Most of the things I’ve read on the topic of small business IT outsourcing has been fairly light in terms of advice for small business owners. Most articles are written with the vendor in mind but there are a few focused on the small business owner who’s looking to outsource.

One of the better articles was found on Small Business Computing in an article titled “Ten Points to Ponder before you Outsource“. The “ten points” offered in the above article are quite good but I felt like they could be expanded a bit to include some examples.  Below is a summary of the ten points plus some additional discussion and examples.

Outsourcing Small Business IT & Technology – Key points to consider

• Look at the big picture. Do you need to be focused on keeping an email server or web server running or focus on marketing and business development?   Should you be focused on keeping your small business technology running or growing your small business?  If you want to be around next year, you’d better focus on growing your small business.
• Look at value over price. As a small business, you need to save as much money as possible whenever and wherever you can…but….you also get what you pay for.  If you pay someone for email service, do you pick the cheapest vendor that will setup a few email accounts for you and then never answer your phone calls….or do you pick the mid-tier vendor who asks for a bit more money and then holds your hand throughout migration process and offers 24/7 support?
• Pay for expertise. If you are going to spend your hard earned money for something, you should get as much value as possible from that outsourced service/product/person.   Part of the decision making process for outsourcing should include the amount of expertise you are paying for.  For example, if you outsource your payroll, you sure as heck better get an expert payroll provider.
• Stay on the cutting edge When you outsource your IT functions, do you want to give your business to someone who’s using yesterday’s technology or tomorrow’s?  Let’s look at a web developer as an example.  You need to outsource your new website…do you hire someone still using Frontpage to design/build websites or do you hire someone who can build a website using a much more modern technology/platform?  Hint: go with modern on this one.
• Does the vendor have similar values as you? Have you ever hired someone to do some work for you and then found out that they didn’t have the work ethic you had?  That would be a huge issue for a small business owner outsourcing IT functions.  When looking to outsource, take some time to get to know your vendor(s) (and they should want to get to know you too) to make sure your values are their values…or at least that their values don’t clash with yours.
• Meet the Vendor’s team before signing the contract.  While many people meet with the sales person or perhaps the vendor’s leadership team, I strongly suggest that you reach out and try to meet with the team that would be working on your project.  Sometimes this is impossible to get to know the whole team but if possible, do it.
• Know what you’re getting.  This is a no-brainer on the surface. Let’s say you want to outsource the design/build of a new website.  You hire a firm to design and build your website and you expect them to completely migrate content and/or create content. Content is part of the website correct?  They sell you a design/build project without clearly stating that content migration isn’t included.  When they finish, you have a website that looks pretty and works well but with no content!  Now you’ve got to spend more money to get content into the website.  Not a good situation to be in.
• Understand Responsibilities. While the deliverables of the service/product should be clearly outlined in any contract, you’ve also got to fully understand the responsibilities of each side.   This should be clearly stated in a scope of work document when working with a good vendor…but you need to be absolutely certain you know who’s doing what before signing the contract.
• Should you outsource to a big player or small business? This is a personal decision for each business.  You can outsource your email service to Google or you can find a local small business that can do something very similar for you.   You’ll sometimes pay more to the local business, but you’ll also receive more personalized service from a good vendor.
• Find a vendor that can educate. Ever talked to an IT person and heard lots of acronyms and technical mumbo-jumbo and had no clue what they were talking about?  Would you hire them to do your IT? Maybe you would…but you’d have a hard time understanding what they are doing or want to do for you.  Find a vendor that can speak to you in terms you can understand.  Find someone that can educate you along the way. That’s the person you want to hire.

Outsourcing anything, whether email, payroll or brochure design, takes the same type of thought process for small business owners.   While price is a consideration for you, there are many other items to think about when outsourcing part of your business.

