What are the potential risks in EA practice?

Improper analysis/knowledge of existing components in the system and lack of understanding of their interfaces to extend and re-use.

EA project has a high rate failure rate, due to the scope and complex nature, as you know, walking in the bush, you need to know about potential risks. Not pitfalls. Pitfalls are often hidden and not easy to identify. Risks could be very obvious sometimes, For instance, 

1. Incorrect understanding of business strategy
2. Incorrect translating from strategy to architectural design
3. Incorrect prediction of the future business
4. Possible the decrease in productivity in the short run
5. Incorrect technology stacks selection. 
6. Improper understanding of non-functional requirements.
7. Not giving adequate importance to security aspects, which potentially expose system to Vulnerability attacks. 
8. Improper analysis/knowledge of existing components in the system and lack of understanding of their interfaces to extend and re-use.
9. Not balance well on EA aspiration & EA practicality 
10. Lack of an effective set of metrics to measure delivery. 
11. Time to value or no value delivered or out of date value
12. Be focused, have the end in mind, why are you engaging in an EA project. 
13. Do EA for EA's sake 
14. Lack of executive sponsorship 
15. Lack of strong internal program leadership 
16. Lack-focus on adoption process & roll-out plan
17. No focus on delivering quantifiable business value 
18. No leverage the wider data team & process
19. Lack of flexible tools
20. Too focused on IT
21. No mandate, no clear rollout plan 
22. Modeling the Universe’ 
23. unable to articulate the value proposition of EA 
24. confused about the purpose and scope of EA (business vs. technical investment decision) 
25. unable to communicate effectively with stakeholders 
26. unable to execute in an appropriate risk management approach that matches the effort (investment) with return
27. Lack of EA people with broad technical skills (business, applications, infrastructure) and soft skills too (communications, negotiation, presentation, management, etc) 
28. Confidentiality prevents business plans being fully available to the EA team
29. Business interlock hampered by "go-betweens" (claiming to represent the business leaders but actually promoting their own or others' ideas). 
30. Business strategy and plans are not fully formed....(and no one wants to hear this from the EA team !)..i.e. insufficient input...and this can lead to "speculative" filling in... 
31. Lack of good executive sponsorship i.e. an owner with clout in the organization and buy-in from other stakeholders 
32. participants being fearful of negative impacts on their function (silo) e.g. job losses and becoming defensive as a result... 
33. Separation of duties & regulatory separation of functions prevents full co-operation 
34. Consultants, brought in by some affected functions, pursuing an agenda to bring them follow-on work. 
35. Internal politics....business functions, people with their own agenda's (take over the company) jockeying for position...up to board level...and causing a distraction! 
36. Too much influence of some suppliers or partners. IT vendors with their "product maps" which they like to market as EA ! 
37. Inertia "that's the way we've always done it". 
38. Too much focus on EA tools and frameworks....particularly from consultants...... 
39. Disconnect with pre-existing EA-like functions; many companies have a semblance of EA but called something else
40. "Waterfall" type of EA, lack of Agile practice - Incremental-ism, Improvement   and Iteration. 

Further Lesson: If the stakeholders know what's being presented, the buy-in will be made smoother. Give the stakeholders to have their say and take them into consideration but do not let them undermine the findings. The project may fail--

• If you assume that the executive or manager actually knows what he wants or needs. 
• If you assume that the user knows what she could have and what she should have. 
• If you assume that the executive knows what he DOES have. 
• If you assume that the user actually knows what they have to do to achieve the strategy. 
• If you assume that there IS a strategy.
• If you assume that the strategy is actually appropriate and good. 
• If you assume that a 'balanced scorecard' will mean the strategy is good. 

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Three Starting Point upon GRC Program

 Instill GRC discipline at organizational culture, embed the GRC mechanism in the key business processes, and enforce GRC practices at daily business activities.

Organizations today encounter more risks than ever due to accelerated change, over-complex business dynamic, and hyper-competitive competition, hence, GRC (Governance, Risk Management and Compliance) program becomes a strategic imperative, but how to get it started, as the starting point is always challenging---for managing complicated a program like GRC, especially now IT governance is converging with corporate governance and Risk Management doesn't mean risk mitigation only, at a high level, it's risk intelligence.

