I just put down SWAT – Seize the Accomplishment (Amazon affiliate link) by Timothy L. Johnson….and now want to pick it back up and read it again.  It’s that good.

I received the book as a review copy from the author…but don’t let that get in the way of believing me when i say that this business fable is an excellent one.

SWAT is an acronym for “Systems Working All Together”…but it also helps set the stage for the story in the book.

The storyline of this book is a good one and keeps the concepts moving forward quickly. In the story, a team lead has a difficult task to work through and turns to his best friend and cousin…who happens to be a SWAT commander.

The main character, Toby, spends time with his SWAT commander cousin and learns the systems thinking concepts that make SWAT teams successful.

The concepts are described perfectly and in a manner that makes it easy to comprehend and easy to understand how you might apply them to the problems your currently facing.

I’ve read quite a few systems thinking books but nothing as entertaining as this.   While this isn’t nearly as comprehensive as Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, Timothy Johnson’s put together a great little book that can help to introduce the systems thinking concepts quickly and easily.

Grab this book from your favorite bookseller today..Amazon has it for $14.95.

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• SWAT. Systems working all together. Timothy L. Johnson. (regnordman.com)

I’ve been sitting at my computer staring at the screen for a few minutes trying to come up with a topic for my weekly “New CIO” article.   While waiting for inspiration to strike (i.e., surfing the web) I took a look at my Google Analytics account and noticed that the most visited article on my blog “The Problem(s) with Linear Thinking“.

Now…this is an article I wrote in January 2007…way back when I was a novice blogger. I still like it and still think that linear thinking is a huge trap of organizations to fall into.  It’s also a huge trap for CIO’s to fall into.

So…I ran a quick search for “Linear Thinking” and  “Linear Thinking CIO” and what did I find?  Me.   The couple of posts I’ve done on the topic are at the top of the list.  When I did the Search for “Linear Thinking CIO” my “Beware the Linear Thinking Trap” post is ranked #1.

Now…while I’m excited to be ranked #1 on Google for something, the question has to be asked – how many people are searching for those terms?  Not many based on the traffic I get from them…but enough to make a difference.

So..why another post on Linear Thinking?

Because I still see the topic as one that’s causing  a lot of problems withing organizations. I also see a lot of CIO’s and IT groups stuck in the linear thinking trap and unaware of their predicament.

Quick example:

The CIO commissions the IT group to create and implement a governance model & document to manage all IT projects.   This governance document is developed as a closed system with little input from the rest of the organization.  The model is put into practice and is now ‘law’ within the organization.

Based on the governance model, all new projects over $25,000 must go through the governance process.   Why $25K?   Very few projects can be completed for less than that…and those that fall under $25K aren’t really that important right?

So…the HR team is ready to implement a new system.  They come to IT and ask for some assistance and are told that the project will undoubtedly be over $25K and must go into the governance process and be subject to ‘proper’ project and portfolio management practices.

The HR team are good corporate citizens and begin the governance process.  They fill out the paperwork.  Determine an estimated cost for the project (and it is over $25K) and wait for the governance process to kick in.  And they wait.

A month after submitting the paperwork, a meeting is held to prioritize the projects within the organization. The HR team doesn’t get to attend this meeting…they have to rely on the IT team and submitted paperwork to make their case.

The project is deemed a lower priority than others and not authorized.  The HR team is furious.  The implementation of this system is a part of all of their performance goals for the year and it has to get done.

So….what happens?

You know what happens! The HR Team moves forward anyway.  They reach out to vendors and solicit bids for a ‘phased approach’ to the project. Perhaps they look for a SaaS model for the system to save implementation and initial upfront investment.

Jump forward six months.

The HR Team has fully implement a SaaS platform to do what they need to do.  The system does not integrate with any other platform within the organization (perhaps it can, it just hasn’t been integrated).  The HR Team is happy as they’ve met the need of their team and reached their goals.