Stay tuned for more small business technology related posts…looking to make this a regular feature.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Small Business IT Outsourcing – don’t go to far (ericbrown.com)
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• Global CIO: Outsourcing Flip-Flop: A CIO Brings IT Back Inside (informationweek.com)

Small Business Technology Outsourcing is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Small Business IT Outsourcing – don’t go too far
2. Outsourcing, Value & Capabilities – Priorities for Small Business CIO’s
3. Innovation and Outsourcing – Do they go together?
4. Outsourcing Bill of Rights
5. Small Business CIO – Manager of Constraints

In one of the best forewords I’ve read in a while, Covey speaks about “insufficient resources” as an issue affecting business when he writes:

For some forty years I’ve have worked with organizations that were grappling with “new demands, insufficient resources”. I have become convinced that the biggest leadership challenge of our times is not insufficient resources per se, but rather our inability to access the most valuable resources at our disposal.

Emphasis mine.

Pretty powerful statement, especially when you think about the ‘do more with less‘ attitude that pervades most organizations today.

Doing more with less

If you’ve spent any time in business over the last few years, you’ve no doubt worked long hours over many days (and nights perhaps) to get your job done. You feel like you’re doing the job of 2 or 3 people and you don’t see any end to the work that comes your way.

Everyone in the organization feels the same way as you. Everyone’s overworked and overloaded.  There’s just too much work to do.

Many managers talk about how they’re ‘doing more with less‘ these days.  Some of these managers even brag about how much work their teams have and how few people they have to do it.  Some companies have even added “do more with less” to their core values, as evidenced by Zappo’s statement here.

It seems like there’s even a badge of honor that many managers like to show off to their peers.  In fact, I used to work for a CIO that loved to tout his experiences cutting costs (via cutting people) and adding additional technology functions. This CIO required the following paragraph be added to his corporate bio:

He’s well known for his ability to bring productivity and efficiency into an organizations’ IT group.  In his current role, he’s famous for adding functionality to the organization by increasing the number of IT platforms from 3 to 6 and cutting costs by decreasing IT headcount from 100 to 60 while maintaining the same level of service across the organization.

This statement, by itself, is quite impressive.  This CIO was extremely proud of his accomplishments and received a ton of ‘kudos’ from his peers, including being named to CIO Magazine’s Top 100 CIO’s list one year.

Good for him right? Reducing headcount by 40% and doubling the number of IT platforms is a heck of an accomplishment….but as you’ll see shortly, it isn’t the entire story.

Managing in the time of constraints

When you’re asked to do more with less, what’s the first thing you do?  Think about how to implement processes? Think about what technologies to use?  Or…do you take a second to ask a few questions of your manager to see what the real driver is behind the changes and /or new projects and determine the right priorities?

Do you accept the constraints blindly and do your job or do you stop and look at your organization to truly understand the available resources to determine how best to get those resources aligned to get everything done?

The CIO mentioned above took the first approach.

He was forced to to cut costs while at the same time deliver the necessary technology platforms to take the organization into the future.  He took a look at the objectives handed down from the CEO and board and ran with them.  This CIO saw an opportunity to use technology as a way to cut costs by replacing people.

Not a bad approach…not one I would take if I were in his shoes, but worth looking into right?  There are many places in business where technology can create efficiencies and/or allow cost cuts.  And the CIO’s job is to use technology to solve business problems correct?

That said, you can’t automatically equate new technology with “X” number of jobs; which is what the CIO above was trying to do.  In fact, according to his calculations, he could get rid of four people after the implementation of a newly implemented content management system (his exact words to me one day were: once you are done with this CMS implementation, which four people can I fire).  I’ve never figured out where he got that number but it seemed to be the approach to his job: new system = “X” people replaced.

Take a look back at the CIO’s bio where it talks about doubling the major  IT platforms and reducing headcount by 40%.  This CIO did a a wonderful job doing what he was asked to do.  He cut costs and kept the technology initiatives moving forward. But…if you look past his statement and get closer to the organization, you’ll see a different story. You’ll find an IT group who are overworked and extremely stressed out. You’ll find people who are looking for any way out of this organization.  You’ll find an IT group (and an entire organization) who are beaten down by the motto “do more with less.”

Look further than the IT group and you’ll see an organization who can’t trust IT to get anything done.  You’ll see an organization who’s tired of excuses about why technology projects aren’t getting done. You’ll see an organization who look everywhere but the IT group for technology and technology projects.

