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? [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Are Your Vendor Partners Holding You Back?

 
I’ve been talking lately to CIO’s about Business-IT Maturity as part of the Reaching Level 3 multi-company research I am leading.  A recurring theme has come up enough times for me to believe it’s not an aberration. 
Several CIO’s have said to me something along the lines of, “We have several major business partners (providers of hardware, [...]

The “Unwritten Rules” of Business-IT Maturity - Part 2

Today I will expand upon the introduction in my last post to the topic of ‘unwritten rules’ as they pertain to Business-IT Maturity. 

First a reminder - the Business-IT Maturity model I’ve discussed from various angles since starting this blog last October addresses ‘two sides of the coin’, those being Business Demand maturity(the business appetite for IT [...]

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 and Change in Organizational Mission

As I’ve been researching human and organizational development for BSG Concours’s Reaching Level 3 multi-client research, I was reminded of the role of organizational “mission” as frequently expressed through some form of mission statement.   I’ve done a lot of work over the years (both research and consulting) on IT organizational change and transformation, much of [...]

Business-IT Maturity and Human Development Archetypes

 
My post yesterday suggested that human development might be a useful metaphor for Business-IT Maturity.  In particular, we might imagine the parallels between physical, cognitive, social and economic development.  We might apply these developmental dimensions to both business maturity with information technology, and to the maturity of the IT organization.  This gives us both the [...]