Future of CIO

Friday, January 25, 2013

Is IT a Growth Engine or Supporting Function

9:32 PM Pearl Zhu 1 comment

IT leadership needs to shift their management orientation and begin thinking like entrepreneurs.

IT perception is always controversial, on one hand, IT touches every nerve of organization in the digital era, makes significant impact on business growth; on the other hand, most IT organizations today are still under-appreciated, being treated as supporting, back-office function, why, and how should IT refine its purpose and re-brand its reputation?

1. Why is IT still being treated as a supporting function?

IT Leadership: Most of the CIOs today don’t seem to be future thinkers and business strategists. CIOs are always in supporting roles and they don't have the same level of power and control to DIRECTLY influence executive decision-making. Many CIOs consider IT organization as a separate entity that "support" other business units and do not consider themselves as an integral part of the company so they keep asking for empowerment and influence. In fact, they should have much more influence and power in an organization than what they know as they provide technology backbone to the entire business.

Business structure or organizational culture makes it so: This is also largely shaped by how other CxOs see IT in addition to the background of the CIO. What does the business want from IT and how is IT positioned to deliver it? There are living examples in organizations where innovation from IT was not embraced by the business, relegating IT to a largely operational support role. If leadership teams do not collaborate as a whole, but act as the sum of pieces, unhealthily compete with each other internally about budgeting, resources, credit, and blames, then, the CIO as "influential" role may turn to be second class, as they are not as "powerful" as CEOs, or as "rich" as CFOs, etc. Especially now, more business functions start purchasing cloud base IT services, will it leave CIOs more "powerless"? On the other side, centralization of the IT budget (as opposed to oversight of the corporate IT spend) puts pressure on CIOs to chase cost reduction programs. That stifles innovation, leads to underinvestment in maintaining assets, diverts key skills from value creation to isolated cost reduction and results in an ineffective ITSM framework.

Lower level of IT maturity: Besides culture, many IT organizations still stick to reactive mode, to keep the lights on, put little emphasis on driving business change or innovation, if this is the case, IT leadership, process, strategy need to be well aligned in order to improve IT performance, and move up to the next level of IT. Also, depending on the business model, some businesses only see IT as a necessary means to an end and not a game changer.

2. How should CIOs Run IT as a Business Catalyst and Growth Engine?

How to promote IT as a competitive advantage? CIOs should understand the business first, otherwise, it is challenging to link the dot between business and IT. Once you show and demonstrate to the other CxOs that you understand the business they will respect you and give you the Authority, Power, and Influence in executive decision-making. What a CIO should do is understand how he/she creates positive/negative value. Exemplify how IT directly impacts productivity. A CIO can be a major catalyst to generate real value. The main aspect is HOW to create real value. CIOs need to do a better job of articulating the existing and potential value of IT to the business, quantitatively, a language and measurement senior executives understand. The methods and mechanisms for doing so are found in the field of IT Governance and include disciplines like financial, demand and service portfolio management, all of which are aimed at better strategic alignment, through transparency into and continual improvement of the economic and strategic value of IT assets.

CIOs should be transformational leaders instead of transactional managers: CIOs have to be able to navigate the business objectives and corporate strategy and lead the creation and execution of the corresponding technical strategy for the company. During strategic decision-making, executives take into consideration anyone that can provide real value. Senior executives are interested in profitability, maintaining and increasing market share. CIOs have to bring to the table real value; most CIOs do not understand the value concept. So it is an advantage if the CIO has diversified experience, for business domain or technical expertise to identify IT visions and gaps between IT service and business operation, ultimately eliminate the gaps. CIOs need to be able to recognize the struggles of the company by understanding the business beyond IT. Empowerment and influence come with trust first. The CIO must be a transformational leader that not only manages the IT group but also, CIOs must work to integrate and lead the integration (not merely alignment) of IT to business processes and the strategic value proposition, also, IT must partner with human change management experts to manage change. In the end, it is not about technology, but what technology can do when it is enabling and integrating with change management and business processes to deliver strategic differentiation.

IT leadership needs to shift their management orientation and begin thinking like entrepreneurs: Some IT leaders have no interest in this transition. IT entrepreneurialism becomes a new fixture for management in their efforts to substantiate their competitive position, affect the market landscape, and drive new revenue growth. Profits and then ROIs should be the driving force behind any IT project. The IT department provides guidance, support, assistance and direction in the application and adoption of information technology solutions in support of business objectives! Today IT is the wing of every successful business. Set right KPIs to measure the level IT contribution. Take Operating expenses (normally where IT costs are collected) if IT part cost remains constant in terms of value compared to gross; IT is then contributing to productivity increase.

Establish a Customer-centric Culture: As such, the CIO should envision a systematic approach to identifying business operation requirements for IT services by engaging executives' decision-making processes, understanding the business and linking the dot between IT and business operation. The IT output meeting the business operation requirements will change the cost center perception to business growth engine, and understand both internal customers as well and end customers, and the level of client satisfaction will naturally increase the CIO's power and influence. But his/her concern isn't about power or control - it's about the capability to define, create, deliver and then CLAIM value against critical business results. IT needs to do a better job of quantifying the value of the services they provide, measurements that go beyond KPIs that focus on the warranty of the service, important as they are in the overall measurement of the value of a service. That includes contributions to the top and bottom line. IF you have the strategic perspective and skills needed to have THAT conversation, you can be influential.