The CIO did as he was asked.  He cut costs and managed the constraints.  But…he turned his IT team into a shell of its former self.  He implemented technology to replace people….and you can believe the people left know they only have a job until the CIO can find a piece of technology to replace them.

Managing the constraints or leading the people?

Back to the Covey quote from earlier:

I have become convinced that the biggest leadership challenge of our times is not insufficient resources per se, but rather our inability to access the most valuable resources at our disposal.

The CIO I mentioned above has taken the road that many take.  They are confronted with the challenge of constrained resources (cost cutting, low / no budgets, etc) and try to ‘manage’ their way through these challenges rather than step back and think about how best to lead their teams through those tough times.

You may argue that the CIO above was leading his team.  He was providing the ‘tough leadership’ required to make it through the rough times, and you may be right.  Because I know this CIO personally, I know this isn’t the case; this man was managing his way through this crisis by trying to find ways to replace his people.  He was managing the constraints…not leading his team.

If he were leading his team, he would’ve realized that there were people working for him that had a tremendous amount of organizational knowledge, passion and commitment to the organization and to their job.  Rather than listen to that team and finding ways to allow them to help the organization cut costs and implement the requisite technological changes, he removed a good portion of those people and absolutely destroyed any passion, commitment and drive that the remaining team members had.

If you focus on managing the constraints first, you’ve allowed those constraints to own you.  If you lead your people, you’ll allow yourself, your organization and your team to own the constraints and find creative approaches to overcoming them.

Lead your people first and the constraints will follow.

Are you managing the constraints or leading your people? is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Leading by saying No – The New CIO Series
2. Small Business CIO – Manager of Constraints
3. Linus Torvalds on Managing Software Projects
4. Interesting application of the Theory of Constraints
5. CIO’s – what’s your team’s story?

I’m a big fan of Zappos and the things that the company has been able to do. I love the idea of a culture driven company and Zappos has been the poster child for this idea for quite some time.

When I saw this book, I knew I had to read it.

Quick Review

The first section of the book covers a great deal of time (birth to Tony’s start as Zappos’ CEO).

Tony provides provides a pretty interesting, and at times funny, walk-through of his childhood, high school and college.  While describing his life, its easy to see the entrepreneurial spirit alive and kicking throughout Tony’s life.

One of the really interesting parts of this section is the description of the building of Tony’s first company LinkExchange (LE) and the subsequent selling of that company to Microsoft.  The building and sale of LinkExchange isn’t chronicled in detail but an interesting summary is provided the gives the reader a good feel for what happened.

In addition, Tony describes the years after the LE sale and his search for something to do.  In this part of the book, Tony details the lessons he learned playing poker…and tries to equate them to strategies for business…and he does a pretty decent job of it too.

About half-way through the book (starting with Section II) Tony gets into the details of how Zappos became the company it is today.  The trials & tribulations of an internet company trying to survive the bursting of the dot.com bubble, the economic troubles of the early 2000′s and other issues (9/11, etc).

This part of the book is pretty interesting as Tony gives the reader some insight into how Zappos was kept afloat during the initial few years.  Basically, if it weren’t for Tony putting his own money into the company (and almost going broke doing so) Zappos might not have survived.

While describing how Zappos was built into a thriving business, Tony also provides some insight into his approach to building the Zappos culture that we’ve all become aware of.  There are some great tidbits of knowledge in this section of the book.

While I found the first two sections of the book (described above) interesting, the final section of the  book is where the real lessons can be learned about building a culture that fits an organization.

In the final section of the book, Tony describes the concept of Delivering Happiness.  This section is very interesting and worth reading a few times (which I’m doing).

This book is a winner.

I like this book for a few reasons.  First, its just an interesting read.  Being able to hear about Tony’s life from Tony is interesting to me.  Second….it provides some excellent insight into what its really like running a startup and the ups/downs that comes with the territory.