The IT team is not happy.  They’ve now got another system in the mix and have to decide whether they support it or not.  The CIO isn’t happy because the governance model has proven ineffective.  The CIO takes the issue to the CEO and is told to support the platform…the HR team is ‘getting things done’ and the IT team better get on the ball or ‘heads will roll’.

More than a governance issue

There are a ton of problems with the above scenario.  There are governance issues, portfolio management issues, client management issues and potential security and IT integration issues.

But…they all stem from the fact that the governance model implemented within the example organization has been built with with ‘old’ thinking.  IT projects  no longer have to be expensive projects.  Organizations can go the SaaS route to get any number of platforms implemented much cheaper than in the past.  Sure, there are still the ‘big’ projects, but not every IT platform is a ‘big’ project these days.

Organizations can no longer work with an inflexible governance model that provides no relief for those projects that aren’t considered a ‘priority’.  Governance and portfolio management must be performed but we’ve got to find ways to be agile at the same time.

There’s a ton of work for CIO’s to do to create more flexible governance models, better project and portfolio management processes and generally provide better service to the organization.  But in order to create these new models, CIO’s and IT groups need to move out of the lienar thinking rut that we’ve been operating in for so long.  We’ve got to find ways to be more agile and responsive to the organization.

The ability to be agile and think differently is key to the success (and survival?) of the CIO and IT group in the future.

Linear Thinking and the CIO

In my “Beware the Linear Thinking Trap” post, I ask:

Are you doing the same thing the same way you were last year?

Many organizations still answer ‘yes’ because that’s all they can do. That’s all they know how to do.  They’ve fallen into the linear thinking trap and don’t realize it.

The New CIO must find a way to stay out of the trap that linear thinking can create.  In the example above the CIO used a governance model to manage the project portfolio.  This, in itself, isn’t a bad thing.  Governance is needed.  Portfolios are needed.

What’s bad about this situation is that the approach to governance must change in the Enterprise 2.0 world.  No longer can you control all applications within the organization. Shadow IT is rampant.   Rather than fight Shadow IT, use it to your advantage.  Work with those departments that have created their own shadow infrastructure to ensure they are governed and managed correctly.

Linear thinking is taking many CIO’s and IT organizations further and further into irrelevancy.  It’s no longer enough to use the same governance models you used five years ago or even last year.  The New CIO has to step in with innovative approaches to IT governance and project/portfolio management (and in all other aspects of IT) to provide the organization with the best opportunity to be successful.

Stop doing what you did last year. Stop doing what you did yesterday.  It won’t work tomorrow…heck…it didn’t work yesterday.

Climb out of that depression caused by the linear thinking trap and do something better.   Thinking creatively. If you want to be the CIO, you’ve got to think differently.

I realize it’s a few days into the new year and most people have already committed their 2010 resolutions to paper (or screen)…now its my turn.

Rather than use ‘resolutions’ to tell others what I plan to do, I began to use the “three words” method that I read about over on Chris Brogan’s blog. See Chris’s Three Words for 2010.

Before I give you my three words for 2010, let me take a second to look back at 2009.

My three words and their definitions for 2009 were:

• Create – Whether I’m writing for this blog, working on my doctorate, working on entrepreneurial activities, working with clients or spending time with family, I want to be creating 2009.
• Think – I want to think better. I want to think more creatively.   I also want to make other people think….this is what I’ll be working on for the coming year.
• Lead – My goal for the coming year is to lead in everything I do.  This doesn’t mean I want/need to be the ‘best’ at everything I do (although it would be nice)…I want to be seen as a leader in the various aspects of my life.  My writing, my research, my work…I’m going to push to be someone that people look to for information and direction.

I wrote a mid-year review post to reflect upon what had happened in the first 6 months of 2009.