In summary, CIOs have to have a clear and big picture of the company's core business and goals. Through organizational structure, business processes, procedural framework and IT technical support for all of these areas. CIOs have to recognize the pros and cons and propose concrete activities for improvement. CxOs will accept the CIO as an ally only if he/she is performing a proactive contribution to acquiring goals. CIOs have to be supported by their employees and to establish relations with the owners. It's very important how to whom and when to propose ideas for business transformation, and IT needs to become the business catalyst, rather than just a supporting function.

Process Rich vs. Just enough: Is “Just Enough” Enough

9:28 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

The beauty of process is not just about its richness, but about its effectiveness and agility to ensure high performance.

It might be time for CIOs to look at “Just enough” concept. “Just in time or Just enough processes and controls to deliver a quality product / service; to get the developers and service providers closer to the end users while lowering development and delivery cost. For example, in some organizations, there are software development programs where the cost of code development is less than 30% of the cost of the program, and the program management functions are over 25% of the cost of the program. Alternatively, in another project, where the risk process with risk controls and risk control boards takes more staffing than the coding process.

Is “Just Enough” enough? It could be situation-driven and context-dependent, but IT leaders can spend some time to walk through following key highlight:

Do you understand “letter of law” or the “the spirit of law”: For all project management to be successful, all stakeholders need know the goals, objectives and the reasons for process and procedures. They have to be able to add reason, and common sense to the procedures. Process and procedures must be saleable so delivery, product, or service remains the primary focus. Too many cases that people blindly follow procedures without knowing the reason for the procedures; they know the “letter of the law but not the spirit of the law”

Is “Lean” still too Rich: Some firms have attempted to address this problem with a “lean” process, even the lean process is in itself too process rich. It is a commonly held belief that the better application of process leads to better quality results, and this is certainly true of the manufacturing process, where failures are often measured as x failures out of a million. However, it is a mistaken belief that software development can be modeled accurately by the manufacturing process. Development always requires the application of both science and art (or creativity), and consequently the alignment of predictable outcomes with process compliance breaks down at the point that the code development requires innovative or creative thinking to solve the problem at hand. Applying the notion of Just Enough, allows one to take advantage of the experience of the manufacturing industries, while leaving one with the discretion of applying experience to the unique challenge that is in software development.

The main challenge is that “just enough” requires serious thinking, knowledge and skills. “Just enough” is great for those who have organizational and individual knowledge to implement it, because “just enough” is context-dependent and it has to be created and discovered. It will depend on many factors, such as culture, position of IT department, knowledge, skills, complexity, etc. Just enough is good but the problem is defining boundary of just enough and sticking to that. There is enough literature and case studies on the “just enough” approach and reusability. However, sales pitches for process paradigm and “best practices” (ITIL, PMBOK, CMM etc. ) are hard to beat in corporate environments. Many people do not want, or simply cannot, go that way. Instead, they prefer mechanical process thinking which worked wonders during the industrial revolution from the 18th to the 19th century. The process paradigm works well for industries whose production cycles are repetitive, that is; they have a set of specifications and produce certain number of products according to those specifications. Finally, the process paradigm enabled automation of mechanical production lines.
SW development is not repetitive. Specifications for each and every cycle are different. For example, every new release has its own specifications (requirements, architecture, design). Creation of SW development artifacts (requirements, architecture, design, code., etc) should drive the cycle and the process should be chosen accordingly. "Just Enough" philosophically means how to do things at simple way (Simplicity is the premium complexity), methodologically Agile is emerging as the software application project methodology because it enables the iterative user interaction, frequent team communication, and more adaptive at today's rapidly changing business environment.

Process is means to the end, not the end, always keep business goals in mind; the beauty of process is not just about its richness, but about its effectiveness and agility to ensure high performance project delivery.

300th Blog: Leadership Innovation: Compete for Uniqueness

9:10 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

If everyone would look for that uniqueness then we would have a very colorful world. Michael Schenker

At this 300^th blog milestone, it seems to be the right moment to sum up the latest leadership innovation brainstorming, as now, businesses and the world step into digital era, what is the trend from leadership perspective?

If leadership characteristics in industry age is homogeneity, leaders look the same, think the same, educate the same, and act the same, compete for the best of everything, see the world of black & white, style may overtake the substance sometimes; then, the theme of today’s leadership at such hyper-connected and interdependent business dynamic need be more heterogeneous, authentic, colorful and with the new motto to compete for uniqueness.

1. Leadership Quality & Intelligence

Leadership quality is not about the charismatic style to attract followers, as leadership quality not like oil floating above the water, but more as treasures hidden under the sea, such as courage, consistence, endurance, creativity, patience, humor, flexibility, resourcefulness, determination., etc.

