seth Godin's recent post, "Zappos wants you to return those shoes" reminded me so now is a good time to talk about them.

Zappos' service is all encompassing in how it is set up.  It includes: policy, processes, customer perspective, vision, attitude and systems.  Customer service for them isn't just putting a "Contact us" or "Customer Service" link on their web site.  Pete Blackshaw explain this in more detail in "Word-of-Mouth Marketing 101, à la Zappos.com"

Don't believe me?  Then check out these examples:

Eight Business Technology TrendsTo Watch

I recently ran across an article at the McKinsey Quarterly that caught my attention.  The McKinsey Quarterly is a business journal published by McKinsey & Company, a large international strategic business consulting firm.  The McKinsey Quarterly publishes both free (with registration articles) and "premium" (for a fee) articles.  The article that caught my attention is a free article published in December, 2007, entitled "Eight business technology trends to watch" by James Manyika, Roger Roberts and Kara Sprague.  These McKinsey consultants have identified some trends that we as IT leaders need to be thinking about.  It's a very thought provoking article.  The trends they identify are:

Managing relationships

1. Distributing cocreation - the Internet offers new ways for people and teams to collaborate in developing new products and services
2. Using consumers as innovators - "crowdsourcing" allows our customers to also be contributors
3. Tapping into a world of talent - it's a big world out there and in the virtual world one with out borders
4. Extracting more value from interactions - technology can help us focus our efforts into more value- added areas and transfer transactional activities to more cost effective solutions

Managing capital and assets

5. Expanding the frontiers of automation - technology has tremendous potential for automating repetitive tasks
6. Unbundling production from delivery - we can use technology to make our fixed assets into reusable components

Leveraging information in new ways

7. Putting more science into management - we now have the ability for data-based decisions more than we've ever had
8. Making businesses from information - "knowledge is power" that can help our business succeed and develop new markets

I'm a few months behind many other reviews of this article so I won't do a detailed review.  For that you may want to take a look at some of the reviews I've listed below.  Instead I'll make a different observation.

CIOs and the Marketing of IT

Last Monday's post started out, "Marketing guru, Mary Schmidt, . . ." which was a similar start to the previous Monday's post, "Marketing guru, Seth Godin . . ."  At first blush it may seem strange to be referencing marketing experts in an IT blog but I believe IT can benefit greatly from applying some common marketing concepts.  For purposes of this discussion I mean true marketing, not to be confused with advertising or sales.  While I also believe advertising and sales can be important for IT, they are different from marketing so I'll defer discussions on those until later posts.

Marketing is at its heart a strategic approach to how you decide what your product is, what the target market is, its pricing and delivery.  The classical way of looking at it is the 4P's of marketing (also try a Google search for many more references):

1. Product
2. Price
3. Place
4. Promotion

Product for IT are the various services we deliver whether it is infrastructure services such as voice and data; productivity tools such as word processing; and business system whether ERP or individual systems.

Price in our case is what our user community is willing to pay for these services.

Place is our distribution method, how we deliver these services.   This is where you see client-server, SOA (service-oriented architecture), web technologies, etc. come to play.

Promotion is about how we make our users aware of our services and how we convince them to adopt new technologies.  This is often the one IT has the most difficulty with and I'll talk more about this in future posts.

Let's Hang Up The Gloves

Marketing guru, Mary Schmidt, recently wrote a post, "Don't Get Defensive.  Just Fix It." in which she makes 2 excellent points that bear a lot on how we in IT deal with our customers.  As the HelpDesk often has to deal with "issues" this is especially important in that area.  Schmidt starts off the post by saying "I’m convinced that many of the world’s problems could be quickly fixed or even avoided if people didn’t automatically get defensive when faced with an issue or disagreement."

When our customers come to us with issues we need to resist taking it as a personal affront lest we become defensive.  Often we fall into the trap of using IT's weasel words such as "It works on my machine" or "No one else has had a problem with that."  The implicit message in this is that the problem is the customer's fault which makes them defensive and it just escalates from there.  As Schmidt suggests sometimes we need to just get beyond this and just fix the problem.  Hang up the boxing gloves and work on the solution.

Joel Spolsky has a fantastic post, "Seven steps to remarkable customer service".  Be sure to read all seven steps but pay particular attention to steps 4 and 5.  In these Spolsky gives some great examples of what not being (or being) defensive can do.  They illustrate the point very effectively.

The Importance of Integrating Acquisitions Quickly

A close friend from Chicago knowing my IT connection sent me the following story thinking I might find it interesting.  I certainly did!  Enough so that with the permission I am posting as something of a guest post (anonymously at their request).

