Notes from SAPPHIRE 09

Yesterday at work was "catch-up day" from a week at SAPPHIRE 2009, the annual user conference for SAP. As with the JDA/Manugistics conference earlier this year, there were concerns that attendance was going to be low, because so many companies are limiting travel expense. At the conference, I did hear that attendance was only was 60% lower than last year. Conferences like this are great opportunities for IT to do a ton of learning - about the specific technology, of…

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Business Benefits of Social Networks Exist, but …

When I see / read articles like this, or hear the breathless claims of vendors, pundits, and True Believers, I'll privately chuckle to myself. All of this stuff - social networking, collaboration, and innovation - are 21st century takes on good old Knowledge Management (KM), circa 1998. Do these sound like presentations from your recent Enterprise 2.0 conference? Managing Cultural Change to Create a Knowledge Sharing Environment Effectively Managing Information Overload in the Information Age Information Content and Security in…

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PMO Nirvana is a Conversation, not a Schedule

We continue to iterate on our PMO processes - managing too few resources and too many project requests, an environment I have consistently seen in every IT group I have ever worked with. Our latest discussion concerned the concept of FIFO work on projects ... ... when presented with five things to do, I will only [emphasis added] work on them in the order received. This is an exceedingly poor assumption for your personal run-rules, and a short-sighted objective for…

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There ain’t much IT in IT Management

This morning, I caught myself looking back at the last week of meetings, e-mails, and conference calls, and I experienced a minor epiphany. If I published a detailed diary of the ebb & flow of proposals, debates, and commitments from the past few days, I could successfully deflate the management aspirations of 80-90% of the technical folks I know. Contrary to what many might think, there's not much IT in IT Management. Ok, that's a bit of an overstatement; I…

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Do you want it good or fast? Prioritizing Time-to-Value over Requirements

I have a background in software product development, iterative "methodologies", and the sort of fast-twitch life cycle that characterizes entrepreneurial startups, high-growing businesses, and "lean" process improvement projects. Unfortunately, this style is also favored by departmental developer wannabes, sloppy coders, and impatient Gen-Y newbies that want to apply a consumer products mentality to corporate IT. <aside>Yes, I'm throwing a bit of a challenge out with that last statement. I understand that as the demographics of my IT team changes, management…

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Five More Realities for Driving Business Value from Technology

Dennis McDonald's recent post listed Ten Realities of Managing and Using Technology to Generate Business Value. I think a few of these items need some elaboration ... Implementing a technology based solution without understanding the costs is a big mistake ... and most projects only consider TCI - Total Cost of Implementation. This typically includes acquisition, first-year maintenance, and professional services (or internal IT time) to integrate with existing systems. Smart managers will add in Recurring Costs, such as annual…

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How to Win at the PMO Prioritization Game

Last time I talked about "cheating" at the PMO prioritization game. Ok, it wasn't cheating, more like a trick to keep your projects small, fast - and easy to fit into a crowded schedule. Totally above board, but some might call it manipulative. Remember the old management hack ... how do eat an elephant? If that's too cliche for you, let's talk about ways to consistently win at the prioritization game. How can you make sure your projects are legitimately…

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Defining the Business Value of a Project

I'm following a project management meme lately; while freely admitting that I'm oversimplifying some complex topics, I will forge ahead with ... project "value". At work, we've been talking about the classic challenge of putting a business value on a project. I call it a "classic" challenge because it's a basic requirement for every prioritization exercise that I've been exposed to. You know the drill - we have 10 projects, but only time and resources to do 5. How does…

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Yet Another Discussion on IT Chargebacks

It felt anachronistic, getting into a surprisingly good conversation on the pros and cons of IT chargebacks this past week ... We're not seriously thinking about it (thank goodness), but a group of us did go through the intellectual exercise of discussing the good/bad/ugly of such an approach. Unfortunately, most of the "debate" focused on positive and negative experiences in the past. I think this is not an effective way to petition for such a change; it would be better…

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Open Source as bargaining chip – driving business value of IT

I had a fun time this week proposing an open source alternative for an aging component of our EAI infrastructure. The reaction was so classic - the instant some IT folks saw the words "open source" in large type on the piece of paper, they smiled, crossed their arms, and tut-tutted the idea away. Oh, I heard all the classic shoot-down arguments ... "... critical piece of our day to day business transactions ..." "... I rarely need to call,…

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