Recession and Business-IT Maturity

Just as a lot of CIO’s were gearing up for a year or two of growth and innovation, many are now being told to “hunker down” for a period of austerity.  The usual first victims - cut travel, cut training, cut anything that smells like overhead!  That Enterprise Architecture initiative that was starting to pay off? [...]

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 [...]

Podcast on Business-IT Maturity Model

 
I’m very proud that Tom Parish, host and audio producer for the excellent Enterprise Leadership web site, invited me to deliver a podcast on the Business-IT Maturity model.  Just click on the blue link above my photo, or right-click to download the mp3 file.
It was a great deal of fun to do - Tom asked [...]

The “Unwritten Rules” of Project, Program and Portfolio Management - Part 2

 
I’m going to continue on this theme of “Unwritten Rules” as a powerful way to understand what drives behavior, and with that understanding, be able to change the rules, and thereby change behavior.
Yesterday, I posted on the Unwritten Rules that are common to organizations where Program Management is practiced versus those where Project Management is [...]

The “Unwritten Rules” of Project, Program and Portfolio Management

Among the most popular posts on this blog is that of October 15 on Project vs. Program vs. Portfolio Management.   Less popular (but give it time… have been my posts of the last couple of days on Unwritten Rules of Business-IT Maturity.  I want to use the latter to illustrate the former, and some of [...]

Why ITIL is “Necessary but not sufficient”

My post yesterday claimed that ITIL is necessary, but not sufficient for reaching Level 3 Business-IT Maturity.  As anticipated, this has led to a fair amount of traffic, some showing up as commentary on the blog, others showing up as email messages from various vendors of Service Management and ITIL support services.  I therefore want [...]

How Sustainable is Your IT Portfolio?

 
My post Project vs. Program vs. Portfolio back on October 15, 2007, continues to be the most popular post on my blog, day after day.  Given that, I feel compelled to drill down further into this topic.  Today, I will address IT Portfolio Management, which is at the heart and soulof leveraging IT for business [...]

Elevating Business Demand Maturity - Victim or Leader?

 
I’ve touched on this theme in several posts, but I feel it’s time to call it out: don’t be a victim - be a leader!  I’m moved to get back into this because I continue to hear IT professionals bemoan the fact that “Our business partners just don’t want to use IT to innovate - [...]

Business-IT Maturity Lessons from Capital Markets

I had a conversation yesterday with my colleague Tom Steinthal as part of my Reaching Level 3 research.  Tom has spent his working life at the cutting edge of financial services/capital markets - a space where business-IT maturity is very high - in fact, it is a requirement for survival!  I was trying to draw [...]

“Weed Pulling” and IT Maturity

I was working with a client earlier in the week on their IT process model.  In common with many IT shops, their processes were heavy on finding, starting, and managing new stuff.  However, they were woefully light on stopping, killing or retiring old stuff!

Many (many!) years ago, I shared an office with a guy who [...]