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Jonathan Mitchell. Staying the Course as a CIO
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1. Dislocated Stakeholders
Wooden Poles with Holder
Because They're Worth It?
The Joys of Middle Management
The View from the Top of the Tree
Bored Boards
The Relationship Conundrum
Could I Have Something Impossible Please?
CHAPTER 2. Pathogenic Projects
IT Projects are Harder than Climbing Everest
Not Everyone Gets to be a Pharaoh
Don't Start Anything You Can't Finish
Stalinist Project Management
Being Nostradamus
My Piece of String is Skewed
The Gates of Wrath
Looking Up from the Pit
CHAPTER 3. Seriously Shaky Software
Software Just Doesn't Wo
Being Immune to Tangerines
The Unfortunate Side-Effect of Moore's Law
Patched, Leaking and Lost in a Maze
The Wobbly Stack
Stabilising Shakiness
CHAPTER 4. Obsessive Outsourcing Compulsion
Outsourcing an Empire
Strains of Outsourcing Compulsion
Finance is not about Engineering Anything
Faster than a Speeding Bullet …
Everyone Needs to Win
In Summary
CHAPTER 5. Chronic Consultancy Syndrome
Consultants – The Hummingbirds of the IT Jungle
Spotting Hummingbirds in the Wild
An Expensive Dose5 of Aviary Assistance
What Consulting Isn't …?
But What Consulting Perhaps Should Be?
How Hummingbirds Turn into Cuckoos
And Finally
CHAPTER 6. Strategy Schizophrenia
Types of Strategy
Strategy Schizophrenia – Balancing the Unbalanceable
Summary
CHAPTER 7. Bleeding Budgets
A Beginner's Guide to Building a Roulette Table
Putting Today and Tomorrow's Investments Together
Putting the Final Touches to the Roulette Table
Other Funding Profile Examples
Summary
CHAPTER 8. Epilogue – What Might Overcome You?
It's Always the Same Culprits, Except When it Isn't
Failure and Folklore
IT Leadership Morbidity Tables
The Unknown Unknowns
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Отрывок из книги
STAYING THE COURSE AS A CIO
HOW TO OVERCOME THE TRIALS AND CHALLENGES OF IT LEADERSHIP
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But there is some good news out there. There are some ways for you to calibrate yourself with the datum of reality in the work place. Some companies are really very good at it. A colleague of mine who worked for a large supermarket chain in Europe described to me a fantastic model that I would recommend to anyone. Each year, all the senior managers and executives of the company up to and including the Chief Executive are obliged to spend more than a week of their time carrying out relatively unskilled tasks in the company's retail outlets or distribution centres. Some even got to meet real customers. This laudable act was intended to keep the feet of the anointed firmly on the ground. It also gave the executives a chance to understand what working at the sharp end was really like. Finally it was a great morale booster for the checkout staff as they watched their hapless leaders struggle to weigh a pound of apples or puzzle over the pricing of a kumquat.
When my friend returned from his short sabbatical, I quizzed him on his experiences. First of all, I noticed that he was limping and he had a bandaged hand. “It's a lot more physical than you would expect”, was his response when he noticed me staring. “What did you learn?” I asked. He narrowed his eyes and looked at me threateningly. “Doors!” he cried, “I never realised how impossible doors can be.” I was taken aback. The only software package I had heard of that had “doors” in the name had nothing to do with retail warehousing. “Well” he continued, “the way that my people designed the warehouse systems means that anyone using it had to walk through at least three doors for every single transaction they did. That's how I damaged my hand. Someone was coming the other way at just the wrong time.” With rising emotion he continued. “When I get back to the office the very first thing I'm going to do is to remove all the doors in our warehouses and make a great big bonfire with them. Then I'll make the project team redesign their system from scratch. This time we will really make sure that things work smoothly and reliably. Finally, we'll put the implementation team to work in the warehouse in real life for a good few weeks. When they complain, we'll make them work a few weeks more. That'll teach them.” With a disturbing glint in his eye, he hurried off. It had definitely been a formative experience.
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