StrAIT Blogging

Archive for the ‘Alignment’ Category

First, I apologize for this post being late. I will endeavor to get back on schedule. I will not promise never to be late again. This post will focus on an interesting document Gartner has put out. It’s titled “Gartner Perspective: IT Spending 2010″. For your convenience, a link to it is provided here. I’m not going to discuss the entire document, only the parts that I found most interesting. The survey was based on global data. I am most interested in North America because that is where I buy my groceries and my customers buy theirs.

The most interesting table is Table 6 shown below.

What I find most interesting in this table is to compare the actual amounts, not the percentages. If we compare the 2010 forecast to 2008 data we see that spending actually should grow in 2010 over 2008 in the USA, Latin America, the Middle East/Africa, Japan and Asia Pacific. That is not true for Eastern & Western Europe and Canada. For those of us who rely mainly in the USA for our source of business this is good news. It implies that 2009 will be an exception to otherwise steady growth. Remember, 2008 results were dropping off by the end of the year.

Another interesting table is Table 7, shown below.

Since this table is global, it implies that Europe and Canada are depressing the vertical results. On a global basis all verticals are off about 4.7%. The Gartner report has additional insights.

Finally I want to focus on Table 9.

(Warning: below is a blatant self-serving pitch)

What I like about Table 9 is that it prioritizes the focus areas for all businesses. It ranks business process improvement as first priority and ranks improving enterprise workforce effectiveness as third highest. Both of those areas are the focus of StrAIT Advisors. The idea of business IT alignment delivers on both of those. I am delighted to see this data in this report. Obviously, this means that you should take both of those areas and business IT alignment very seriously. Oh, and think of StrAIT Advisors at the same time.

(End of blatant self-serving pitch)

I want to encourage you to get a copy of this report. It’s free and readily available. I think it provides some very useful insight. I find it to be a source of optimism with a few questions. We all can use a little optimism these days.

I recently read a blog post that hit a nerve with me. Its link is IT-Business Alignment is Not a Meaningless Catchphrase. In this post, the author defends against the notion that IT – business alignment is passé and out of date. I agree with his argument. Alignment is the cornerstone of my consulting business because experience has taught me that it is a major issue. I decided on that business model after many years of running IT as well as other business units. I observed the need to improve the understanding our IT staff had of its customer’s needs. I’ve already had one post on the topic.

I believe that much of the discounting of the importance of IT-business alignment comes from the frameworks themselves. They don’t include much about personal relationships because they are just formal IT frameworks. They are meant to be customized for each individual company. If all that is implemented is a framework, what you have is just a formal contract. Such contracts are definitely needed and important. They govern formal expectations and deliverables. They provide the metrics to measure those deliverables. However, trust must also be present for there to be success. To have trust there must first be relationships and communications. That is where most formal IT approaches fall short. The diagram below provides a simple map for those relationships in a typical company. Professional service companies may be the exceptions to this diagram but manufacturing and manufacturing related service companies are represented.

 

In order for IT to be perceived as aligned and useful for the organization, the entire organization must perceive that to be so. That means all organizational levels must agree. That means there must be a willingness to understand and to trust IT. That means that appropriate relationships between IT and their customers must exist and those relationships are different. In aggregate they do fall into two major categories. Any individual relationship may vary, but when we focus on groups, these categories hold true. The leadership groups are similar, differing only by how much of the company’s P&L statement they own. The big change is when we focus on the people who actually make the day to day operations run. Those people may understand some version of a “big picture” but their real focus in on a very limited set of functions related to their job. They also represent the bulk to the IT group’s customers.

The message here is that IT-business alignment is important but isn’t achieved without trusting relationships between IT and their customers. Those relationships don’t exist without IT initiating the effort to build them. It’s a part that is easily ignored if we only focus on the formal part of IT best practices. These “softer” skills are a vital element in the equation.

Let me know what you think and stay tuned for more…

This is part II of my series on some of the practical aspects of cloud computing. In this post I’ll focus on the overall user-centric performance of the cloud computing experience. I’m using this vague phrase because the performance of the user experience is made up of several factors, like Internet congestion, “last mile” bottlenecks, hosting server performance and user PC performance, to name a few. Let’s start by defining some general classes of users.

User Types

The most basic classes of users are those that do all their work in one place with dedicated infrastructure (fixed users) and those users who may do their work from multiple locations, both connected to the Internet and not connected (mobile users). Examples of fixed users are customer service workers, corporate staff jobs like clerical accounting workers, etc. They go to work at the same place every day, sit in front of the same PC doing the same kind of work and then go home at the end of the day and leave their job behind. I hear there are still some of them around these days. Examples of mobile workers are everybody else with a job and a computer. Now we need to focus on the types of data traffic involved.

