Surfing and IT Innovation

Thanks to a colleague for pointing me to a remarkable post by John Hagel entitled Innovating on the Edge of Big Waves.   Hagel explores the evolution of ‘big wave’ surfing - both from a perspective of the technology innovations (e.g., fibreglass, foam core, changeable stabilizing fins) and techniques (e.g., tow-in surfing, insights borrowed from wind [...]

Clues from Google for IT Circa 2017

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (WSJ, March 18, 2008, Business Technology page) published an interesting article, “Pleasing Google’s Tech-Savvy Staff.”  WSJ interviewed Google’s impressive CIO Douglas Merrill on “How do you run the IT department at a company whose employees are considered among the world’s most tech-savvy?”
I liked the piece for a couple of reasons.  First, [...]

Retiring Retirement - A Path to Business-IT Maturity

I’m increasingly invited to retirement celebrations for former and current consulting clients and friends.  They are quite distressing events.  First, the retiree is typically putting on a brave face, boasting about all the golf and fishing they will enjoy.  But often beneath the surface bluster is a deep-seated fear.  Sometimes they ask me if my [...]

Stage-Gate Development - An Example of a Level 2 Sticking Point

I posted from time-to-time on what I’ve called “sticking points” - how things that you had to do (e.g., practices, processes) to get from Level 1 Business-IT Maturity to Level 2 could trap you in Level 2 if you did not modify them, or in some cases, dispense with them entirely!  It’s not that they [...]

Business-IT Maturity and Smaller Businesses

 
Someone sent me an email about my blog and the small business in which she works.  She wrote, “Level 2 sounds like my workplace.  It drives me insane that we have no in-house IT person. I feel that any business over a certain size should have at the very least a part-time in house IT [...]

So, What Comes After Level 3 Business-IT Maturity?

I had a question from a colleague recently that I’d like to address in this post.  She asked, “I’m going to ask a possibly ‘dumb’ question, but since I believe that there are no dumb questions I’m asking it anyway…  Since level 3 is constantly evolving i.e., today’s Level 3 will be tomorrow’s Level 2 [...]

Goodby, Shadow IT - Hello, Shadow IT

In our multi-company research WebEx call earlier this week a participant reflected on the changing attitudes to “Shadow IT” - that term IT professionals give to non-IT professionals when they ’step into their IT professional turf’ and do stuff that should have been ‘better left to the professionals.’
The Shadow IT phenomenon is a great example [...]

Reaching Level 3: The Mindset Factor

I’ve posted before on the role of ambition as a key factor in driving business-IT maturity.  I want to move beyond that and pick up the theme of mindset.  This is a topic I covered in today’s teleconference as part of our multi-client research project into business-IT maturity.
According to Wikipedia, Mindset refers to the set [...]

You Know You’ve Reached Level 3 When…

 
Back in mid-December, I posted “You Know You’ve Reached Level 3 When…“   As the BSG Alliance multi-company research project that has been examining Reaching Level 3 Business-IT Maturity shifts gears from its research to its reporting phase, I want to revisit that headline.  Here are some ‘one-liners’ that are being discussed in today’s WebEx session [...]