Leadership intelligence also goes beyond traditional IQ & EQ, as multi-dimensional intelligence is required to become a leader at today’s complex world:

· IQ—Influential intelligence: leaders with this new “IQ” will be more flexible and less rigidly tied to top down, command and control environment, they encourage open conversation, make positive & progressive influence via forward-thinking mindset.

· 3CQs: Creative Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Collective Intelligence

-Creative Intelligence: Organization’s innovation agenda further boosts demand for leaders’ creativity, as creative leaders naturally embrace curiosity and cognitive difference, inspire innovative thinking with structured discipline;

-Cultural Intelligence: Today’s multi-generational, multi-cultural, multi-tasking working environment also requires leaders with deep empathy, appreciate the beauty of diversity, to expand global vision with in-depth culture understanding;

-Collective Intelligence: The emerging social organizations embrace leaders who are indefatigable learners, approach solutions via collective wisdom, breakdown the silo thinking, and with capability to lead virtual team or remote group and orchestrate a virtual business symphony.

2. Leadership Strength & Substance

In pursuit of uniqueness and authenticity, leaders need do more self-reflection on leadership strength and substance, color and theme, value and philosophy, strategy and skillset, what’s your leadership mojo anyway?

Three "I"s in Insightful Leader
Three "V"s in Visionary Leaders

Three "P"s in Paradoxical Leaders

Three "C"s in Creative Leaders

Three "A"s in Adaptive Leaders
Three "T"s in Transformational Leaders

Three "C"s in Character-based Leaders

Three "C"s in Charismatic Leaders

Seven Characteristics of Global Leaders

3. Universal Wisdom & Unconventional Wisdom

If the science of leadership is to create quantified value for business and society, then the art of leadership is in pursuit of wisdom, there’re universal wisdom and unconventional wisdom underneath great leadership

Wisdom is the guide for purpose, progress and change the world for better; then, true leaders are the wise practitioners to make such transformation;

Knowledge is man power, wisdom is nature power, wise leaders take such nature power to drive the changes;

Wisdom is on how to dig into root cause and hunt for essential, wise leaders will have courage tuning eco-system, equip self with in-depth knowledge and insightful understanding.

The power of wisdom overcomes barriers, wise leaders have high level of maturity to adapt to changes, breakthrough bias, or convey the vision with passion.

Unique leaders may also have so called unconventional wisdom, as sometimes, common sense is not so common, if every leader can bring even a drop of wisdom water, then the sea of leadership will turn to be Blue Ocean of living water.

Leaders: Compete for Uniqueness!

Three Big "Q"s in Big Data

8:53 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

There’s no “perfect” data in Big Data world, the accuracy and compromise will continue to coexist across the span of information management

The Big Data battle is still on, most of organizations haven’t seen clear symbol to declare victory yet, though everyone is talking about “V” words these days: Volume, Velocity, Variety, and look for big Value; if switch the angle a bit, how to see Big Data in the lens of “Q”?

1. Quantity

The growth of Data is exponential: The volume of business data worldwide is expected to double every 1.2 years. Data is growing at 40% compound annual rate, reaching nearly 45 ZB by 2020. Every day, 2.5quintillion bytes of data are created, with 90% of the world’s data created in the past two years, also, data production will be 44 times greater in 2020 than in 2009.

But what exactly is the difference between “a lot” of data and “big data”? information becomes big data when the volume can no longer be managed with normal database tools. Due to the mountain of information that companies are producing and spreading through social networks, businesses are now facing the challenge of processing all this data in a short time

Perhaps Big Data might not necessarily be that 'big'. Not all big data is new data. a wealth of data generated sits unused or at least not used effectively. To process: Start with a small data sample. You don’t need the full width and depth of your data to find interesting stuff. Start small. It saves you a lot of technology headache at the start. The sample is important. Does it represent the target of your business problem? With Big Data you can sample the part of the population that you are interested in and still have a sample large enough to do meaningful work. That is the advantage of Big Data for analysis. In addition, Big Data processes large diverse data sets to reveal complex relationships, so humans are still crucial ingredients for interpreting the data into insight.

2. Quality

There’s no “perfect” data in Big Data world, the accuracy and compromise will continue to coexist across the span of information management. And Big Data Quality efforts need to be defined more as profiling and standards versus cleansing. This is better aligned to how big data is managed and processed.

Data expert also provides a better definition of data quality as “the extent to which the data actually represents what it purports to represent.” As Data Quality is multiple dimensional concept:

Objective Data Quality Dimensions: Integrity, Accuracy, Validity, Completeness, Consistency, Existence
Subjective Data Quality Dimensions: Understandability, objectivity, timeliness, relevance, interpretability, trust

“Good enough” data can be more useful than perfect data, as long as the information is good enough for the recipient to make sound business decisions or solving specific business problems via the best angles, because it takes longer to make the data more accurate, and such time delay may actually diminishes its value rather than improving it. How to leverage data quality and cost/benefit analysis is important.