I think I hit my three words head on in 2009.  I created. I thought. And I led. Here’s a few highlights:

• I became a better photographer and started a new photo blog called Photography Minute where I share tips, photos and reviews of gear that I’ve tried.  I’ve enjoyed that blog and look forward to doing much more over on the photo blog.
• I’ve written a lot in 2009.  I have an article coming out this month in Cutter IT Journal and have two other articles submitted to academic journals.
• I’ve reconnected with someone I shouldn’t have lost touch with.  After reconnecting, we wrote the aforementioned Cutter article and are talking about a few other projects going forward.
• I helped the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) roll-out a new website which has received pretty good feedback. Like everything, there are problems that need fixed but when you compare the new with the old, the new is better.
• I hope I’ve written some good stuff on this blog that made people think. My “New CIO” Series is something I’m very proud of and hope to continue the series into 2010.
• Another series that I’m extremely proud of is my “Sunday Links” posts.  In those posts I try to point you to some excellent content around the web. I’ve gotten great feedback on this feature and will continue providing this service as long as you keep reading it.

Overall, 2009 was a pretty good year. I did leave the independent consulting practice that I’d been building in Feb 2009 and have enjoyed the work at the BSA but I do miss the excitement and changes that come with having different consulting clients and gigs.

What I didn’t do well in 2009 was “Create”.  Most of my accomplishments from this past year were based around “thinking” and “leading”.

So…onto 2010.  What will it bring? I don’t know…but the three words that I’m using to drive me in this new year are:

• Create – While this was one of my words for 2009, it is something I want to continue to focus on for 2010. I want to write more original stuff. I want to create something that I can build on for the future…perfect segue into the next ‘word’.
• Build – I want to build something memorable, lasting and worth the effort.  What does this mean? I really don’t know just yet…but I want to find out.  I want to build my own future rather than let someone else build it or dictate it to me.
  
• Engage – One of the things that I’ve always wanted to do better is engage more.  Engaged with my readers. Engage with other bloggers. Engage on twitter and facebook.  In general, engage with people more online and in real life.

Those are my three words and the driving forces behind my 2010.

What’s yours?

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What’s your focus?

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself this question? What are you focused on in your life or your job?  What’s your focus for the future?

It’s a simple question but a difficult one to answer for most people.  Ask this question of 10 of your coworkers and you’ll probably get most people staring back at you with a blank reaction with very few answers. In fact,  I’d bet there would very few responses that truly answer the question.

In fact, I asked myself this question today and couldn’t answer it to my own satisfaction.

Let’s look at what I’m doing these days:

1. Working for the Boy Scouts of America National Council on the web team.  In this role, I work within the marketing group and try to help the BSA use digital tools to reach out and engage with our audiences.
2. Blogging here about Technology, Strategy, People & Projects – although most of my recent writing has been focused on “The New CIO”.
3. Writing a few articles with co-writers (Gene De Libero for example – we are writing an article for an upcoming Cutter IT Journal).
4. Working on my Doctorate in Information Systems.  This is a TON of work but enjoyable.  I’m on track to finish up in 2012 and am will be starting my dissertation work in Spring 2010. I’ve been blogging about my “Road to the Doctorate“  on another blog.
5. Working on a few new entrepreneurial activities (some which I hope to be able to announce soon).
6. Trying to find some time to really dive into my passion for learning about photography and actually taking some photographs.  This is getting harder and harder for me these days.
7. Last but definitely not least, I’d like to spend more time with my wife traveling and just generally enjoying life.

Lots of things here…but I’m sure there are some of you who have much more going on so please don’t tell me that I’m a slacker if you do!

I’ve got quite a bit going on and I’m extremely lucky to be in a position to be able to do all of these things and the things that I’ve been able to do in the past.  That said, when I asked myself “what’s your focus?” I wasn’t really able to answer the question.

Am I an academic or a practitioner? Am I a technologist or a marketer?  Should i focus on the role of the CIO in the future or am I better positioned to look at how the role of COO or CMO might change over the coming years to integrate technology, marketing and the business?  I love the world of technology and marketing… can I bring this duality together as a focus?  Or…do I focus on the topic that really pulls at my heart strings…building a business of my own?