1. Well-Define Clear Objectives 

First, you have to define what you are trying to accomplish. GRC is a meaningless term as it encompasses a lot or a little depending on the vendor's set of solutions combined with what you need. Define clear objectives [the potential is extensive and thus with huge pitfall], when defined, ensure that you have standardized/harmonized your control environment while implementing [second pitfall]. The desired outcome is to improve compliance and effectively manage risks, rather than just to report problems. 

• Start with identifying 'TO BE' processes with activities and responsibilities.
  - In those processes, identified risks by the activities, AND
  - The phase of identifying controls against those risks and also rankings.     

• Strategy as Compass: for enterprises, starting to implement GRC, you need a strategy as a compass, or EA as a framework, in order to keep on the right journey without re-inventing the wheel; governance /risk management is not just for controlling, at a high mature level, it’s risk intelligence -every risk has opportunities.  

• Get an executive agreement for a corporate risk appetite when you have your risk matrix together. Run scenarios with the exec to make sure your policies and associated controls really reflect that risk appetite. As early as possible call out your GRC service RACI, scope, limitations, and dependencies and communicate them to the exec. They need to understand how much your service can do, with current resources and funding, to improve compliance and mitigate risks. Then they need to sponsor your work to embed shared and delegated accountability throughout the business. Nothing will work without clearly understood risk and compliance accountability.  

• At a tactical level, how to embed the GRC mechanism into key processes more seamlessly, statistically, those organizations that implement GRC effectively outperform their industrial peers 20%+ in revenue growth. Define more specific goals such as: Are you trying to implement solutions for enterprise risk management, one aspect of risk management such as IT risk, compliance, internal audit, continuous monitoring, SOX, ethics programs, etc?  

2. Make Preliminary Risk Assessment 

Start with "preliminary risk assessment" to identify high-risk assets. Identify any regulatory compliance needs. Start with a risk analysis to see where you need to start your program. From there, conduct a gap analysis and start putting together policies and governance documents. Once you have identified high-risk assets and regulatory compliance needs, work on controls assessment as well as detailed risk assessment. This will result in issues/gaps that you need to mitigate. 

• Start by understanding requirements, business, and the risks (think really, really hard about the risks - spend time in slow and methodical contemplation of things unexpected, and play a lot of "what if" games), understand the policies integrated with the procedures; understand the processes you use. Analyze them to see whether they satisfy the requirements (this is a risk issue). If they don't, then modify. 

• Have knowledge of each governing policy (industry), each reflective internal policy, and each procedure. Understand how they are all tied together. This will give you some insight when defining risk areas, asset risks, and controls. Asset risk is fairly tangible, and it's the beginning of risk management. It requires an inventory of assets (many of which are IT-related, but there could be a lot that has a direct impact on the industry. Then, you can start with risk, more specifically, asset-based risk, the largest challenge, and possible where you could easily get lost in the details, identifying each asset's risks. Also, do you have any industry references as to probability, impact, or threat scoring for your assets?       
      
• Spend time early on building robust, pro-active escalation and risk acceptance processes with well-defined business approval levels. A GRC effort can live or die based on how successful exceptions and service limitations are communicated and dealt with. Make proper business cases to tolerate some compliance gaps and risks, and then inform policy reviews. Making sure policies continue to properly reflect corporate risk appetite.  

Further, no-one wants to be on the hook for an incident because they decided it was too expensive to fix something. By the same token, people forget that risk acceptance is a perfectly reasonable way to manage risk (as long as everyone signs on the dotted line to say they understood the risk and evidence of that sign off is kept). Over time that creates more credibility for the GRC function and helps when the time to fight for budget swings around.

3. Evaluate Risk Measurement & People Factor

Once identified, each has a risk measurement which can be determined and scored objectively, (a key perspective to maintain when substantiating risk). Some refer to this level as the functional risk level. It's the infrastructure, from which the operational and enterprise risk is based upon.