3. Quantum Leap

Big Data promised to be transformative, not just transactional: Across industries, Big Data can produce large data set coupled with massive processing capabilities to spur growth and reveal cost-efficiency opportunities. Almost all are immersed in a transformation that leverages analytics and big data.

The greatest rewards go to those with clear vision for how it can transform their organization, capabilities and industry. According to industry survey, more than 90% of Fortune 500 companies will have at least one big data initiatives, the effective use of data can deliver substantial top and bottom-line benefits, Building business capabilities through it will not only improve performance in traditional segments and functions, but also create opportunities to expand product and service offerings and create new business model.

Real World Data Puzzles: If every passenger poses 100 searches before buying a air ticket (a number in line with actual behavior) and each search looks at 1,000 flights, then the airlines would need to answer 15,000,000 questions per second. Neither their networks nor their computers can handle this.

Why is this important? Because data makes all the difference in the world in a time-critical environment, so keep business questions in mind such as:

“What are the problems we need to solve? What is the insight? How can the data provide guidance to make the best decision” etc.

Some even think Big Data in 21^st century is equivalent to the industrial revolution in 20^th century, As organizations are increasingly experimenting to capture big data’s potential for both short and long term advantage, such as build out the capabilities necessary to capitalize on big data potential, or perhaps embrace the creative destruction of business model.

Such three “Q” words for Big Data is accompanies with Questioning: to capture insight from Big Data, and pursue quantum leap in business transformation.

Five Desired Skills needed to be an Effective CIO

9:33 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

As a leader, the CIO has to be able to inspire and encourage with his/her vision and generate conviction and enthusiasm for the missions of the IT and company.

Many great CIOs share five common leadership traits as we brainstormed earlier through the CIO’s daily tasks may depend on the nature of the business and the corporate culture, there are also desired skill set & capabilities to make one an effective CIO.

1. Management/Leadership Skills

As a leader, the CIO has to be able to inspire and encourage with his/her vision and generate conviction and enthusiasm for the missions of the company and the IT division, regardless of how exciting or mundane they may be. CIOs' leadership skills include effective communication and analytical thinking ability. A CIO has to be a digital visionary, and transformational leader, an empathetic communicator, a good facilitator, a good listener, and a good collaborator.

As a manager, the CIO also needs to be able to manage day-to-day tactical issues, as well as multiple new projects that may be in flight, so he/she need also motivate the team, mentor them, and properly command them. The ability to keep the bottom line while increasing efficiency, championing new and "business-relevant" technology, and providing "convincing" governance/ management discipline…

2. Ability to Inspire and Create a Culture of Innovation and Change

The "Fresh Blood" scenario where a CIO is brought in from outside the vertical industry to reinvigorate an IT organization. Sometimes organizations go stale and need so-called "shot in the arm" of someone who thinks differently. More Skills to Lead Change:
1) Communicate skillfully: CIOs must be able to relay complex technical ideas in a no technical manner to business leaders and have skills to communicate change
2) Quick Action and Change: The technology trend moves very quickly; slow movers almost always pay the price.
3) Harmonious and Fair Temperaments: Technology has played a large role in the diversification of the modern workforce, but with increased diversity comes increased discord.
4) Global Outlook: With the advance of the Internet, nearly any company can be global, which brings more competition, different cultures and customs, and multiple POVs.

3. The skill of Speaking Fluent Digital Dialects of 'Business' and 'Technology’

The CIO needs to develop skills beyond technology, based on the understanding of their particular organization's current and potential corporate structure, senior management style, staff size, and strategic plan. The absolute No#1 non-technical skill is the ability to speak the language of business. CIOs need to develop a broad skill set beyond technology. Coupled with the ability to understand, translate and speak “tech-talk.' Among other skills, they need strong business orientation and a proven ability to bring the benefits of IT to solve business issues They translate from one conversation to the other seamlessly.

The CIO has to be the technical visionary of the company, so she/he has to be able to not only articulate the vision but communicate it in various forms and forums, including investor relations, business partners, business leaders, IT personnel, the other CxOs in the company, etc. so the CIO has to be flexible, adaptable, and able to adjust the lingo to suit the audience, sometimes soften it up and drop the technical jargon, other times diving into the bits and bytes level.

4. Ability to Craft Technical Strategy as an integral part of Business Strategy

The CIO has to be able to navigate the business objectives and corporate strategy and lead the creation and execution of the corresponding technical strategy for the company. It is an advantage if the CIO has diversified experience, for business domain or technical expertise.

Ability to craft a good strategy: A lot depends on the corporate structure and the culture of the company. If the corporate leadership is not open and receptive to technical innovation, and not accustomed to engaging the CIO in corporate strategic planning, then it could be challenging. In a progressive company that embraces technology and value information, a highly strategic and innovative CIO will fit in. If the company leadership does not see value in technology, and just wants to keep IT costs down to a bare minimum, then a CIO who is experienced in tactical efforts and cost containment would be a better fit. Still, all effective CIOs need to learn to craft a good strategy.