Think about yourself and your daily activities.  What are you focused on?  Are you getting up, driving to work and doing what has to be done to make it through the day?   Or are you focused on your passion and doing what it takes to keep that focus?  Are you focused on making your life better or just making your life easier?

What’s your focus these days?

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 completed reading The Upside of Turbulence: Seizing Opportunity in an Uncertain World. Great book.  Go buy it…the link above is an affiliate link or just go grab one from your favorite bookseller.

The book does an excellent job of discussing the world of business and the role that turbulence has played in shaping it.  Donald Sull does a great job describing how to embrace turbulence and seize the opportunities that turbulence can bring.

How do you embrace turbulence?   By being agile.

Before we continue, don’t confuse ‘being agile’ with the agile development methodology….while they may be similar, for the purposes of this article, I’ll be talking about a different ‘agile’.

That said, let me clear up what I mean when I saw agile (and what Donald Sull means when he uses it): Agile isn’t about speed. Agile has to do with the ability to change course when needed. Being agile means taking a look at your organizational landscape (strategy, operations, etc) and breaking up the long-term view into smaller samples of time to make it easier to see and respond to opportunities.

Dr Sull defines agility as:

“the capacity to identify and capture opportunities more quickly than rivals” (p. 138).

In addition, he uses the concept of air warfare to help tell the story of how agility can provide tremendous benefits.  Out of these stories of air warfare, Dr Sull introduces John Boyd, a military strategist who helped with a lot of the science behind the F-16 and F-18 fighter jets, and Boyd’s OODA Loop.

John Boyd's OODA Loop (Courtesy of Jeff McNeill's Flickr stream)

What is the OODA loop?  It stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.

What does it have to do with IT? Everything.

In order to be an effective IT group and CIO in the world today, you’ve got to have some flexibility (i.e., be agile) so you can move quickly when opportunities arise.

As we all know, we are being asked to do more with less.  The only way to do that, is to remain flexible (as well as have a good team and not overwork them).  In addition to being agile, you’ve got to have a strategic plan and know how to execute that plan.

By using the OODA model, you might be able to be agile, plan and react as necessary.  Let’s look at how you might incorporate the OODA model into your business life.

Observe

To use the OODA model, the first (and perhaps most important) step is to continuously observe.

Observe your situation.  Look at your organization, team and the competitive landscape.  What can you and your IT team do to help move the company forward?

In addition, observe how your team operates. Do you have enough people?  Do you have the right people?

Is your strategic plan still valid based on these observations? What are the politics of your organization?

Orient

While observing, you’ll need to orient yourself to your landscape.  Orientation (in the OODA model) is all about positioning yourself.

Is your organization changing direction?  Are your competitors doing something differently that previously?  Is your team becoming overloaded?  Do you have the right people on board to make your plans successful?

Decide

You are observing your situation and have oriented yourself to the climate….now all you have to do is decide to do something.  Can you make a decision?  You better be able to.

In a turbulent world, you don’t have time to wait or over-analyze…you’ve got to decide quickly and move on.  In the world of air warfare, if you wait you die and in today’s world your fate and your organization’s fate might just hang on your ability to decide.

Act

You’ve decided on a plan of action.  Now you need to execute it.  If you’ve observed, oriented and made the right decision, you can act with ease…but do you have the right people in place?

Many organizations plan well but very few ACT well.  The ability to act and react after observing & orienting is a major reason that some organizations succeed and others don’t.

The New CIO & The Loop

The OODA model is built with feedback loops.  Each action is fed back to the observation stage to review for tweaks.  I’ve found that most organizations are missing this feedback mechanism…strategic plans are made and ‘rolled out’ without any feedback nor any way to change course quickly.

Dr Sull introduces his own version of the OODA loop…he calls it the ‘agility loop’.  The agility loop has four stages:

• Make sense of situation
• Make choices
• Make it happen
• Make revisions

I like what Dr Sull has to say about the agility loop…whether you use the OODA loop or Sull’s Agility loop, you’ll be in a position to improve your agility.

