I just read a short article on the Enterprise CIO Forum written by Charles Bess titled Landing a few points about cloud and the shifting expectations of a CIO.  In the article, Charles talks about a few different things but one sentence really caught my eye. Charles wrote:

Many view IT as a subtractive (a cost cutting activity) as opposed to the additive activity that the business should expect — focused on increasing the value of the enterprise as a whole

I never really thought about it that way…but he’s absolutely correct.

In the past, IT and Technology were some of the first areas to get hit with cost cutting measures.  In addition, most CIO’s and IT leaders are extremely focused on ‘cutting costs’ using technology and ‘doing more with less‘.

The focus on cost-cutting and efficiency has led IT groups and CIO’s to become uber-focused on the subtractive areas of IT and technology.  We’ve become focused on what we can do to save money and increase efficiency rather than what value can be brought to the organization via technology.

Rather than focus on taking things away…how’s about we start thinking about adding to the organization?  Let’s change the default sign of IT from a subtraction sign to an addition sign…and maybe we’ll start changing the attitude toward IT from that of a negative to a positive.

Photo Image: Plus or Minus (+/-) By Tom Raftery on flickr

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP.

In one of the first few chapters, Dr. Kahneman describes the “invisible gorilla test” popularized by psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. The test consists of a team of 3 people dressed in black and a team of 3 people dressed in white passing a basketball to their teammates.

Watch for yourself…and really really focus on counting the passes between the white-shirts. (If you are reading this via RSS and don’t see a video, please click here to view it).

Did you get the number of passes correct? How about the gorilla…did you see the gorilla the first time?

Whether you saw the gorilla while watching the video or not…research shows that about half of the people that watch this video and focus on counting passes, do not see the gorilla. Pretty amazing huh? Half the people don’t see a gorrilla walk through the scene, pound its chest, turn and look at the camera, then stroll off.  Half the people.

From this test (and many other tests by other psychologists), we’ve learned that its very easy for us mere humans to get deceived, to miss things and/or just not pay attention that well. The ‘invisible gorilla’ phenomenon isn’t just some theoretical phenomena…Its something that happens in the real world every day. It happens to me and to you everyday.

The invisible gorilla shows up in many workplaces too.  With so many people and organizations focused on “doing more with less” (or whatever other buzzworthy terms you want to use here), we tend to miss some of the very important details that might change our outlook and approach towards those things we are so focused on.

Take a step back in your job/life and look for that invisible gorilla.  Maybe your gorilla won’t be as easy to see as the one in the video above…but i bet there’s one there…if you look hard enough.

PS: If you want to learn more about The Invisible Gorilla phenomenon, Simons and Chabris have written many papers on the subject and have even released a book titled The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us (amazon affiliate link). 

Image Credit: Gorilla By Kris Elshout on flickr

In the article, Dave describes what he calls ‘order takers’ and ‘solution creators’. The order taker does a good job of working with clients to deliver a widget but does very little to ensure that the widget actually will solve the clients’ long term problems.  Nothing wrong with order takers mind you…they can be very reliable and in some instances, order takers are perfect.

But other times, its better to be a solution maker/creator. In his article, Dave describes the solution creator as:

 They’re idea people, they’re results people–not just for themselves but for the customer.  They help their customers envision a new future.  They help their customers think about their business differently.  They help their customer change and improve.

Emphasis mine.

He also writes:

When they engage the customer they talk about what the customer is trying to achieve.  They don’t spend a lot of time on what their solution does, it’s features or capabilities.  They know it’s not about the product but what the customer is trying to achieve.  Instead they focus on outcomes and results the customer will achieve.  They quantify these results, so the customer can clearly understand the impact it will have on their business.

Emphasis mine.

Historically, the IT group has been an order taker. They have existed to do what they are asked to do…and for the most part, we’ve been good at being order takers.

Need a new server? Check….that’ll be $$$.

Need a new application?  Check…that’ll be $$$$.

Need your email backed up?  Check…that’ll be $.

In recent years, some organizations have begun trying to transform the IT group into something more than an order taker.  Some CIO’s and IT groups have even taken the initiative to try to transform themselves into something more than order takers.