Ability to Implement Strategy: Most companies expect the CIO to lead the technical vision, so an IT background of some kind is a must, which likely includes some IT management and hands-on technical background at some point in their career. A good technical architecture grounding, a solid understanding of the application of technology in general.

5. The Ability to Interact with Business on the Processes and Pain areas

CIOs are Business Orchestrators. Add the ability to lead large-scale change programs, Understand the business, understand the business process, understand the latest technology and motivate IT Team to accelerate their performance. To be effective, the CIO has to collaborate with the business teams and must be able to educate as well as learn from other leaders within and outside the company as well as direct reports. He/she is responsible for providing the correct information in the correct manner to the right people at the right time.

Be the spinal cord for the organization - integrating various departments ability to bring out a technology-driven solution, motivating the IT team to constantly deliver despite not all applications getting used in the organization, driving adoption of applications (though part of change management, the most difficult piece). In short, the major task of the CIO today is to simplify & unify processes across functional boundaries, and often across the entire enterprise. This requires an unprecedented level of collaboration with the line managers and business units who own those processes. Given the vagaries of uncertain economic times, he/she must be able to align the business requirement with the IT capacity, which means that he/she must be able to constantly and dynamically lead an IT structure that will seamlessly support the business and well ahead of the business requirement.

Modern CIOs also have multiple personas, face both unprecedented opportunities and unexpected pitfalls, the strong leadership traits and a solid set of skills will help prepare for such a journey.

Three “I”s in Insightful Leaders

8:59 PM Pearl Zhu 7 comments

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Insight is the power of acute observation, deduction, penetration, discernment and perception.” (Wikipedia). If visionary leaders look on the horizon and take peek of future, then insightful leaders look beyond to capture the violet ray, or x-ray, to see underneath the surface; if visionary leaders are able to zoom in the future as if it were closer; then insightful leaders are capable of pulling past, present, and future together to dig into humanity and pursue universal wisdom. There are three “I”s in insightful leadership.
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1. Intelligence

Common sense is not so common. --Voltaire

Today’s management has been educated and equipped with IQ (Rational Intelligence to make the efficient command) & EQ (Emotional Intelligence to play the poker face and control the hierarchy), it’s not qualified enough to face today’s uncertainty and complexity, therefore, multi-dimensional intelligence are needed to shape insight, it takes:

Creative Intelligence (CQ): Curiosity beat IQ in every chance to create the fresh new idea, and innovation imperative is top priority for every company in every industry, either leadership innovation or technology breakthrough take insightful vision to shape up, in the era of digitalization, information need be refined into intelligence, and intelligence has to be further transformed into business insight, at the higher level, insight is abstracted into wisdom; thus, it takes curiosity and creativity to capture insight.

Value Judgment Intelligence (VJI): It is the fundamental driver of virtually all human choice, actions, and reactions. It takes VQ to make effective decisions based on insight which is the capability to understand a specific cause and effect in a specific context. Insightful leaders have better abilities to see beyond obvious, or look around the corner, to leverage risks or adapt to changes.

Paradoxical Intelligence (PI): The leaders with philosophical intelligence may evoke the paradoxical thinking process, which is defined as a statement that seems contradictory, but that may actually be true in fact. To put in a more logical way, it takes PI to penetrate & percept and push & pull, to shape insight, well integrate analysis with synthesis, in order to highlight the key point, also catch the holism.

Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation. -Bette Davis

2. Inclusion

A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding. -Marshall McLuhan

Even the wisest person has the corner of the fool, it takes inclusiveness to have collective insight.

Inclusiveness is the lever. Inclusiveness is the quality of the organizational environment that maximizes and leverages the diverse talents, backgrounds and perspectives of all employees. Diversity in the global context can be defined as visible and invisible differences, thinking styles, leadership style, experience, culture etc. Insightful leaders are good listeners, and the indefatigable learners, ask the right questions, to approach solutions via the collective insight.

Cultural Agility Focusing on inclusion starts with developing Cultural Agility- the ability to effectively navigate, communicate, interrelate and function well in diverse cultural settings. Insightful leaders are also culturally agile, adaptable and flexible. These are skills necessary to reduce risk and maximize opportunities to achieve performance and results. Cultural agility is also the other kind of intelligence- Culture Intelligence, to appreciate the beauty of diversity, to expand the global vision via the circular lens of a deeply understanding multitude of viewpoint, and to abstract the commonality from divide. No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive. --Mohandas K. Gandhi

3. Influence

The best vision is insight. Malcolm Forbes

Leadership is an influence. Insightful leaders can make a deep influence because their unique observation and clear discernment can touch the heart, not only shape the mindset.

Influential Competence: The executives with influential competence will be more flexible and less rigidly tied to top-down, command-and-control environment, they value the employees, understand the mindset of all members of the group, they do not dominate discussions, instead, they encourage open critical debate, and encourage each team member to contribute positively. And they appreciate the collective insight.

