Did you realize that there are at least partners who should be running your business? Did you also know that if one of these partners is not included that it could affect your business? Let me introduce you to the three partners: (1) You, (2) Your business, and (3) Your strategy plan.
Now that you have met all three, let me share with you the importance of having all three doing their part. Let’s start with Strategy. According to Webster.com, the definition of the word “strategy” is “a careful plan or method”. This can be applied to the partnership as the …read more

I read with some pain, but also a chuckle or two, CFO on-line’s sloppy spreadsheet practices article. I like to be organized, send files with naming conventions (source, date, and revision numbers), and like to assist the user of my excel files by using borders, bolded titles, and generally making them readable and printable. Amazingly, according to the article, most students and employees seem to simply send very poor looking documents that at first are unprintable. It’s simply work-creating laziness!
This creates an amazing amount of waste especially if you send your files to two or more people who have to …read more

Very interesting issue popped up the other day as I was speaking with a food manufacturer. They are very high quality and taste is everything. They therefore cringe when talk of continual improvement comes along because they do NOT want to mess with the process of food preparation even though they are a manufacturer and not a restaurant. Efficiency, as it relates to continual improvement, can lead to what they call recipe “drift”. In other words, many companies have started small with taste and quality of their food as the key differentiator, only to inexplicably lose that taste edge as …read more

Becky at www.myorgnanizedbiz.com recently wrote about the value of calendaring your “biz” and your life. One thing that stuck out was her proposal to try a two week experiment that could change your life:
Becky: Try this for the next two weeks: each day, figure out the five most important things that you need to accomplish that day. Then schedule time for them on your calendar. Schedule it around meetings and e-mail and errands. Actually block out time where you concentrate on that task.
And when that time comes, work on the task. If you only have a 1/2 hour, then see …read more

What good is analyzing trends? Well, first of all you can determine whether you agree with them. Then decide if they will impact you. If so, you need to figure out how to deal with them. The last few posts have done this type of analysis from an “every company” point of view, and here are the results:
First a summary of the STRATEGY and MANAGEMENT trends from CIO Insight’s list of Top IT Trends in 2008 in as brief a format as I dare:
Economic slowdown, customer e-service demands, m-commerce opportunities, technology enabled process improvement, change in world markets and resources, …read more

My sum up to CIO Insight’s Top IT Trends in 2008 related to MANAGEMENT reveals a need to focus on centralizing non-IT executive control vs. expanding the CIO role, and cleaning up and innovatively using data already out there for decision-making.
The CIO Insight MANAGEMENT trends of 1. No downturn for CIO role, 2. CIO role becoming more demanding, 3. IT metamorphosis continuing, 4. IT grad shortage changing the face of IT, 5. IT outsiders providing inspiration, and 6. Master Data Management expanding, caused these reactions in my two posts related to MANAGEMENT:

Focus on centralizing non-IT executive control and awareness of …read more

Continuing with MANAGEMENT trends in IT from CIO Insight’s Top IT Trends for 2008 , we now deal with graduate shortages, sources of innovation, and one of the most interesting and impactful trends toward Master Data Management:
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CIO Insight: IT grad shortage changes the face of IT- CIOs expect fewer young people to enter the IT profession and say half of those that graduate with IT and computer science degrees aren’t well prepared.
PM411: I’m not as tuned in to this “shortage” of talent. Should companies expect IT graduates to be prepared properly? I’m jaded by my MBA experience years ago …read more

CIO Insight’s Top IT Trends for 2008 were particularly interesting in the STRATEGY and MANAGEMENT areas. My last three posts dealt with STRATEGY. Now I’ll react to the MANAGEMENT trends . First up are the trends related to the role of the CIO and the metamorphosis of IT:
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CIO Insight: No downturn for CIO role- the CIO role will become more important and the IT function will grow more centralized.
PM411: This “prediction” has been talked about for 20 years- the problem is not solved by CIO role expansion, but by executive governance boards taking the responsibility for which projects should be …read more

My sum up to CIO Insight’s Top IT Trends in 2008 related to STRATEGY reveals a need to focus on how projects are managed and controlled and how PMOs contribute to innovation.
The CIO Insight STRATEGY trends of 1. companies slipping into slow-down mode, 2. IT focusing on E-Service, 3. …and preparing for M-Commerce, 4. process improvement driving IT adoption and 5. the world getting flatter, caused these strong reactions in my two posts related to STRATEGY:

Make sure projects fit with strategies,

Don’t underestimate customer-facing projects,

Use a PMO to research business process innovation, and

Pay attention to changes in “growing market” living standards …read more

Continuing with my reaction to the STRATEGY trends from CIO Insight’s Top IT Trends for 2008 :
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CIO Insight: “Process improvement will drive IT adoption- CIOs see process modeling and management applications as the most important development five to 10 years from now.”
PM411: YES! Business process modeling will technology-enable the innovation process. Still need strong research of innovation going on outside the company, the industry, and your country, to feed modeling efforts.
CIO Insight: “The world gets flatter- strong foreign economies and technical workforces present opportunities for growth, savings and technology.”
PM411: This will be interesting to watch as the living standards increase …read more