Some have been successful. Many haven’t.  Most that have succeeded in this transformation have understood that the status quo will not work going forward. The IT of yesterday will not work for the organization of tomorrow. Business is moving faster and faster every day and the order taker and gatekeeper mentality of yesterday’s IT will leave many IT professionals behind if they don’t change.

I wrote an article a few months ago titled Splitting IT – Operations and Innovation that talks about the need for IT to change or have change forced upon us. In that post I wrote:

Operational IT will focus on the tactics necessary to keep the lights on and servers running. Strategic IT / Business Technology will focus on the strategy use of technology for the organization.   Both groups will co-mingle and work together of course…but the teams will have different goals and different types of people working within each.

Notice the difference between Operational and Strategic IT?  One difference is that one is an order taker while the other is a solution creator.  Operational IT will remain the order takers and the newly formed Strategic IT / Business Technology team will be the solution creators.

So…CIO’s & IT Leaders…are you transforming your teams into solution creators or are you happy being order takers?  IT Pro’s…what about you? Are you happy in the operational world of IT or are you chomping at the bit to help your ‘customers’ create solutions?

PS: A few other posts about similar topics that I’ve published are Driving transformation with IT starts with transforming IT, Not What, but How – Connecting IT and the Business and I own the technology, you own the content for examples. If you haven’t read them yet, I’d love to have you add them to your ‘to read’ list

Image Credit: The Order-Taker By mynameisharsha on flickr

I’ve been needing to re-write some scripts for data analysis for my research. I initially wrote some scripts in R but found that R is particularly slow when it comes to this type of analysis (more accurately I should say that my implementation of these analysis techniques is slow).

So..I started looking for a more economical way to do this analysis.  I’m using PHP to do some of the up-front data collection so my logical choice was to dust off my PHP skills and build some analysis scripts using PHP.

So I got out my PHP books and started coding. After a few days, I had a pretty impressive set of scripts that would take my collected data, run a bayes classification filter on that data for sentiment and then summarize that data.  I was proud of myself…until I realized that the implementation of my classification algorithm would be difficult to justify in an academic setting….or at least that I’d have to spend a lot of time defending and justifying it at a later date. This was also one of the reasons that I wanted to re-write the R scripts.

So…I revisited my approach.  Was there anything written in PHP that was well received in the academic world? Of course not.

One approach that is used by many researchers in  text classification and sentiment analysis is to use the Python language and the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) – and there are plenty of academic articles citing the NLTK…so that helps me with defending my algorithms in my dissertation work.

Now…I’ve never looked at Python. I couldn’t have written a “Hello World” program in python.  But…it needed to be done, so I found some resources on the web and dove in.  Over the course of a few hours I wrote my analysis and summary scripts in python….and was absolutely amazed at how quick this language is. My buddy Jeff is probably getting tired of me telling him how great python is … but oh well…he’ll keep hearing it

I was able to get the time that my analysis takes down from 8 to 9 hours in R to about 1.5 hours in python. Talk about a time saver!  Now…most of that time savings is probably due to new approaches to the analysis rather than just a pure python vs R speed issue….but the re-writing forced me to rethink my approach.

Why tell you about my newfound skillz (I’m told you have to use ‘z’ in this usage of the word)?

Part of me wanted to brag a bit

But, more importantly, learning a new programming language isn’t necessarily about the language itself…its about the discovery process.   For me, learning Python forced me to rethink my approaches to the data analysis I was working on…and the outcome is a faster analysis with potentially more accurate results as well as a more defensible algorithm. Learning a new language forced me to think through my approach. It forced me to think about the inputs and outputs.

When is the last time to you took a step back and rethought your approach?   You don’t need to learn Python to do it…just take a step back from your day-to-day grind and really look at what you are doing. Is it working for you?  Is it working for your team and/or organization?

If the answer isn’t an unequivocal ‘yes’, then maybe you need to rethink your script(s) and look for a new approach.

In Dec 2010, I put together a list of Recommended Books for the CIO / IT leader for 2011. That list was a good list with many CIO/IT related books as well as many non-IT related books.