Will you like it?  I think so…but here’s some advice for those of you who are on the fence about the book:

• If you have any interest in building a business, read this book.
• If you have any interest in a building a culture that ‘fits’ your organization, read this book.
• If you like reading about success stories in business, read this book.
• If you are a grammar nerd and hate it when people don’t write in perfect grammatical english, you may not like this book.  But heck…if you’re reading my blog, you probably aren’t a grammar nerd

Buy this book when it comes out…great read and some excellent insights.

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• Delivering Happiness: A Movement (techcrunch.com)
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• Weekend Reading: Delivering Happiness, by Tony Hsieh (Preview) (readwriteweb.com)
• Zappos CEO on How To Deliver Happiness with Social Media [INTERVIEW] (mashable.com)

Delivering Happiness – Book Review is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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2. Book Review: Noble Enterprise
3. Open Leadership – Book review
4. Book Review: Succession, Are You Ready?
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In this post Gene highlights the pros/cons of IT Certifications and asks these questions:

Do you rely on IT certification when hiring? What has your experience been, good or bad, when hiring IT resources with or without certifications? Do you have an IT certification or more than one? Have they been helpful to you in your career as far as being a gate item or helping you get more money?

Some interesting questions here that might be worth looking at.

When I’ve hired folks in the past, I’ve looked at certifications as part of my overall view of the candidate.  If I’m hiring for a Database Administrator, a DBA certification helps me understand that this person has knowledge in the area…but it doesn’t help me determine their experience or skills in the area.

On the other hand, if I’m hiring for a Project Manager for a large enterprise implementation, a Project Management Certification like the PMP really doesn’t do much for me.  The PMP certification tells me that the user has experience in the project management world and has passed a test…but it doesn’t tell me anything about that person’s real abilities.

At the end of the day, the certification helps quantify a candidate’s skill-set but not their abilities and experiences.

The certification is a piece of the puzzle but, in my mind, a small piece.

What’s your thoughts?  Leave a comment here or jump over to Certification: No Guarantee of Competency – But it Can’t Hurt and leave a comment there.

Certifications in IT – Worth it or not? is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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5. The Strategic Project Leader

Great book.

What’s so great about it?  It provides a good reminder that being a good manager is just as important as being a good leader.

Mintzberg does an excellent job of bringing the importance of managing well to the forefront.

Like I said…good book.  Buy it today at amazon (affiliate link).

CIO as Manager or Leader?

I ran a quick unscientific test on google and searched for “CIO as Leader” and “CIO as Manager”. The results weren’t surprising:

• “CIO as Leader” – 45,900 results
• “CIO as Manager” – 14,800 results

Not surprising to me since most articles I’ve read (and a few that I’ve written” talk about CIO’s and Leadership.  But there aren’t as many discussions about CIO’s and Management.

Mintzberg’s “Managing” book might help bring the art of managing back to the world of IT and the CIO’s office.

So which is it?

The role of IT is changing and the CIO must lead that change while also ensuring that the IT group is performing for the organization.

The CIO must be a both a Leader and a Manager to bridge the gap between strategy and tactics. Lead the strategic initiatives while managing the tactical operations for the organization.

Both sets of skills are necessary for The New CIO.

CIO as Leader or Manager? is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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I’m not talking about ‘not following through’ on things.  That’s a performance issue and one that can be addressed with some coaching and basic management skills.

What I’m talking about are those folks (or organizations) that like to tell everyone how something should be done, why it should be done or why it’s important for the organization to do ‘project X’.

I’m fine with being told how or why something is important…everyone has their opinions.  But don’t tell me the same thing for 6 months without ever taking a step forward and doing something about the project. If you think Project X is so damned important, then DO IT.  Or Don’t.  Just stop talking about it.

There are a lot of reasons for people to talk about doing something but not executing. Analysis Paralysis can kill any project before it starts.  Lack of courage is a killer too (you know…those folks who are scared of making decisions?).   Ego plays a role as well (people like to show how smart they are right?)

I’ve run into many leaders within organizations that talk about undertaking the big ‘strategic’ projects.  And they talk.  And talk.  Talking doesn’t “move the needle” (sorry…I promised someone I’d insert “move the needle” into this week’s blog post….they’re playing buzzword bingo and I want them to win!).  Talk without action does little more than frustrate people.

