Hmm, not quite ... how about I Hate "the Business" More specifically - I really am getting uncomfortable with the whole "IT and the Business" meme: ... demonstrating IT alignment with the business ... IT's relationship with the business ... IT and the business need to work together / build partnerships ... the Project is made up of the IT team and the Business team ... and so on. It's an unhealthy mind set to get into; when corporate IT,…
Some IT departments prefer chargebacks, while others do not. My own preference is to allocate IT costs to the business units, based on some reasonable balance of simplicity and accuracy. General services could be allocated by headcount, COGs, or revenues, with each business unit taking their proportional share. Some easily identifiable items might be allocated more directly - maintenance costs for specialized engineering, warehouse management, or financial systems, for example, could be allocated more directly to those departments. I've written…
This started off as a quick response to a question on LinkedIn Answers ... but I got on a roll ... Here's a simplistic way to measure and report on IT value: Is your IT group working on the right things? Are they working on the right things well? Is your IT spend comparable to industry norms? Is your IT spend comparable to other measures of company performance? A bit more detail ... balancing quantitative and qualitative ... (Quantitative) To…
I sent out notes to folks talking about my new situation, and some came back with interesting comments. Here's one from W, a brilliant guy with Big-6 background and plenty of business acumen. However, he (like me) is a coder at heart, and really wants to focus on the technology (not like me). More power to him - but his eMail had a telling statement ... ... this is my 5th month at [BigCo] and all is going well so…
Saw this great post from Hyatt (referred from this blog, definitely worth syndicating) re: how to get decisions / results out of your manager / boss. Great stuff, pay attention to the details here, all of it is right on. A few additions I'd make to the list ... Keep it short - just like you, your boss is juggling multiple priorities, especially when you're reporting to a C-level person. If you can't develop and present an elevator pitch version…