When I sat down to think about a list of books for 2012, my first inclination was to mix it up again this year with some CIO/IT related books + some non-IT books.  But then…I realized 2 things: 1.) There aren’t that many CIO/IT leadership books on the market and 2.) most CIO’s don’t need help being told how to be a CIO the in traditional sense.  CIO’s today (and tomorrow) need to understand what the rest of the business is doing and how they are working.

With my main focus in my recent consulting being in the areas of helping IT groups work better with Marketing, PR and Communications teams/groups, I thought I’d put together a list with a wide-range of topics that would be good for IT professionals and CIO’s to read this year. Topics include IT, content, marketing, PR, leadership and business in general.

All links below are amazon affiliate links.

It’s Not About You: A Little Story About What Matters Most in Business by Bob Burg

Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization by Olivier Blanchard

Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman

Real-Time Marketing and PR, Revised: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now by David Meerman Scott

The Role of Technology in Today’s Marketplace: Leading Technology Executives on Adapting to Changing Business Needs, Harnessing Innovation, and Increasing Organizational Efficiency (Multiple Authors)

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Dan Pink

Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization by Dave Logan, John King, Halee Fischer-Wright

Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable About Destroying the Barriers That Turn Colleagues Into Competitors by Patrick Lencioni

Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters by Richard P. Rumelt

The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge by Vijay Govindarajan

The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, Clayton M. Christensen

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World by Jamie Notter, Maddie Grant

The Idea Hunter: How to Find the Best Ideas and Make them Happen by Andy Boynton, Bill Fischer, William Bole (contributor)

Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries by Peter Sims

The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries

Image Credit: 2012_happy_new_year-widew By Ludie Cochrane on flickr

Paul Muller, and HP Blogger published a post on the Enterprise CIO Forum titled Twelve thrilling (or terrifying) thoughts for IT in 2012.

This time of year sees a lot of ‘prediction’ articles…most are worth the read and some aren’t.  Paul’s is worth a quick read. Rather than lay out a long, drawn out post about what he sees in the coming year, Paul gives a quick list of what he sees coming in 2012 based on what he’s hearing from his clients and colleagues.

Paul writes:

To be clear, predictions as a general rule are wrong the minute they’re made, mine doubly so! However, I have made a conscious decision to focus on what I’m seeing and hearing from practitioners versus theoreticians and I hope that they stimulate us all to think about the disruptions we might face and how we can be better prepared to respond if and when we need to.

Jump over to read all of Paul’s predictions for 2012. I provide some thoughts on some of the more interesting predictions below.

Paul’s first three predictions are most interesting to me. They are:

#1 IT as a team sport – IT management goes social.

#2 Death of the pager, IT management goes mobile.

#3 Breaking down the silos – agile, continuous delivery and devops.

Prediction #1 and #2 are coming (and are already here for some organizations). That said, I don’t see many people talking about them…so Kudos for Paul for including them.  Most IT professional’s find the ‘social’ world to be a frightening place due to security and process issues, but most people I talk with understand social is here to stay and there are plenty of benefits in adopting a social approach to their work.

Prediction #3 is where the real challenge lies in just about every organization today.  Regardless of what we all say, there are still silos in most organizations…and the IT group is the biggest silo builder (along with Finance and HR).  These silos are breaking down though.  Consumerization, social and Shadow IT are helping tear them down but they aren’t completely down.

The future of IT…whether it be in 2012 or 2020…will depend on the ability of the CIO and IT group to get things done. And by done…I don’t mean have them planned or have them ‘in progress’…I mean done.    The speed of business is getting faster and the IT group has to keep up.  Breaking down silos is the first step.

Here’s to hoping some silos are busted down in 2012.

Image Credit: Missing Silo Roof By kahala on flickr

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP.

Cloud computing is here to stay.

Oh wait…I hate statements like that.  Sorry about that.

Statements like the above are made by people trying to defend the ‘cloud’ or whatever new or important product/service they are trying to sell today (or one they want to sell tomorrow).

That said…the cloud is an important aspect of technology that every organization should have already adopted into their technology strategy and roadmap. Ignore the option of the cloud and you may find yourself without a job soon.