The New CIO has to “do it or don’t”

We all know  the foreseeable future of an IT group will be one of being understaffed and overworked.  There are a lot of projects that need to get done and a lot of projects that won’t get done.

The role of the future CIO is one of project executive. The New CIO has to step up as a decision maker and decide (along with the leadership team of the organization) which projects get funded and which don’t. After the decision is made, communicating that decision down the chain of command has to be done quickly and efficiently so the the entire organization knows what projects are a ‘go’ and which aren’t.

You notice that in the last few paragraphs I never say that the CIO and his/her IT staff should stand around talking about the projects and why they are important. There isn’t a lot of discussion about why Project X should be done.  A decision is made whether it should be done or not and the team moves on. The New CIO has to take the lead in not talking things to death and just get it done.

Now….I’m not saying you should stop discussing the value of a project or a strategy.  Quite the opposite actually.  You should discuss. You should debate.   That’s something that must happen.  But…there is a time when the debate has to end and something has to be done.

The New CIO needs to foster open debate on a subject but quickly make a decision.  With resources as constrained as they are in this economy, talking means wasted time and money.

Discuss, Debate, Decide.  Either DO or DON’T…just stop talking about it.

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Join me next week for another article in the series.

Do it or Don't….just stop talking about it is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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5. Decision Speed, Performance and the CIO

I got a lot of great feedback on a post I wrote titled “Consultants – Do we need them?“.  In that post I argue that consultants are necessary…not a necessary evil mind-you…but a necessity for modern day IT organizations.

One of the lines of that struck a chord with most folks was:

That’s exactly what any good consultant should do….help the organization understand how to change to adapt to new realities.

What do I mean by that?

Modern day IT is not the same as IT from 20 years ago…or even IT from 5 years ago.  Every CIO has to adjust to the new reality of IT of today and the future.

I believe that 99.9% of CIO’s in this world cannot adapt to the new IT reality without some assistance from experts who understand the new IT realities. I don’t say the above to be hateful.  I think the majority of the CIO’s today are extremely bright and they ‘get’ their current reality but these same smart CIO’s are much too close to their current reality to fully understand what needs to occur to be prepared for the future.

Bringing in the right consultant is key for moving from today’s reality to tomorrow’s.  Find a consultant focused on delivering value to you (rather than selling a technology platform) and you’ll be golden.

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Join me next week for another article in the series.

Consultants and the CIO is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
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In the article, Spike Jones says:

If you listen REALLY closely to their [social media consultant's] advice, you start to realize that most of it you already know. Because you have all the basic tools you need: Your humanity. Your ability to communicate with people around you. And your intuition. Because when you think about it, using social media is just a natural extension of yourself. Asking questions. Listening. Responding. And remember, social media apps are tactics. And tactics are tools. Sure, you might need some guidance on how to use that bandsaw, but you picked up a hammer and pretty much got the gist after you hit your thumb a few times.

In other words, we’re getting all worked up about (wait for it, wait for it) common sense. Common courtesy. And the best way to find that is to take off your marketing hat and use the hat you were born with – being a person.

Emphasis mine.

I have an issue with this statement.  Most organizations don’t know how to be human anymore.

Before I continue…I wholeheartedly agree with the premise of Spike’s argument (i.e., we already know how to be human) but I would argue that most companies have removed much of humanity from business.  Many organizations have been built to remove the human side of the business and have replaced it with processes and management…I’ve written about this before in a post titled Humanity and Business“…jump over and read that post for more on the subject of bringing humanity back to business.

Take a look at Jay Baer’s comment on the above article.  In the comment, Jay makes a few valid points…one of them is:

What social media consultants do best – at least those focused on tactical agnosticism – is to help companies connect the dots, align internal resources, and understand not that social media is about more than tools and pressing buttons, but about a cultural shift that manifests itself up and down the organization.

Amen.  Re-read that (and Jay’s entire comment)….did you catch the powerful stuff there?