The Type of Risks need to be measured: The risks being measured include operational risk (processes), and that can be fairly subjective unless you've objectively identified, measured, and mitigated much of the asset risk that's involved servicing a particular process. At a minimum, it puts more emphasis on your subjective scoring process. Ultimately, your upper level of risk is Enterprise, and that is very subjective also. There's internal and external subjectivity, even speculation as you assess systemic and economic predictions. Risk management, especially GRC, as a math equation; whereas, there are a few given pieces of information which you build upon to obtain more accurate measurements, in hopes to have a solid GRC foundation, one level at a time.

Also, GRC is best managed when shared and distributed between the appropriate owners of the processes, programs, vendors, audits, and tasks. Those are really the responsible parties that are your subject matter experts. Rely upon them, and they're ownership. They'll value the program, and more likely support your efforts. You'll also have a team that will appreciate some of the burden being lifted from them.

"The soft stuff ( the human stuff) is the hard stuff": In the end, your program will become part of the culture, and not taken as such an overhead experience. It'll become the value it so rightly deserves. If you're serious about a risk-driven implementation approach for the chosen enterprise-class GRC solution, then you'll need to deal with, first and foremost, the human element. So, one of the most important Critical Success Factors (CSF's) is time-to-adoption in addition to time-to-payback.

GRC is about the entire organization, the people, processes, and technology. “Never tweaking but always redesigning." (Drucker). When it comes to motivating, build learning organizations (Senge). Plan for the fact that you have humans working at your company and humans are very creative things. They will either figure ways around your processes or will find ways to make your processes better satisfy your requirements, depending on how they are motivated. Therefore, instill GRC discipline at organizational culture, embed the GRC mechanism in the key business processes, and enforce GRC practices at daily business activities.

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Celebrate Mother's Day: to Connect Leadership Nature & ‘Mother Nature’ --The True Leaders are ……

True leaders must be brave enough to do what is needed, what is right and what may not be the easiest journey.

To celebrate Mother’s Day with leadership brainstorming, lead by asking: Is there commonality between leadership nature and ‘Mother Nature’? Absolutely a lot: Maturity, love, exemplarity, responsibility, balance, or sensitivity. Etc. 

 In the world of work, leadership should be top-down, bottom-up, outside-in, inside-out and even sideways. No matter the scope or style, great leadership exists on small, medium and large scales. Leadership is a role into which one is cast as a leader. You can be handpicked, voted in, born to it or the last one standing. But, what the true leaders are anyway:

1. True Leaders are who do not follow where the path may lead, but instead goes where there is no path and leave a trail. They are visionaries, and what they see with greatest clarity is human potential.

2. The diamond in rough of true leadership is a spark of rebellion, not cocky but mildly indignant when questioned, a person who dares to ask the ''W'' questions and who challenges the norm because it is the norm. 

3. True leaders are who find themselves first, or know the answer for the question of "who am I" or who understand the essence of "being", or in other words they are authentic and rich intuitive skill. 

4. True Leaders are the one's who do the right thing not just things rightly. True leaders are... Human beings with a deep sense of others, a humble sense of themselves, a vision, and the ability to engage others to make it happen.

5. True leaders are anchored in centered, personal power rather than position power or reactivity. They respond to a larger context for the current situation and work creatively toward a better future.

6. True leaders are also strategic and courageous thinkers who can inspire others. People follow a true leader because it brings out the best in them and is in their best interest in the long term

7. True leaders have the wisdom, courage and empathy to lead others with authenticity, humility and service. True leaders are those who can inspire ordinary people to do extra ordinary things .... "A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves." -- Lao Tzu 

8. True leaders are sensitive and responsive, help the group finds the answers and directions by themselves- leaders as facilitators. True Leaders are human beings with a deep sense of others, a humble sense of themselves, a vision, and the ability to engage others to make it happen.

9. True Leaders give respect to get respect. True leaders are fully invested in fostering an environment where the associates are motivated by values and are empowered to do the right thing without hesitation or fear. True Leaders are ...... human 

10. Daring, trustworthy, agile but not impulsive, tough on business but not stubborn, they know how to involve people they gathered, keeping their word; humor for opening the minds, flattering-proof, intelligence and evidence-based planning and working. Animal sense for anticipating the context's changes and for sensing people's competencies.