Many IT professionals look at the cloud through fear-filled eyes. They see the cloud as their competition. They see the cloud as their job.  This fear is natural and understandable…cloud services are a form of ‘outsourcing’.  But…IT Pro’s shouldn’t be fearful and/or ignore the cloud…we should embrace it and plan for widespread adoption.

If the IT professional doesn’t plan for the adoption of cloud-based services, others will.   Much like the world of Shadow IT within organizations…the cloud can enable an even greater Shadow…or it can help the CIO and IT shine some light within these shadows and start to transform Shadow IT into a properly managed technology infrastructure.

Terence Ngai, an HP Blogger and employee, writes about this very topic in an article titled Cloud computing puts an end to shadow IT on the Enterprise CIO Forum.  In the article, Terence suggests that the Cloud will end Shadow IT for good. I disagree with that premise but I do think the cloud is a good start to getting a handle on Shadow IT.

Terence writes:

Cloud computing gives business execs and IT leaders a unique opportunity to work together to develop an IT strategy that really meets the needs of the business. Why? Because more than any other technology, cloud computing offers undeniable benefits that can close the gap between business and IT.  Line of business owners can quantify the business value of needed resources. And IT leaders could use that info to create a winning business case for cloud computing and demonstrate the value of IT.

I don’t disagree with that at all.

Terence implores business leaders to learn about Cloud technology and services and then help guide their IT groups towards those services.  Not a bad approach for selling more services into the enterprise

One thing that bothers me about Terence’s suggested approach is this: If there’s a CIO or IT group out there that hasn’t already developed a technology strategy that includes the cloud, the leadership of that IT group should be replaced immediately.  That doesn’t mean that their strategy should be to use the cloud…just that they’ve thought about how the cloud can be used when it is needed.

Personally, I don’t think the cloud will end Shadow IT.  The cloud is an enabler of shadow IT…and if a CIO or IT group cannot find a way to insert themselves into the discussions around Shadow IT and moving services to the cloud, they’ll find themselves without jobs in the near future.

The cloud is here to stay (ack!)…and those of us in IT need to find ways to ensure cloud based services are used in a secure and professional manner. We know people within the organization are going to the cloud for services that they can’t get from IT (or at least think IT is too slow to deliver those services in a timely manner) so let’s help them understand the benefits and the challenges of the cloud.

By developing a technology strategy that includes the cloud and cloud based services, maybe…just maybe…shadow IT can be managed. It won’t be completely banished but at least IT professionals can get a better grasp on situation.

The cloud has helped to expand Shadow IT…its time for IT groups to incorporate both into technology strategy and roadmaps.  Without embracing the ‘clouds and shadows’, the organization will continue to move faster than the IT group and continue to make IT and the CIO less relevant and less valuable.

Image Credit: Cloud & Shadows

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP.

In my last post titled Driving transformation with IT starts with transforming IT, I pointed out a nice video on the Enterprise CIO Forum of Canadian Pacific’s CIO Heather Campbell titled describing her work of transforms the Canadian Pacific IT function by focusing on the needs of the business (among other things).

After I wrote that post, I saw part 1 of that series…which is just as good as the other video I pointed to.  The other video, titled Canadian Pacific: When outsourcing goes too far is a great one to watch as well.  Jump over and watch it…and come back for a brief analysis and my thoughts.

The premise of the interview is this: At some point, the majority of the Canadian Pacific IT group was outsourced. This outsourcing destroyed their ability to function, destroyed morale, careers, ambitions and a long and thorough knowledge base held within the IT group.

I’ve seen the effects of outsourcing on IT groups…and in most cases, it is devastating.  That said…we aren’t here to debate the pros/cons of outsourcing…we’re here to see how Ms. Campbell was able to recover from the devastating outsourcing that occurred at Canadian Pacific.

According to the interview, Ms. Campbell joined Canadian Pacific as CIO and had the difficult task of rebuilding the IT group.  What was her first task? Was it to clean house and bring in her own team to run things? Nope.  Her first task was to get to know her team.  Simple but powerful.  How can you “clean house” if you don’t understand how the house got dirty (or if its really dirty at all)?