A good social media consultant should help an organization bring about cultural change. That’s exactly what any good consultant should do….help the organization understand how to change to adapt to new realities. Whether that reality is purchasing a new software platform or using social media to build relationships with clients.

Back to my original question: Do you need consultants? Hell yes you do.

Why?  Here’s a few reasons:

• Consultants bring an external view
• Consultants bring experience
• Consultants bring expertise
• Consultants bring relevance
• Consultants bring authority

Whether you like it or not, consultants are a necessity.   Perhaps most organizations don’t need a social media consultant…but most organizations do need help understanding how to be more human.

That’s what a good consultant (social media or otherwise) sh0uld bring to the table.   A good SM consultant should help organizations understand how to be more human while building relationships with their clients.  A good IT consultant should help organizations bring humanity back to the IT organization by helping the organization understand that IT is more than processes, workflows and reasons ‘not to’.

Do you need consultants – yes you do. If you’re looking for a consultant, find one that ignores the technology, buzzwords and tools (at the beginning) and talks about your organization, your needs and hopefully they will also talk about being more ‘human’.  Find a consultant that talks about ‘humanity and business’ and hire them on the spot.  You’ll not regret it.

Consultants – do we need them? is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Consultants and the CIO
2. I hate consultants
3. Minding the gap between Strategy and Tactics – The New CIO Series
4. Web 2.0 in the Enterprise
5. Humanity and Business

After writing last week’s post, I ran across an article by Kathleen Eisenhardt from titled “Making Fast Strategic Decisions in High-Velocity Environments“.  In this article, the author reports on a study that was conducted to compare the speed of the decision making process and the performance of those decisions at eight microcomputer organizations.

At the time of the article’s publication (1989), popular belief (and much research) stated the following:

• Leaders & organizations should be autocratic
• Decision making should be centralized for speed and control
• When planning, an organization should look at future projections, not operational data
• Careful analysis of the ‘best’ option should be performed
• Fast analysis means less data

Sound familiar to anyone?  I still see a lot of organizations and leaders following this approach today, especially in the IT space.

Eisenhardt’s research showed something interesting.  She was able to show that those organizations that made quick decisions were more apt to use more information and look at more options than those that made slow decisions.  The data also showed that centralized decision making isn’t the fastest route to a decision; organizations that shared data with a larger audience and welcomed feedback were more apt to perform better in the long run.

I won’t go into the full outcome of the research, but I wanted to highlight a few of the key propositions from the paper:

• The decision making process speeds up when you make use of real-time data
• The decision making process speeds up when you increased the # of alternatives considered simultaneously
• The more integrated your decision making process is, the faster it can go
• In “high-velocity environments”, the faster the decision making process goes, the greater the performance.
• Politics slows decision making and degrades performance.

So…what does this have to do with IT?

Everything.  To compete in the turbulent world today, we’ve got to be agile in our thinking and execution.  This research helps highlight that fact.

Organization’s, and especially organizations that use technology, are high-velocity environments.   We are doing more with less and have to do it faster than before.

The faster we can make decisions with more accurate data (real-time) and the more options we review, the better that decision outcome will be in the long run.  Will every decision be correct? No…but it will be a decision that moves you a little further.

If you take the OODA approach discussed last week, you’ll be making decisions, acting on those decisions and immediately looping back to review the post-decision environment and determining what needs to be tweaked in your strategy for the to reflect the ‘new’ environment and to prepare future.

Integrated Decision Making

One of the outcomes of the research showed that decision making processes worked better when they were integrated with each other.   Eisenhardt reports that in those organizations that had strategic planning integrated integrated with tactics (see my thoughts on this topic in Minding the gap between Strategy and Tactics), performance improved.  In addition, those leaders who brought together people from different parts of the organization during the decision making process performed better.

Surprised?  This is why it’s such a huge issue for The New CIO to be engaged and involved with the organizational strategic planning process and be tied in with other groups and teams’ decision making.    Eisenhardt reports that making decisions with as many options as possible using as much real-time operational information as possible is the key to performance…CIO’s should take this and run with it.