Data Traffic

Any basic graphic of the use of the cloud consists of a user with a PC, a cloud containing a server and a lightning bolt connecting the two, as shown below. The firewall (brick wall symbol) can either be on the local network or in the user’s machine itself.

I am presenting two scenarios to consider. Scenario 1 is the least demanding on the user end and represents the slowest, lowest cost option. It is the scenario usually implied when we talk about cloud computing. It does require that the overhead of the user interface is moved down to the user’s machine along with the data itself. Scenario 2 is actually representative of a user application which relies on an external host to provide compute power and push data down to the user’s machine. It is the faster but more expensive option. It doesn’t require that the user interface overhead be sent down along with the data since the user interface is already on the user’s machine. Remember, the yellow lightning bolt (the remote connection) is the limiting link in the chain. It is by far the slowest segment of the trip. Now we need to consider the tradeoff between the two scenarios for each user type.

Tradeoff – Productivity vs. Cost vs. Performance

For the fixed user, scenario 1 will probably work well enough to justify the cost savings at the expense of performance. Our definition for this type of user is primarily clerical in nature. However, as we move to the mobile user, things get a little more complicated. The speed of the remote connection link will vary depending on the location of the user. In some cases, the remote connection will be slow or non-existent. If the remote connection is slow the user interface overhead will make a cloud application unacceptably slow. Obviously, if the connection is dropped or not available the point is mute, there is no cloud. There is a subset of the fixed user community that has other issues. There are those who are fixed in their location but are creative types who need the flexibility and richness of local applications. Examples of these people are graphic artists, designers, architects, engineers, etc. For them, browsers are not yet a visually rich or powerful enough user interface for their work. In time, that will change but not now.

The solution for mobile and creative types may lay with composite applications, mashups and hybrid clouds. The discussion of these options is beyond the scope of this post, but check out the links for more information. My main point is that cloud computing is not one size fits all. It’s important to not get caught up in the hype and realize that, with some adaptation, the benefits of cloud computing and acceptable levels of performance are available for all users.

I have provided some video links below that present a somewhat cynical view of cloud computing. While I think that Larry Ellison (Oracle CEO) represents an oversimplified view, he is entertaining. The Forrester analyst offers a thoughtful counterpoint.

onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','www.youtube.com']);">Larry Ellison on Cloud Computing          " onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','www.youtube.com']);">Forrester Research

 

When I think about the various IT Service Management, or ITSM, frameworks (a collection of best practices) I am concerned that they are very heavy on a contractual mindset and very light on a relationship mindset. I am not saying that we don’t need service level agreements or any form of commitment from IT to their customers. I am saying that if a contract is all you have for a relationship with a customer that relationship is destined to become adversarial very quickly. I am saying that IT must have an informed consultant relationship with all of their customers. To do that a number of things must happen.

What are the roles?

The diagram above summarizes the major components of a successful collaborative relationship between IT and its customer base. First, we must be clear on our definitions. Customers are simply those people who consume IT services delivered over some IT infrastructure. IT simply refers to that group responsible for providing for the IT needs of their customers. The business domain skills pool is a little less simple. It is a group of domain experts, either dedicated to such a pool or contributors to that pool virtually. These people are also IT customers themselves. Of course, the IT group is also their own customer. The diagram shows each group overlapping with the others. That is intended to reflect the close working relationships which require sharing some common vocabulary and concepts.

Cross training

I believe this to be core to success. In order for communication and collaboration to happen, everyone involved must share at least some core vocabulary. There is always a challenge to get hard core IT folks to learn business topics, whether it’s manufacturing, service, or consulting skills. It’s also always a challenge to get hard core business folks to understand enough IT vocabulary to have informed conversations about new topics like cloud computing, virtualization or security. Neither of these groups needs to be experts in the other’s field. They just need to be able to have intelligent, informed conversations and collaborate.

Those customers not involved in the domain expert pool also need some education but at a much higher, more general level. They primary obligation is to be able to clearly articulate their needs to IT support staff. The domain experts also need a high level understanding of Web 2.0. They will also need to have a general understanding of Web 3.0 as it occurs.

BPI consulting

This brings us to the discussion about the basic behavior of IT staff as they collaborate with their customers. Those “front line” IT folks must earn the trust and respect of their customers. They must be good partners and team members as the business works to improve their business processes (BPI), using IT tools to their best advantage in a way that makes business sense. I have always liked the analogy of an artist. It is the responsibility of IT to understand a broad range of IT tools (the palette) but also how they can be applied to solve business problems (painting on a canvas). Not all IT people need to be able to do this but a few must have that level of understanding.