My daughter and I had an interesting  experience yesterday, which you might find amusing in your IT world.  She had two checks that she wanted to deposit in her Bank of America account.  Since October 1, when BofA formally acquired LaSalle Bank, they have been advertising that they are one bank and retail customers (the reason BofA wanted to buy LaSalle) could do their business at either bank, regardless of where their accounts were.  The closest BofA facility is about 10 miles away which as you recall can be a long drive in Chicago traffic.  So my daughter goes into the local branch of the LaSalle (a stand-alone bank building, with a parking lot for at least 30 cars) with her BofA card and her checks....to be told that the 'infrastructure' is not set up for them to take any deposits for BofA accounts. (Mind you, she can, with her deposit slip from the checking account, deposit those checks in ANY ATM sponsored by any bank.)  The LaSalle people also mentioned in response to her surprise that the BofA/LaSalle 'infrastructure' was not working smoothly enough for the employees to get their checks in a timely manner, either. (I guess, treating employees badly is a good reason for customers to overlook bad customer service?)  And this is happening in Chicago, the home base of the LaSalle operations--I wonder what happens elsewhere?)

So we go off to Dominick's [a Chicago area supermarket chain] with the checks in her purse.  At Dominick's there is a Chase "office" of about 120 square feet--barely room for a desk, three chairs. the bank officer's computer,  and an ATM. I say to my daughter, "let's try something..."  We tell the bank officer that we have a Chase checking account, but we do not have any Chase cards with us, don't know any account numbers, don't have a deposit slip, but would like to deposit two checks...can she help?  No problem...my daughter entered her SS number into the hand-held device that brought up our accounts on the bank officer's screen, she asked for a photo id to verify that she was the same person as listed on her screen, took the checks, and two minutes after we walked in on the way to the produce counter, the checks were deposited.

I do realize that mergers are a lot more complicated than running off-site locations, but BofA won the LaSalle bank in early summer/late spring 2007 even if it did not get closed until 9/30/07.  That was enough time to get their ad campaign out about it being "one bank" but insufficient time to  merge the IT systems that are the lifeline of their business.

Oh well,..........

I find this interesting for a number of reasons:

Are We Too Smart For Our Own Good?

There are a lot of smart people in IT.  In fact the stereotype of IT folks are the smart guys and gals that are good a computers, math and science but are horrible at social skills.  There is some truth, I believe, in this stereotype although the stereotype is greatly over exaggerated.  It isn't that IT people don't have social skill it is just that they often choose not to use them since after all the power of their logic and the strength of their reasoning and knowledge is more than sufficient isn't it?

A recent post by Penelope Trunk at the Brazen Careerist blog entitled "Stop thinking you'll bet by on your high I.Q." would suggest otherwise.  She laments that we seem to value high IQ over social skills as if high IQ was all that mattered.  In reality it is a balance between the two.  But because we in IT are so comfortable with the technical side we tend to forget the people side.  We have to remember that success is just as dependent on the social aspects at it is the technical on ones - the old people, process and technology cliche.

As Trunk points out based on an article from the College Journal, recruiters of B-school graduates look for 5 traits:

1. Communication and interpersonal skills

2. Original and visionary thinking

3. Leadership potential

4. Ability to work well within a team

5. Analytical and problem-solving skills

Interestingly enough these traits or competencies are very similar to ones that I wrote about in regard to a Russell Reynolds (a large international executive recruiter) analysis of the competencies required for a CIO.

So why are these so important?

CIOs and Business Experience, the Career Impact

I recently did a 2 part post (Part 1, Part 2) talking about CIOs and their perception of their understanding of business.  In a bit of serendipitous timing I just ran across and article, "Salary Report: IT Execs With Business Experience on the Rise"  by Linda Tucci at SearchCIO.com.  It would seem that there is some strong evidence that career success lies beyond just being technology oriented.

The article notes, "The numbers reinforce mounting anecdotal evidence, as well as industry data, indicating that an increasing number of CIOs are gaining business experience, encouraging their employees to get business experience and training business employees in IT. "  While this is an interesting and probably not a  surprising trend it begs the question - how does having business experience affect my career?

Fortunately, Tucci provides some insight to this question.  The first is a comment by Gartner (an IT research and advisory firm) analyst Ellen Kitzis who "finds a correlation between a strong business and IT connection and company performance. Among companies where the CIO does not play a strategic role, 26% are less likely to achieve their financial objectives or open new markets, according to the Gartner research."  Well if IT is now being recognized as contributing to the company's growth and performance we would logically expect to be compensated accordingly, right?

An IT Question: What Has Disaster Taught You?

Experience, it is said, is the best teacher.  Oh so true.  I guess that is why we do disaster recovery tests rather than just waiting until disaster really strikes.  This got me thinking - what is the most surprising thing you learned as a result of an actual disaster recovery or even a test?

Mine was that people expect your disaster recovery process to cover everything.  In one of my previous jobs we had a major fire at the corporate office and it was necessary to relocate people to the plant about one hundred miles away.  From an IT standpoint we were able to keep things running and or data loss.  What surprised me was that when people came to the plant they expected IT to provide them with a PC, which we did, but a PC complete with office, furniture, office supplies and administrative assistants.  Apparently when people fail to plan for disasters they look to those that have a plan as their rescuers for everything.

So, what is the most surprising thing you learned as a result of an actual disaster recovery or even a test?