11. True leaders ethically, diplomatically, unselfishly and enthusiastically lead others to their "greatness". Such leaders role-model the very principles they teach (and that includes how to follow the leadership of others). 

12. True leaders are authentic, have courage to challenge the status quo, and help others succeed. True leaders must be brave enough to do what is needed, what is right and what may not be the easiest journey. They do it with honor and people respond because of their authentic nature and trustworthiness

13. True Leaders are - those who have grasped the importance & necessity of their roles in leading upfront or on the behind if needed; & have wholly engaged themselves in the process - by self-example, towards certain visionary & eventually benevolent goals, with a clear objective of doing it with excellence; while taking concerned people forward by encouraging & developing their potential catalytically; to achieve the goals - with conviction & thereby determination, patience, perseverance; such that true justice is done at every junction of risk and reward.

14. Laser focused and truly invested in their teams and organization success; who understand when to listen; when to act and who creates a healthy culture by building on team strengths. People magnets...Naturally instill confidence in others through their actions and decisions... 

15. True leaders are individuals who can cultivate the minds and souls of their team members & beyond to help them achieve goals in situations in which motivation and support is the key. A leader with the inner strength to put their people first and create an environment where communication and open discussion is the prevailing wind in the business, and they have true insight. It is vital for a true leader to step into the shoes of those he/she leads and will take to account the limitation of an individual, but harness their strong point and weak points to fortify that individuals own growth and development. 
        
        
16. True leaders are Agile readers of the environment who can look at the world or their organizations from multiple altitudes and translate what they see for the people around them in a way that sets direction and inspires action.

17. Tue leaders are the ones willing to step up and grab the reigns. They don't have to be perfect but understand their strengths and acknowledge their weaknesses. They are the people who can inspire others to do great things and bring out the beat in others.

18. The true leaders are ‘hard and soft’: When you observe from far, you respect; when you come near, you feel intimate. What else to say; perhaps they are sometimes “harder than diamond, softer than flower"- people look to them for their strength and vision, they acknowledge their weaknesses and they remember that to achieve their vision they are relying on human beings and not human doings. 

19. True Leaders take a little more than his share of blame; a little less than his share of credit.  -A.H. Glasgow 

20. The soul always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience. --Emily Dickenson's                         True leaders are always lifelong learners

True leaders are willing to "sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars," even if they have to do it alone.

True leaders are those who know themselves, believe in themselves and are proud of their ways. Rest will follow, including others.

True leadership is just like Mother Nature, authentic, mature, deep and trustworthy. "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader"   - John Quincy Adams

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The EA Dilemma of strategy versus standardization

 A good strategy takes creativity. Some strategies are, to choose a different vocabulary, "logical extensions of the current business" - they leverage the architecture rather than conflicting with it. What are further perspectives upon the EA Dilemma of Strategy vs. Standardization?
he idea that boundaries and limits can produce boundless and limitless thinking seems counterintuitive and paradoxical. But if we further examine the mechanisms at work when we face constraints, perhaps we can identify which types of standardization best promote, rather than diminish, creativity

1. EA as Agent of Strategy

EA isn't just something that "facilitates agility." That's too facile. EA, like anything else that sets a direction, both facilitates and constrains. The problem with blue-sky out-of-the-box strategies is that they often ignore this fact. And in the case of a dilemma between the flexibility of strategy and standardization of operations, the key problem is in the place of EA in the strategy development process. In most traditional EA frameworks,  the strategy is the input for the architecture

• An EA group has to manage all aspects of strategy. They have to manage a reasonably stable standard core to support real innovation that could be built on top. They also need to manage the growth or evolution of core itself, as well as gracefully handling special projects. And two of the major problems of business strategies are (1) they are poorly communicated and (2) poorly understood. As a result, people are unsure of 'what is happening.' 'What they should do,' and most importantly 'Why anything needs to be changed'. A given strategy will be successful when AB+CD > EF+GH, where
  AB = the Apparent Benefit (of the strategy),
  CD = the Current Discomfort (with the existing situation),
  EF = the Effort Forecast (to realize the strategy), and
  GH = the General Hassle (going on at the time and interfering with priorities) 