Conclusion

The preceding discussion is above and beyond the formal notions of IT operations required by the ITSM frameworks. My point is about relationships, not just contracts. We need IT to make and keep their performance commitments to their customers and to employ best practices where ever it makes sense. However, we should extend our vision of IT’s responsibilities beyond formal contractual and procedural constraints. At the end of the day, success ultimately comes through relationships between people.

Thanks to being here. Stay tuned…

Let’s start by being very clear. For any business everything must ultimately align to the success of that business, period. That being said we can now focus on how all of the various pieces that make up that business must align with each other. At a high level, it is obvious that all business activities must support each other for the business to be successful. However, what I have observed over the years is that alignment is easy to get lost in the multitude of daily pressing details that we must deal with. This thought was best captured in Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In this book there is one diagram that has stuck with me over the years because it is direct and simple. It is shown in Figure 1.

 

 

  

  

 

 

  

  

Figure 1 Covey’s time management matrix
 

For more information on Covey’s teachings look here. In this diagram we see Quadrant I as the place where most of us spend much of our time. Quadrant II is where we need to spend most of our time. We need to manage our time such that we can spend more of it thinking about planning, relationships and collaboration. Spending our time here is where alignment happens. We won’t spend any time on Quadrants III and IV. We are wasting our time there.
So what else do we need to consider when aligning our business operations? I argue that we must first understand that all things technology can best be represented as a circle bisected into two parts. One part includes the tools; the hardware and software that enable our business to function. The other part includes how those tools are used to deliver real benefits to our business. Each of those parts is dominated by very different states of mind. Historically, IT has focused on tools and the business users focus on their application. There is overlap for each group as shown in Figure 2.

  

  

 

  

 

  

  

 

Figure 2   All things technology and interest groups

The overlap between the interests of those two groups is important. The end user group must understand the tools well enough to know what can actually be accomplished in a reasonable period of time and the IT group must understand the needs of the user group well enough to deliver useful tools. Orchestrating the communication between these two interest groups is an ongoing activity between end customers of the tools and those people who must deliver those tools to the marketplace. It is a painful and inefficient process constrained by the financial interests and negotiating positions of each group. It’s beneficial to each group to make this process more effective.
We must also consider the methodologies that are needed for the alignment of business improvement work. For this we will focus on two of the most representative methodologies for their respective interest groups. For the tool provider group we will use RUP, or Rational Unified Process, as the most used (in its multiple variations) and for the end user community the BPM-based methodologies. The overlap diagram is shown in Figure 3.

 

 

 

 

 

  

  

  

Figure 3   All things technology and improvement methodology overlap
 

The key difference here is that BPM is about addressing what business processes are needed and the functionality of the tools each business needs. On the other hand, RUP is focused on the effectiveness of software development. Delivering business process improvements will consist of new capabilities delivered by some combination of revising the current tools used by the business, buying new software and writing new software. Neither BPM nor RUP alone is suitable for doing that, so managing the overlap between those two families of methodologies is crucial.
 

Finally, there is the overlap between those groups responsible for the day-to-day operation of the tools and those responsible for their daily application. That overlap is shown in Figure 4.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

  

Figure 4 All things technology and daily operations
 

The group responsible for the delivery of those technology tools to the business, either internal IT or external, hosted providers is represented by the ITIL, or IT Infrastructure Library, framework. The group responsible for the daily use of those tools is represented by the various continuous improvement frameworks, such as Six Sigma. Each of these groups needs some framework around which to manage daily operation and incremental improvements. Again, managing the overlap of these two interest groups and their frameworks is extremely important.

In each of the cases above, managing the overlap of the various interest groups is a matter of ongoing communication. That communication must happen within an oversight group composed of representatives of each of the interest groups with shared vocabulary and skills inventory. None of the groups need to be experts in the other’s fields but they must commit to understanding the basic needs and issues. This can be a challenge in most organizations but it is vital if the business wants to improve.

Alignment is important and complex. It requires a commitment from a business’s leadership to insure ongoing communications between the core groups within the company. It requires a commitment to include vendors, external service providers and other external stake holders in that collaboration in a meaningful way. So how do you do that? The options are growing every day. There are portal frameworks, like SharePoint and WebSphere. There are peer-to-peer tools, like Groove and Notes. There are Web 2.0 tools, like Huddle and Zoho. The list goes on. Regardless of what tools you use, the ongoing collaboration between the consumers of technology tools and the providers of those tools, both in improvement activities and ongoing daily operations is vital.

Thanks for your attention. Stay tuned…