To succeed in the future, The New CIO has to remain agile.  Using the OODA loop (or Dr Sull’s agility loop) helps you keep your mindset right.  Remember to observe, orient, decide & act. Then repeat.

I was lucky enough to get a pre-release copy of Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation by IDEO CEO Tim Brown through the Amazon Vine program….and I’m glad I did.

If you take a look at some of the Pre-release copy reviews of this book on Amazon you’ll see a few folks bashing the book because it doesn’t tell the reader much Design or Design Thinking and spends much of its time promoting IDEO.

I disagree wholeheartedly with those comments.

While this book does promote IDEO’s rich history and successes, the book does a great deal to introduce the concept of Design Thinking to the reader. If you’re a long-time practitioner of design thinking, this book may not be for you…if you aren’t, this book is perfect.

What is Design Thinking?

Comparing Design to Design Thinking, Brown provides the following definition:

The evolution from Design to Design Thinking is the story of eveolution from the creation of products to the analysis of the relationship between people and products, and from there to the relationship between people and people.

Great stuff.  I love Design Thinking…I think I’ve been a design thinker my whole life.

Another passage that helps to describe/define Design Thinking is:

The mission of design thinking is to translate observations into insights and insights into products and services that will improve lives.

Design thinking is the interplay of people and product/process.   When you use a design thinking approach you take the entire environment into consideration when designing a process or product.  Rather than take a look at a few possibilities for a design of a bike (in the case of the Shimano bike story in the book) and build a bike, the design thinker looks at the broader picture and environment to few new choices and possibilities.

If you have an interest in Design Thinking or just want to know more about the topic, get this book now.  If you’re an academic who wants to see case studies of design thinking in action that show success and failure, perhaps this isn’t the book for you.

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What would happen if you stopped everything you do online?

What if you stopped:

• Blogging
• Tweeting
• Facebooking (is that a word?)
• Linking
• Commenting
• Interacting

What would happen?  Would anyone miss you? Would your clients?  Your Community?

If the answer is ‘yes’…do you know that for sure? If the answer is ‘no’, what can you do differently to bring more value to your clients/community/readers/friends?

I asked myself this very question this morning and couldn’t answer a definitive ‘yes’.

Am I delivering value to you?

2009 is half over and its been a pretty good year so far.

What’s transpired this year?

• In February, I put my consulting practice on hold to join the Boy Scouts of America full time after working with them for 1.5 years as a consultant.  Previous to starting full-time, I’d been leading the Sitecore Content Management System implementation and since going full-time have been involved in some major technology and marketing initiatives.  It’s been fun and an education in how non-profits are run.

• I’ve just finished year #2 in the Doctoral program.  Only X number of years left (i have no idea what X actually is…probably 3 to 4 more years).

• I’ve held up my resolutions for the year fairly nicely. I used the ‘three words’ approach (I learned this from Chris Brogan).  My words were: Create, Think & Lead. I’ve written more important stuff (at least to me) on this blog than I used to and I kicked off another blog focused on my photography.

• My wife’s photography business is starting to see a bit more life.  The economy has taken its toll but we are starting to see a bit more traffic and interest from potential clients.

• I’ve disconnected from a lot of things that were taking up way too much of my time.  While this has been hard to do, it’s been necessary to allow me to focus on those things that will bring the most benefit & value to me in the future.

What does the rest of 2009 hold? I’m not sure…but I’m positive it will be a good 6 months.

• I’m anxious to kick off a few projects that I’ve been thinking about and can’t wait to see the results.

• I’ve got a couple interesting side projects that have been brewing for a while…they are looking like they might show some signs of life later this year.

• I’ve submitted a few articles & papers to academic journals & trade publications…hopefully I’ll hear back on whether they are accepted for publishing.

How has the first half of 2009 been for you?