• EA Provides visibility & insight upon Strategy: A good strategy takes creativity, but neither strategy nor innovation is serendipity only, it takes structure or framework, that's the role EA should play, to balance the two sides of the world, or two parts of the human brain, innovation vs. standardization; creativity vs.logic, analysis vs. synthesis, management vs. governance. EA does not REQUIRE that everything fits within the "tried and true" architecture. What EA ideally does, is to provide visibility and insight into the costs/resources associated with various business strategies. 

• The agile design approach in the strategy development, breaking strategic movements up into smaller bits, enabling the organization to digest the changes in smaller bites., try to perform the decision-making process as an iterative process of forthcoming to the target state of the enterprise, it’ll remove a lot of claims that EA is too restrictive. How to cope with the statement "EA is too liberal"? Should EA make every effort to represent the enterprise as a living system for the greatest possible number of operational and IT people? Only few people understand strategy. Most are too consumed with the here and now (not intended as criticism or judgment). Giving them the strategic changes in size, taste, and color that equal their everyday issues will probably take away a lot of the obstacles. 

2. Does Standardization ‘Strengthen’ or ‘Stifle’ Strategy

Many people assimilate "standardization" to "rigidity". Standardization is just business as usual (BAU) for EA to handle multiple demands of the business. Some people have called it "creative tension. While many architects consider that the biggest issue of EA is about lacking the agility of the framework, but it seems that the real pitfall is to treat the enterprise as a linear mechanical system, and this pitfall is a root cause of the problems with the strategy implementation at the domain level (especially in IT). So in the end, is standardization ‘strengthen” or ‘stifle’ strategy?

• EA needs to know what to keep stable and what to evolve. Unless architects can do judiciously, EA would be perceived as roadblocks not facilitators of innovation. The key challenges are:
  (1) identifying when the context is changing,
  (2) what are the implications for the current landscape of EA framework(s) and architecture implementation tools and
  (3) how rapidly will those implications take effect
  (4) what needs to change in the management and process of EA to address those implications
  (5) how are those changes to be made 

• Standards done right would in fact aid successful innovation. Increased standardization may facilitate innovation in an environment where the rate of focus and priority change exceeds the production/ROI cycle of deployment.  Once the core is stable, one is free to build durable innovation on top without bothering about 'trivial' things. And a "stable core" does facilitate incremental innovation on top of that core. But it is also the basis for the barriers to innovation that is known as "the innovator's dilemma."Think about what standardization of electric systems (voltage, plugs, switches, etc.) did for innovation in the field.  

• Surely enterprise architecture has to accommodate both continuity and change. EA has to be as much about day to day operations as it is about strategy. In fact, the strategy also has to ensure sustenance and evolution of day to day operations as that is what funds the future and allows the strategy to succeed.  In simple terms, the challenge is to architect space and boundaries to enable both simultaneously. Do you define the space where the business will happen (and how?) first, then, the boundaries between? Or fix the boundaries? How do you manage the relationship between the two overtime 

• Flexibility can be achieved through agility (the ability to change quickly) and/or through versatility (the ability to use the same for a lot of different purposes). So standardization should be an essential part of versatility. If "components" are well designed, the essential components can be reused over and over again without changing them, and standardization is a blessing in this case.  Isn’t EA an excellent tool to set standards, also establish tactical flexibility enabling the company to implement the strategy? And the mature EA will make effects of the level of maturity of organizations with regard to the necessity of "AGILITY" -"Standardized Agile Process". But if the components are not well designed, every change (cost of the switch) will be difficult and standardization will be opposed to agility. So standardization is potentially a danger for agility when the overall concept of making choices is not good. 

