Author: Bob Lewis

Feed: CIO. Author: . Technical architecture provides a way to describe, evaluate, and plan the evolution of the information technology that IT manages and the enterprise relies on.The previous installment of this series on building effective IT provided a framework for describing technical architecture, breaking it down into portfolios and sub-portfolios, including applications (systems of record, integration, and satellite apps), data (both structured and unstructured), and technology (facilities, infrastructure, and platforms).This framework enables you to identify and categorize what you have. So far so good.But it doesn’t tell you whether what you have is what you ought to have. That’s ... Read More

Feed: CIO. Author: . Technical architecture is the sum and substance of what IT deploys to support the enterprise. As such, its management is a key IT practice. We talked about how to go about it in a previous article in this series.Which leads to the question, What constitutes good technical architecture? Or more foundationally, What constitutes technical architecture, whether good, bad, or indifferent?In case you’re a purist, we’re talking about technical architecture, not enterprise architecture. The latter includes the business architecture as well as the technical architecture. Not that it’s possible to evaluate the technical architecture without understanding how ... Read More

Feed: CIO. Author: . The key to running an effective organization, we’ve been told for decades, is delivering work products through well-designed and -managed processes. Process is hailed as the path to organizational nirvana, in the form of repeatable, predictable results.But CIOs who start process initiatives by designing processes and training staff in their use are akin to math students who enroll in differential calculus without first passing algebra and trigonometry. To succeed in any discipline, one must first master the prerequisites.For any process initiative to succeed, there are, in fact, four prerequisites: (1) a process culture; (2) a clear ... Read More

Feed: CIO. Author: . In the beginning there should have been a culture of honest inquiry.Instead there was the internal rate of return (IRR) — a polynomial formula for computing return on investment that only trained accountants could master. IRR defined business value in a single dimension of analysis: cash flows. The gods of accounting looked on it with favor, and so it was, theologically speaking, good.Then Dan Bricklin invented the electronic spreadsheet. Like Prometheus bringing fire to we mere mortals, Bricklin and his spreadsheet let all humanity calculate IRRs for ourselves — and once anyone could compute IRRs for ... Read More

Feed: CIO. Author: . Agile should be yesterday’s news. Really, yester-decade’s news. The Agile Manifesto appeared nearly twenty years ago, and unlike Athena, who sprang fully grown and armored from Zeus’s head, many of us had practiced or encouraged agile-ish techniques long before the manifesto made them official.And yet, some fearless holdouts have managed to keep agile, with its higher rates of success and business satisfaction, at bay. If you’re among them and you’re under pressure to “go agile,” it’s time to stop feeling like a dinosaur waiting for the asteroid to hit. Here are seven proven ways to take ... Read More

Feed: CIO. Author: . What makes IT organizations fail? Often, it’s the adoption of what’s described as “industry best practices” by people who ought to know better but don’t, probably because they’ve never had to do the job. From establishing internal customers to instituting charge-backs to insisting on ROI, a lot of this advice looks plausible when viewed from 50,000 feet or more. Scratch the surface, however, and you begin to find these surefire recipes for IT success are often formulas for failure. 1. Tell everyone they're your customer Looking to fail? Make sure everyone in IT tells everyone outside ... Read More