The New CIO needs to take research like this to heart.  Use all the data you can, include your team and others from the organization in your decision making process.  In addition, as CIO you need to push for inclusion in other teams’ decision making process.Ensuring integrated decision making with the proper people & data, you’ll be able to mind the strategy/tactic gap and act in an agile manner.

References

• Eisenhardt, K. (1989). Making Fast Strategic Decisions in High-Velocity Environments. The Academy of Management Journal, 32(3), 543-576.

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Join me next week for another article in the series.

Decision Speed, Performance and the CIO is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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1. Leading by saying No – The New CIO Series
2. Do it or Don't….just stop talking about it
3. Implementing a High Performance Work System
4. Project Selection using Decision Support & Optimization Techniques
5. Book Review: The Three Laws of Performance

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges.

I just read a ‘call for papers’ from Cutter IT Journal with the title “The Great Recession Fallout: Will CIOs Be Elevated or Exterminated?”  It doesn’t look like they’ve posted this latest call for papers on their website, but you should be able to find it there sometime soon.

While I’ve already been thinking about this topic for some time (an example can be seen in last week’s post titled “The Future of IT & The CIO“) it’s good to see  there are other folks thinking about the same thing.

A passage in the email really made me stop and think about what we (industry, IT & CIO’s) are doing.  Here’s what caught my eye:

No longer singularly pursuing either an innovation or an efficiency agenda, CIOs may now need to pursue both as their firms are driven by both the need for efficiency and the fear of having an obsolete business model. While CIOs have for some time been asked to contribute in strategic and tactical ways, has this recession pushed them too hard down both paths?

Take a look at that last sentence and think about it. We’ve been pushing (and been pushed) to do ‘more with less’ for quite a while now.  We are being asked to be strategic and tactical.  Our IT Staff are being asked to be both technical and business savvy at the same time.  This is a fact of life…but is it a reality?  Are we really able to do everything asked of us?

Can you really focus on the strategic and tactical at the same time?  Can you really expect your technical staff to interface with the business?  Have we cut our staffs and budgets so far that we’ve cut out ability to deliver real value? Are we running on empty these days?

Great questions (I think anyway).

Can you (or your team) really do it all?

There is a point at which you and your team become overloaded.  In a normal economy, this overload could be offset by hiring new staff, but in this recession there’s no new staff and many organizations aren’t bringing in new contractors either.  At some point, the overload becomes too much and you and/or your team need to pull back the effort or you’ll overload your circuits and burn yourself or your team out.  Just like the fuel gauge shown above, you and your team will be running on empty.

The New CIO needs to know when they can take on the extra work and responsibilities and when they need to push back at the organization to ensure proper staffing levels.

In addition, the New CIO must ensure that they have the right mix of IT staff.  If we’re being asked to be both strategic and tactical, you better have some folks who can do both.  If you have to interface with the organization, you better make sure you have IT staff who can interface with the business.

Lastly, as I’ve said before, in this age of doing more with less, the New CIO has to lead by saying no as much as they can.  The organization has to understand what the IT group is capable of and what will take additional staff and/or budget.

Keep your eye on your team and make sure they’ve got a bit of fuel left at all times.  Keep working hard and moving closer to your goals…but make sure you aren’t killing your staff.

Take a few minutes and ask yourself and your team: Can you really do it all?  If the answer is no, start building a business case for what needs to change, how it needs to change and why. That business case needs to land on every leader’s desk within the organization and you’d better drive hard to make the changes necessary.  If you don’t you might just find yourself looking at a staff who’s running on empty and an economy that has just moved out of the recession…and you’ve got no way to do what needs to be done to take advantage of the changes.

That said, if your organization was working right, the recession would be the time to invest in additional staff and projects…not cut staff and projects.  But that’s a topic for another post

Can you do it all? – The New CIO Series is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Keeping your IT staff Engaged and Happy – The New CIO Series
2. Minding the gap between Strategy and Tactics – The New CIO Series
3. Leading by saying No – The New CIO Series
4. The Dangers of Hidden Talent – New CIO Series
5. Defining "Right" – The New CIO Series