• Is strategy not the art of choosing options in uncertainty? Such a business strategy on its surface sounds completely catastrophic for EA, but it really is not. All that EA has to say about this is to expose the costs of making such a change and to identify proactively and structurally what systems need to change and how. And if the business leaders still want to move forwards with such a choice, then EA helps to execute that decision. And isn't more flexibility needed when uncertainty is higher? 

   

3. The ‘Paradoxical” Role of EA

It is the role of an architect to translate the decisions and ambitions of the board into realistic business structures. Thus, an effective EA are both creative thinker and critical thinker, both logic and innovative, and creativity & logic reasoning is not in contradiction with each other.

• ‘Corporate Democracy’ Continuum via guardianship:  Everybody has an opinion about everything. Many people even know better than subject matter experts whom they consider peers, while the leadership neglects to communicate about it. It takes strong leadership, not just standards and expertise in improving corporate democracy. EAs are trying to manage a portfolio of standards where different standards are forced to evolve at different rates. The concept of “ownership” of information is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain, and “guardianship” is better fitting for purposes. 

• The logic reasoning of EAs should go hand in hand with politics and creativity. The most creative and innovative buildings are designed by architects who should know very well what is possible and what is not. Thus, "architecting the business" has added value in every situation where complexity is high or increasing. EA/BA has the task to understand both concepts, versatility, and agility, and search for a balance between them. This balance is not absolute but should be established in the context of the business and taking into account the strategy of the company. 

• Develop further Architecture Standards fitting in Digital Enterprises: Perhaps organizations are in the midst of a transition where traditional enterprise-centric notions of information and process are not sufficient over the longer term, EAs need to develop further architecture standards that are valid where a multi-enterprise context is the norm rather than the exception; perhaps having a separate "innovation" organization implement the changes rather than attempt to retrofit (force fit) the change into the current operational organization is the most viable approach? This "innovations" organization would have similar organizational capabilities (including operations) however it would not be encumbered by the concurrent constraints of maintaining business continuity.     

As conclusion: BA/EA is not the dilemma between strategy and standardization. In most cases, standardization in certain areas is the result of the strategy and standardization can even be an essential aspect of the strategy, but every strategy needs a translation in concrete and working business structures and that is the essential role of BA/EA.

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Leadership vs. Position

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which one has overcome.   -Booker T. Washington

The managers at industry paradigm practice command-control through their 'positioned" authority power to achieve the management goal of efficiency, as talent are treated as resources or second priority while information is scarce. 

However, such leadership style is stale at the age of digital with the abundance of information, as business is hyper-connected and over-competitive than ever, innovation and effectiveness are key factors in business leadership to drive changes, so, what’s in-depth understanding about leadership vs. position?

1.Formal Leaders vs. ‘Informal’ Leaders 

Company-appointed leaders are also known as "formal leaders" because of the authority formally bestowed by the corporate system. People-chosen leaders are the "informal leaders" who are more respected and loved by their followers, despite the lack of formal appointments. It goes to show that respect cannot be demanded, and it remains a challenge for the formal leaders to earn it as they deserve it.

• Leading in the Right Direction: People chosen leaders may be respected but may not necessarily lead in a correct direction. Company chosen leaders also have chances of not leading but have lesser chances of diverting from the company's vision. People may choose their leaders whom they love to follow, based on their personal experiences with that person. Such people who are capable of leading,  if noticed by management can help both the person & company to grow 

• Preparation is Start Point to Leadership Effectiveness: Informal leaders often times don't have the formal "education" to assume the position. A lot of times, they don't assume at all and remain on the sidelines. The same is also true of formal leaders who are placed in leadership positions without preparation, and this happens lots of times. They are given bigger responsibilities and told to "sink or swim." That is why leadership effectiveness should start with preparation - for the leaders and the group they will soon lead. When this happens, the person and company grow together
      

2. Leadership Effectiveness

 The organization performance is limited by the leadership capabilities of the people in charge.    --John Maxwell

The true/effective leaders are exceptionally secure in "who they are" and what they are capable of and because of that - they are not in any way "threatened" by someone who may have greater skills in certain areas. So the effective leadership is fluid.