Rather than clean house, she started another tough task…changing the culture of IT. She began helping her staff rebuild their skills (and their confidence?).  Rather than just focus on pure technical skills she also helped her team build / rebuild their project management skills.  Why PM skills specifically?  So she could be sure the projects that they needed to get done actually got done on time.

The key outcome here is this:  Ms. Campbell was able to rebuild her staff’s skill-sets, their confidence and their capabilities by focusing on them rather than on how much more to outsource or how to save more money.  She focused on her people first and their capabilities.  She turned a staff of IT ‘workers’ into IT Professionals…she turned a group of people who were embarrassed to call themselves IT employees and made them proud of what they do and who they are.

Kudo’s Ms. Campbell and to the Canadian Pacific Team.

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP.

I was just perusing the Enterprise CIO Forum and noticed the video of Canadian Pacific’s CIO Heather Campbell titled Canadian Pacific CIO transforms IT function.  In the video, the CIO describes the transformation if the Canadian Pacific IT group and their long road from an ‘under-performing’ group that was underfunded to a group that could deliver strategic technology projects to their clientele within just a few weeks.

There are some pretty interesting things discussed in this video…I’d highly recommend jumping over to watch it…its short but packed with good stuff.  After you watch it…drop back over and let’s digest what was said…I’ll wait.

Let’s discuss…

Ms. Campbell had the wisdom to understand that the IT group was under-performing..and had historically under-performed for the organization.  She understood the issues and immediately sought to rectify them.

So…what was the first thing she did…or at least the first thing she reported she did?  She didn’t reorganize. She didn’t bring in consulting companies.  She did something much more simple…much more relevant.

She and her IT team sat down with the business to understand how they can work better together.  In fact, they initiated a strategic planning process to build the first IT and Business Strategy in the history of the organization.

The next step? Build an agile environment.  Not necessarily an “Agile” environment…but one of flexibility and agility.

Canadian Pacific build a fast moving, capable and responsive team that is focused on the business’ needs…and from our outside vantage point – things look really good for Canadian Pacific, their CIO and their IT staff. The Canadian Pacific IT team transformed themselves from an under-performing organization to one that is looked at as a business partner and one that provides true competitive advantage to the organization.

A great quick video and story of how a CIO and IT has transformed themselves – and their organization – by focusing first on the business and then on the technology to meet business objectives.

Image Credit: Change By tidefan on flickr

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP.

The bad thing…most of us are replaceable.

Sure…you can try to be the best at what you do…but unless you ARE the BEST at what you do, you are replaceable.

Very few people can be the best…so…by elimination, very few people are irreplaceable.

Seth Godin states it well in his book Lynchpin (amazon affiliate link):

“If all you can do is the task and you’re not in a league of your own at doing the task, you’re not indispensable.”

Let’s take a tour of the world of IT for a minute and think about the people within most IT groups.

You’ve got System Administrators. Developers. Project Managers. Testers. System Analysts. Business Analysts, Managers, etc etc.  The list goes on and on…

Out of this group of people how many are irreplaceable?

Each of these positions are necessary in the modern day IT group. That said, each is replaceable…but each is replaceable via internal or external means…via fireing/ hiring or via outsourcing.

Every single IT professional in every role has some chance of being replaced. From the CIO down the ladder to the most junior level IT grunt…everyone’s replaceable…unless they aren’t.

Think about your team.  How many on your team could be replaced (with someone of equal experience) and not have much of a hiccup?  Sure there’s some knowledge transfer that has to happen, but for the most part things would operate smoothly.

Out of a group of 100 IT professionals, are 10 irreplaceable?  How about 5? How about 1?

What makes an IT professional (or anyone) irreplaceable isn’t that they do a job or that they know something that others may not know…its how they do their job and how they apply their knowledge.

No longer can you lean on your years of service, expertise or ‘what you know’ to be successful and/or to remain employed.  To be irreplaceable, you’ve got to be irreplaceable.

You’ve got to be the person that everyone in your team / organization looks to for answers. You’ve got to be the person that everyone knows is irreplaceable.

Are you truly irreplaceable? Are you the person who gets the phone call when something ‘must get done’?  If not…you should be.

Image Credit: Replaceable By steve heath on flickr