Influential Intelligence: The insightful leaders has the ability to influence peers as they undertake a broad range of crucial decisions involving the issues as strategy, branding, technologic vision, finance, talent management, a mindset could be called influential intelligence if it can discover the patterns or inter-relationship among all those disciplines. .

It takes insight to pull the world together, and it takes vision to push the world forward. "Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

EA Book Library

8:52 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

The problem with architecture as an universal subject is that the term "architect" pops up in virtual everything, starting as a title in 5 religions, going in building area, being a title in freemasonry, in IT, in various other areas of business, EA touches philosophy, design, IT, business strategy and more.

Enterprise Architecture As Strategy - Ross & Weil
Software architecture in practice - Len Bass
Documenting Software Architectures - Paul Clements
97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts - Richard Monson –Haefel

Business Architecture: The Art and Practice of Business Transformation ----William Ulrich, Neal Mcwhorter

Enterprise Architecture Planning: Developing a Blueprint for Data, Applications, and Technology Execution -Steven H. Spewak, Steven C. Hill

IT Savvy: What Top Executives Must Know to Go from Pain to Gain    -Peter Weill, Jeanne W. Ross
An Introduction To Enterprise Architecture - Scott A. Bernard

Business Model Generation - Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneu

IT Governance: How Top Performers Manage IT Decision Rights for Superior Results -Peter Weill, Jeanne W. Ross
The Art of Enterprise Information Architecture: A Systems-Based Approach for Unlocking Business Insight -Mario Godinez, Eberhard Hechler, Klaus Koenig, Steve Lockwood, Martin Oberhofer, Michael Schroec

The art of software architecture -Stephen Albin

Business Architecture: The Art and Practice of Business Transformation –Ulrich, McWhorter
Business Architecture: A Practical Guide - Whelan, Meaden
Enterprise Business Motivation Model - Malick (PDF)
Business Process Change, Second Edition - Paul Harmon

Evaluating Software Architectures: Methods and Case Studies - Paul C. Clements

Documenting Software Architectures: Views and Beyond, -Felix Bachmann

Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler

FruITion: Creating the Ultimate Corporate Strategy for Information Technology -Chris Pott

IT Attitude: Confident, not Arrogant

9:23 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

Our attitude towards others determines their attitude towards us. -Earl Nightingale

On one side, IT complains not get respected from business, on the other side, business think IT acts arrogant sometimes; such “he said, she said”, “Pride & Prejudice” dilemmas continue to stir up new debate in CIO forums, the point is not to figure out who is right and who is wrong, the key is how IT can leverage different viewpoint and keep improving leadership and service. But, how to adjust the attitude or break down the bias?

1 Make professional and "objective" judgment, is what makes one leader

Drucker has pointed out the greatest impedance to organizational success is ego. This can be seen to encompass hubris. How to show confident, not arrogant though?

Respect various POVs: We are all humans and subject to certain character strengths and weaknesses. How we get to a final decision without (or at least with minimum) personal "opinion," but professional "objective" judgment, is what makes one leader. And that means we have to consider various opinions from peers, colleagues and what we get to hear and read from information channels. Only if you are open enough (regardless of the position really) to listen and adjust, you will provide the highest level of quality and leadership to your company, teams and even yourselves.

Accountability is perhaps one of the most powerful deterrents to bad behavior: The key question is: How do you build your own accountability when it is implicit? One of the biggest problems with the CIO role "is" the accountability factor. Management teams just don't know how to evaluate the CIO role. While many CIOs can lose relevance.

The best character trait to become a leader is "Empathy": But the paradox is: The excess of empathy could be also dangerous. Sometimes people could take advantage of your empathy to have excuses. Empathy can convert apparently a professional relationship into a personal relation, When you lead people, there is a thin critical barrier between personal and professional relationships, and empathy sometimes works as a pole vault, and you can topple the strip. Empathy yes, but do not trespass the red line!

2. Effective governance can better tame egos

The purpose of strategic planning and effective governance: It is to negate these ego factors to constantly provide a challenge greater than the individual that requires them to improve and perform at ever higher levels. Such management discipline should prevent the warmth of the firefighter feeling, the desire to dominate, and the vanity of entitled gratuities. Without a challenging and well-governed environment, personalities can overpower the agenda and subsume what is organizationally necessary to what is personally desired.

"Listen, respect and respond" to customers & adapt to changes: Optimize business processes in order to be flexible and willing to adapt to change; for not being arrogant. Truly believe that the only way to produce valuable, sustainable and adaptable services and products is to have the capability to change. Sometimes, IT can become too reliant on what worked in the past and not challenging approach in the light of new situations and contexts. In IT such changes are more frequent than some other areas of the organization, requiring IT leaders to constantly reappraise their skills, knowledge, and approach to organizational needs. Such as how to differentiate your approach from the past; how to show why this new way offers value.

3. Constructively Breakthrough Business’s “Pride & Prejudice”

Be humble to accept constructive criticism, but also be confident to do what it benefits for business overall.