• Effective leadership starts with a great and challenging vision. Other elements of good leadership are confidence, intuition, influence, critical thinking, learning agile, resilience and more. Developing your strengths and using them correctly is what makes a good leader. Fortunately, social influence at the age of digital is the new magic sauce of leadership abundance, the more authentic/effective leaders are at the top, the more harmonized the businesses or societies would become.  

• Tactical performance at the operational level is very much different from strategic thinking at the higher strata. What works for one may not be as effective for the other. You had an "Officer in charge" but when you got to the bush - the "bush expert" took full control when you got to a cliff - leadership moved to the "cliff climbing expert," when you got to the bridge to be constructed, the Engineers took control. Then, Maxwell's law sets in - the organization's strength and capabilities become limited by the leader's weakness. The incapable leader becomes the chain's weak link 

• The Power of Pull: The command and control manager worked in an industrial paradigm because the value was produced largely by the efficient use of physical assets, with people being secondary. In a modern "knowledge work" economy, people are a greater source of value production. This calls for a new model. Command and control managers can only obtain compliance from people. Leadership is what will draw out a person's best work contributions, including their creativity, initiative, influence,  collaboration, and other "taking extra mile" attitude & behaviors necessary in today's economy with the power of pull. 

3. Leaders & Positions 

Is position making a leader or a leader making a position? Leadership is an influence, influence comes from progressive mind or act, the position does amplify one's voice, enforce one’s footprint; however, position can't make a manager a leader, leadership is a mindset, and authentic leadership does not come from position, but from one's consistent influence and continuous achievement.  

• In the preparation phase, (management) should determine one's strength & capability to assume a higher responsibility: In many occasions, new supervisors are promoted simply from the length of tenure on the position or ingratiation, not ability. Promotion done this way may become counter-productive. It’s also a waste of talent and resource. As people all have different strength and capacity, Just as water cannot rise higher than its source, one might not assume something beyond design! When companies learn and tailor talent well, they can transcend from good, to great. Further, management installs a "leadership development program" as a way of fulfilling the leadership pipeline. or succession planning and create a road-map to develop future leaders. The guidelines and criteria for selection need to be set clear 

• True leaders are "exceptionally secure." Why do some leaders refuse to teach their people relevant skills to perform better? Because they are afraid that once they learn and become good, the talent might someday take their place. These leaders want to become indispensable in the process. What they fail to understand is that they also become "un-promotable" because nobody can take their place. True leaders are "exceptionally secure", they are comfortable in their own skin and are confident to pass on the baton for the team to move forward . . . a win-win orientation which is the mark of a true leader. 

• Leaders, would you rather be liked or respected: Respect is to be earned. Being a leader is hard especially when you have members who are senior both in age and work experience. They might show up as the guru and technical experts in the team. Respect others as you want to be respected, lead with the heart, bring your team see the goal of the company and align to it. They would love to be engaged and surely will show respect to their leader.

Therefore, the leader makes positions, while position makes leader "formal" & well align his/her leadership cohesively with organization's vision, and the right talent at the right position will catalyze business growth and harmonize society.

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IW 2013 IT Spending Priority Executive Summary

IW surveyed 513 business technology professionals of companies in North America regarding 2013 IT Spending Priorities. The purpose of survey is to gauge IT project prioritization in the enterprise and determine funding strategies for these projects in 2013. All are involved with setting, managing or having a working knowledge of at least some part of their organizations’ IT budgets, and overall, the picture is grim.

Many commenters referred to under-funding or the dreaded “doing more with less,” and other data points confirm that IT funding continues to be a big issue. Because some IT organizations aren’t perceived as very strategic or otherwise helpful to business decision-makers, their funding gets cut, throwing IT pros into crisis and survival mode

• 58% have improving security on their project lists for this year, compared with just 24% aiming to build or enhance an analytics, business intelligence or decision-support system.
• 43% say their 2013 budgets will remain about the same as in 2012. Of the 39% seeing increases, most will get less than 10%.
• 40% have more rigorous scrutiny of their project spending than other business units do; just 12% say oversight is less rigorous.
• 13% say their 2013 budgets will reflect decreases from 2012; for 56% of them, cuts will be 10% or greater, with 17% seeing hits of 20% or more. 