[Update 10/12/2007 afternoon - corrected typos including "did not suffer any systems downtime" and "they look to those that have a plan"]

"Help" photo by Cobber99

Got a question you'd like me to post for future discussion?  Email it to me using the "Email Mike" link in the left hand column.

If this topic was of interest, you might also like the other posts in the IT Question category.

Do CIOs Know (Their) Business? [Part 2]

In my last post we started the discussion of CIO's business knowledge.  An Accenture study had indicated a big disparity between the CIO's understanding of the business and general manager's perception of the CIO's understanding.

"While 73 percent of IT executives said they believe they understand their company’s business extremely or very well, only 43 percent of general business managers said they believe that IT executives have that level of understanding of the company’s business."

We discussed 2 questions.  The first is how well do CIOs understand business generically.  To help assess this I listed 10 question as a simple test of business knowledge.  The second question is more specific -- how well do CIOs understand their business.  As promised I've this post included 10 question to address this more specific question.

The same caveats apply The quiz is of course, capricious, subjective and arbitrary.  However, since you pick your own scoring method how well you do is up to you.

So on to the questions.

Do CIOs Know (Their) Business? [Part 1]

CIOs are uniquely positioned to understand their company's business more than many others in the company.  The theory behind this is that IT "touches" every aspect of the company and therefore IT has the broadest exposure to the business.  But does this theory hold up under closer scrutiny?

Traditionally CIO came up through the ranks of IT and were very technically focused which limited their business exposure.  And as for touching all aspects of the business that really doesn't happen until you get near the top.  Below that level you tend to focus on particular areas.  Rare is the business analyst/developer that handles both payroll and inventory for example.  Fortunately with the trend of CIOs having worked outside of IT and having an MBA you should expect to see more business knowledge.  Unfortunately the facts don't seem to support this.

Gimme The Names

A lot of the projects that we work on are touted as being labor savings projects.  I say "touted" because often even though the projects are successfully implemented we never seem to see any reduction in labor costs.  Frustrated with this one of my old bosses used to have a stock reply to labor savings projects that usually went something like this:

Requester: If we do this project we'll save 80 hours of engineering effort per week.

Boss:  Gimme the names.

Requester: The names?

Boss: Yes, 80 hours per week is 2 people.  I want to know the names of the people that you'll be firing.

Requester:  (significant pause) Um, Uh, We weren't actually planning on firing anybody.

Boss: Well if no one is leaving how are we getting any labor savings?

Requester: We were planning on using them to do something else.

Boss: Before I'll let you "rehire" those 2 justify to me the merits of this something else.

The boss wasn't really on a mission to fire people but he did want to make sure there was a sound justification for what we were doing.  Fortunately there are some things you can do to make sure you get the economic return you were expecting.

Some More Thought Provoking Ideas from Matt Moran

Matt Moran consistently writes some pretty thought provoking posts about the world of IT.  I first ran across Matt's stuff at the ITToolbox where he has contributed over 700 posts.  I especially loved his "Policy Parrot" stories.  Matt brings a practical real-world approach to IT and is very customer focused which is why I like his stuff so much.

In addition to writing at ITToolBox Matt has his own blog, Matt Moran - Caffeine / Life / Technology / Music and runs Kreative Knowledge.  He has a couple of clips posted there from his speaking engagements.  These are very thought provoking in terms of how IT conducts its business and IT's approach to customer service.  Take a look.

• IT Blackened the Eye of Business
• Everything I know about IT I learned from Mr. Coffee

If this topic was of interest, you might also like these:

• IT as Dentistry
• Some Technology Suggestions for Airline Customer Service
• Are You a Policy Parrot?
• Or the posts in the "Customer Service" category

Change Your Vocabulary and Change Your Focus

I often hear IT folks talk of projects such as converting plants on to one system, or reorganizing all of IT into one centrally controlled IT group.  When you ask them why they are advocating these things the answer is often - efficiency.  Wouldn't things be  better if everyone was on the same system or if we were all in the same group?  I guess it a characteristic trait of people in technological fields, we want to make things better.

While I certainly appreciate the benefits of being more efficient I can help but want to ask two questions.  First, more efficient for whom?  Hopefully it is the business operations that we've made more efficient and not just the IT operations?  And secondly, for whom does this make things better?  Again, hopefully it is the business that is reaping most of the benefits of this improved efficiency.

Too often however the answer is to both questions is IT.  We puff up our chests and proudly exclaim about the great job we've done in reducing our costs and improving our operations.  If we look closely though we just might see that those outside of IT don't share our enthusiasm.  We tend to be too internally focused on ourselves and on efficiency / cost reduction.  The good news is that's what we're good at doing.  The bad news is while it is nice that really isn't what the business see as our most important role.  This internal/efficiency focus helps explain how it is that while the CEO may feel information technology is important to success of the company, the information technology department isn't.  We've made ourselves into a utility and left the business to fend for it self on the strategic use of information technology.

I'd like to suggest th