Focus on better way, neither your way nor our way: What is often perceived as arrogance is what a high performing IT organization can look like from its customer’s perspective. IT folks can be great at building well designed, low-error rate process & systems, and then using them to deliver high quality, dependable service. However, that all too often gets interpreted as "do it my way", or "no, what you are doing is wrong"; when the customer is attempting to push the boundaries, often in search of greater efficiency, this comes across to them as IT being rude and arrogant.

There is very rarely an 'IT arrogance' problem. It is no more prevalent than 'HR arrogance' or 'Sales arrogance': The same goes for 'Shadow IT,' which is often an immediate business requirement to acting "time-to-market," bypassing IT policies with opening doors to the Intranet. Well-enforced IT control mechanisms and a responsible IT team should minimize such actions in order to follow the Company IT Policies. The implementation of a "task force" which is to respond to any urgent business needs making ends (Business and IT) meet efficiently (allowing this process to bypass certain "usual" approval steps, but the key ones, to put in place in time that business requirement) could help "resolving" such bottlenecks, what is often perceived as arrogance is really caution to ensure security, connectivity, compatibility, and support for new technologies introduced into the enterprise.

Further analysis of confidence vs. arrogance: Being confident of the ability may have you deemed arrogant whether it’s being true or not. In a surrounding driven by fear, fear can make confidence appear as arrogance. How much of the "perceived arrogance of IT" is nothing more than people's displaced fear of technology or their lack of ability to understand it and its true potential.

Perspective is always in the eyes of the beholder: Business and IT need to focus more on being objective in approaches and allow for the ever-changing markets and environment. This requires a mind shift to allow for this change and allow for the element of ultimate control to be released in order for the change to take effect. The difficult part to be a great leader is the balance point: Be confident, not arrogant, be empathetic, not lack of discipline, be creative, but not destructive, be determined but not inflexible; be modest, but not be perceived as incompetent; be holistic, but not lose the focus, with such sense and sensitivity to collaborate smoothly and execute effectively.

Read more about IT Management Debate:
Three Reasons Why IT Doesn't Get Respected

The CIO’s Set of Q&As in Board Room

10:15 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

The purpose of the governing body, or board of directors, is to direct and guide the organization in the right direction.

Corporate governance is to make sure that management is doing its job properly. So the governing body (BoD) must define the management’s job – which is embraced in the purpose, objectives, strategy, and policy of the organization, and must monitor the management’s performance and conformance in order to verify that what was specified is what is actually happening.

Now more CIOs have been empowered to have a seat in the boardroom because IT plays a critical role in strategy, data/IT governance, and risk management in the digital era. What it means is that the IT function should be helping the business leaders and BoD to identify and understand the opportunity, implications, and constraints arising from the organization’s use of IT and the use of IT that occurs in its ecosystem. How CIOs should well prepare for such new journey, start with a set of Q&As:

1. What is the Ultimate Purpose of the Board of Directors (BoD)?

The purpose of the governing body, or board of directors, is to direct and control the organization, according to the laws of the jurisdictions in which the organization is domiciled and in which it operates. This purpose is generally known as “corporate governance.” While “corporate governance” can be modeled in general terms, and while certain aspects of corporate governance are heavily regulated in some jurisdictions, there is no standard model for corporate governance because the context for corporate governance includes a wide range of circumstances and capabilities which are subject to constant variability.

So, the governing body needs to develop a good sense of the appropriate scope of decisions, and what is pertinent to its role versus what is really the purview of management.

2. What is Governance really?

1) Corporate governance is frequently held to include: Selection, appointment, remuneration, and removal of the Chief Executive Officer and possibly other executive roles;

2) Determination of which powers are retained by the governing body and which are delegated to management, along with constraints that may apply;

3) Oversight, supervision, development and mentoring of management, typically at the higher executive levels;

4) Setting the objectives, strategy, and policies of the organization, either directly, or through some levels of delegation to management;

5) Monitoring of the performance and conformance of the organization in respect of the objectives, strategy, and policies, together with monitoring of management in its realization of the required performance and conformance;

6) Stewardship of the organization’s resources, which typically include financial, human, intellectual and physical assets, relationships, and the organization’s business design, systems, and capabilities. Stewardship increasingly also extends to the organization’s use of natural and environmental resources as demanded by market pressures and, in some jurisdictions as required by law;

7) Oversight of critical aspects of organizational development and change, including awareness of market developments and pressures, approval of plans, allocation of funding and tracking of outcomes;

8) Ultimate accountability to shareholders and the courts for the performance and conformance of the organization, for the effectiveness of the direction, the oversight provided, and for the timeliness and caliber of action taken by the governing body.

3. What is the Role of the BoD in strategy (Architectural thinking, Information driven perspective)?

The Board is accountable for the strategy and responsible for ensuring that the strategy being followed is appropriate for the organization and the environment(s) within which the organizations operate. The Board does not develop strategy; it delegates that task to Management

The board is accountable for the 'architecture of the enterprise': An interesting (missing?) question is: What is the Board's involvement with Enterprise Architecture? Clearly, the Board is accountable for the 'architecture of the enterprise' and is responsible for ensuring that the enterprise has an appropriate 'architecture.' What is, could, should their role be. Contribution to the business strategy and business change agenda are the two places where most EA value can be added, and at the earliest stages of the cycle, thereby reducing the investment necessary to realize greater enterprise outcomes and/or earlier realization of enterprise aspirations.