One of the most visited posts on this blog is titled “The Problem(s) with Linear Thinking“.   That one post makes up for a good amount of monthly visitors from people doing a google search for ‘linear thinking‘.  Do that search yourself and you’ll see that post in the top 3 (if not #1).

Why is this such a popular topic? Easy…because we are all scare to death of falling into the linear thinking trap. We’re all looking for ways to break out of the linear mindset and come up with something ‘cool’ or different.

Linear Thinking and Me

I found myself in the linear thinking mindset recently and didn’t realize it.  For almost 2 years, I’ve been driving the same route during my commute without really considering whether there was a quicker or more direct route.

Over the weekend, my wife mentioned the route she takes to work seems to be quicker and much less congested.  It just happened that her route takes her very close to the tollway that I use to get across town…so I figured I’d try it out too.

Know something?  It shaved almost five minutes off my travel time from the house to the tollway. Five minutes!   I’d been perfectly happy driving the same route day after day…and then BAM…I find another route that’s quicker and shorter too.

Why hadn’t I thought about changing up the route before? Because I’d fallen into the linear thinking trap.  I’d allowed myself to think that the route I took was the fastest. I pondered on this all day and found myself thinking about new routes to take on the way home.  The tollway is a no-brainer…it’s the fastest and most direct route across town…but the exit I take could change.

On the way home I started looking at exits that might be faster or more direct and realized that if I got off the tollway one exit earlier at the free exit, I’d save a few more miles in travel time AND save an extra 30 cents per commute.  Over the course of an average month, this saves me ~$6…enough to buy me a few cups of coffee at Starbux

The Linear Thinking Trap

I realize that you really don’t care about my commuting habits…but it proves a point (I hope). The story shows that we all fall into the trap of allowing ourselves to get comfortable with an idea. We allow a process to take over and forget to question the idea(s) behind the process.

Look at some of the recent innovations in the world.  What would have happened if nobody had thought to ask the question ‘is email enough’?  Would we have twitter? Would we have social networks?

What would the world be like of Apple (and others) hadn’t taken the ideas they saw at Xerox and built the modern day personal computer?  Perhaps it’d be very boring.

Are you in the linear thinking trap?

One easy way to tell if you’ve fallen into the trap is to ask yourself this: Are you doing the same thing the same way you were last year?

If so, better start fighting, because you’re probably deep in the jaws of the linear thinking trap.  You may have to gnaw your foot or arm off to get out but it might be worth it.

Just like me and my boring commute, if you let the day(s) go by without questioning your own ideas and methods, you’ve already lost the battle against linear thinking.

Don’t fall into the linear thinking trap…you’ll end up driving the same old boring route ever day. Keep looking for the creative solution and keep questioning.

I just finished reading The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything and have to say that I really enjoyed it.

While the book spends a little too much time in the realm of ‘celebrity worship’ (i.e., there are LOT of celebrities that have found ‘the element’ apparently), the book is still a very good read.

The basic premise is that every person has their own ‘Element’ that they fit the best into.  What is the element?  Basically, the Element is the location where a person’s passion, interests and natural abilities intersect.

The Element is something that a person has to find for themselves. Schools can’t teach a child to find their element.  In fact, many schools and parents do the opposite…they try to drive children into the ’safe’ areas for careers and educational study.

The book contains a lot of stories of people that have found their ‘Element’.  Many of these stories are of people who’ve gone against the ‘normal’ educational route to become their own person.

That said, this book does not slam modern education and teachers. From all accounts, Sir Ken Robinson is very much pro-education and pro-teacher.  What the book does do well is provide examples and discussion around the current state of educational theory and what it is doing wrong.

What is current education theory and practice doing wrong?  Easy…we are teaching everyone the same thing and using standardized testing to examine what has been learned.  In my opinion, there’s nothing worse than killing the creativity of a child by forcing them to fit into an educational and cultural mold.

The book is an easy read and highly recommended to anyone interested in the ideas of creativity and passion and educational ideas.

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