IT is the business catalyst: More often than not, IT directly impacts on strategy shaping. The boards may ask information management three questions about strategy.

(1) What developments in the capability and use of information technology are critical to strategic

future, and how are we responding to them?

(2) What demand does strategy create for new information technology-enabled capability, and
how will we bring that to reality?

(3) What limitations are imposed on strategy by the constraints of the information technology
currently, used by our organization and in our ecosystem?

4. What role do corporate governance methods and the various functional groups play in overseeing changes in the organization?

(1) What role(s) do IT (or the various functional groups) play in Governance in general, and in overseeing changes in the organization? While none of the items in governance description explicitly mentions information technology, it must be understood that information and information technology are at the current time the focus of immense market development and pressure and key aspects of organizational development and performance throughout the business cycle. IT oversees enterprise-wide information which is the lifeblood in modern businesses. As such, IT plays a significant role in overall business governance, relevant topics are important enough to warrant explicit board attention within the overall framework of resources and governance in general.

(2) What are the possible governance methods, techniques, structures, etc.? Governance methods, techniques, structures, etc. would need to be defined *before* commenting on the role they and various functional groups play. The "possible governance methods, techniques, structures, etc" is base on the design of a management system which generally has a strong process element and the manner in which those management systems mesh with the governance arrangements. In most of the organizations, there are quite clear processes for the interaction between management and the board

5. "Where, when, and what"would one expect IT to enter the Board conversation?

Traditionally, “Information governance," a better term might be "information management", is an activity which should happen below the Board and Board Committee level. The Board's involvement might be to review and approve *broad* information management policies. However, the speed of change is accelerating, IT should more proactively participate in the big conversation through the right touchpoint and at the right time.

IT should enter the board conversation at several points

(1) Business Strategy: Because it is a key enabler of future capability and a critical aspect of continuing business activity in most organizations.

(2) GRC Management: Because market experience is of the unacceptably high risk of negative outcomes for IT-enabled and IT-linked change. IT is prominent in market disruption which can result in major opportunities and major damage.

(3) IT oversight: IT projects frequently fail to deliver intended and appropriate business outcomes and IT failures frequently cause a significant negative business impact.

When IT will be on the Board's agenda depends on:

(1) The business significance of IT

(2) The size of the investment

(3) The risks involved, and other factors including, every opportunity evolves IT, risk, and opportunities are so interweaved.

What IT should be considered in the BoD Agenda:

(1) as an integral and increasingly important aspect of business strategy development;
(2) as an integral and increasingly important aspect of ongoing business viability; and
(3) as an enabler of, but not the only aspect of, business capability development.

6. The Dilemmas facing IT Leaders in Big Conversations

- Too many people in the corporate governance space are reluctant to ask questions about IT: As IT is newer compared to other functions such as finance, IT may face a hostile attitude to the notion that information technology makes a difference. A major enabler to a better conversation about IT is for that conversation to be an integral part of the business conversation, with the business leaders positioning and presenting IT as an integral part of the current and future business which is the reality of most organizations today?

- IT is still being perceived as a supporting function in many organizations: How to refine the fresher image of IT? And while this is a responsibility of the IT function, it must also be a responsibility of the overall business leadership because we can't reasonably expect the IT leaders to know everything about everything, or to be the sole source of new ideas!

- The dilemma about the breadth and depth of IT conversations: Because IT is an enabler of current and future capability for both the organization and its ecosystem (the market comprising competitors, suppliers and other agents, regulators and so on) much of the board conversation about IT should be framed in respect of the business activities and the ecosystem. However, because IT is also a clearly identifiable resource with an identifiable framework of important considerations, some aspects of the conversation should be focused on specifics of the technology, as is the case with human resources and other assets.

And what that leads business to is a realization that the real challenge and the real opportunity in improving (corporate) governance of IT are in reworking the management systems for planning, building and running IT so that they are integral aspects of the corporate management systems for planning, building and running the business

7. How to best evaluate the Board's performance in utilizing IT to achieve the business purpose?

Given how the use of IT is becoming so intrinsically important to so many different enterprises, meaning that corporate governance typically dominated by other traditional executives is quite un-alert to the implications and opportunities afforded by more effective use of IT, it is incumbent to better understand corporate governance processes and how they might more effectively and proactively contribute to such processes.

Ultimately, the board’s performance is reflected in the performance of the organization. However, there are shorter-term perspectives through which one can assess whether the board is effective – because if the board is effective then so too should be the management and the activities of the organization. In respect of IT, if the organization is maintaining its appropriate and consciously chosen posture in respect of market leadership, if it is successfully delivering its program of IT-enabled change, and if it is delivering acceptable IT-enabled operational performance if it always has IT-literate board director to participate in conversations, one can view the board performance as being satisfactory in this regard.