2013 Business Technology Priorities 

1.   Improve business results

2.   Create better internal customer service

3.    Maintenance, operations and/or continuous improvement of existing systems

4.     Improve information security and/or regulatory compliance

5.     Create better external customer service

6.     Provide improved decision support and access to data for employees and partners

7.     Generate new revenue

8.     Reduce IT spending

9.     Provide more choices for end users (devices, apps, other computing options)

10.  Other 

2013 IT Initiatives 

1. Increase server/storage/network virtualization
2. Upgrade wireless LAN (in-building)
3. Deploy virtual desktops
4. Improve ability to mine and manage big data
5. Build or enhance mobile apps for employees
6. Build or enhance mobile apps for customers
7. Deploy mobile device management for smart phones/tablets
8. Build or enhance an analytics, business intelligence or decision-support system
9. Deploy or upgrade enterprise software, such as ERP, CRM or SCM
10. Adopt or increase use of public cloud services
11. Deploy a private or hybrid cloud infrastructure
12. Build or enhance e-commerce platform (add mobility, automation, etc.)
13. Upgrade WAN
14. Launch/upgrade an enterprise UC/collaboration system (VoIP, video, IM, etc.)
15. Launch or expand IT or business process initiative (ITIL, ITSM, Lean Startup, agile, etc.)
16. Launch/upgrade an enterprise social networking platform 

Top IT Projects for 2013 

1. Improve security
2. Increase server virtualization
3. Upgrade storage/network infrastructure
4. Deploy or upgrade enterprise software, such as ERP, CRM or SCM
5. Improve ability to mine and manage big data
6. Upgrade wireless LAN (in-building)
7. Build or enhance an analytics, business intelligence or decision-support system
8. Deploy virtual desktops
9. Build or enhance mobile apps for customers
10. Adopt or increase use of public cloud services
11. Deploy a private or hybrid cloud infrastructure
12. Upgrade WAN
13. Launch/upgrade an enterprise UC/collaboration system (VoIP, video, IM, etc.)
14. Deploy mobile device management for smart phones/tablets
15. Launch or expand IT or business process initiative (ITIL, ITSM, Lean Startup, agile, etc.)
16. Build or enhance mobile apps for employees
17. Build or enhance our e-commerce platform (add mobility, automation, etc.)
18. Launch/upgrade an enterprise social networking platform

What is the primary means by which this project will be funded?

1. New budget allocation
2. Savings from another area of the IT budget
3. Through regularly scheduled upgrade
4. Project-specific allocations from business units
5. Savings from a business area where business technology created savings
6. Canceled projects
7. New spending based on expected project revenues 

The Factors Apply to Projects

1. Requires an increase in capital spending
2. Requires an increase in operational spending
3. Will meet organizational goals outside of revenue (productivity, compliance, etc.)
4. Requires outside consultants/integrators
5. Requires hiring new staff
6. Reduces operational costs
7. Requires significant end user training
8. Saves capital
9. Reduces head count
10. Will generate revenue
11. Other

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Is Uncertainty the New Normal & How to Deal with It

Uncertainty is a sign of humility, and humility is just the ability or the willingness to learn.        -Charlie Sheen 

The pace of change is accelerated both in business and society, either as an individual or an organization, uncertainty (of outcomes or occurrences) is inherent in almost every endeavor, are we reaching such an uncertainty era? How to deal with the new normal? From surviving to thriving, what’s your strategy?

1.    Uncertainty vs. Risks 

First, provide some form of classification for the different dimensions/aspects of the term "UNCERTAINTY" 

• "UNKNOWNS" - Not Identified within the scope of the plan 
• "UNKNOWABLE" - Beyond the knowledge and understanding of managers
• "Stochastic Events" - Situations with the random distribution, as well as "unknown" distributions.  

Uncertainty vs. Risks: Risk is something one can plan and mitigate. Uncertainty is not something you can plan for or mitigate. Uncertainty is a component or a subset of risk (albeit something that cannot be mitigated), so within 'risk' there is uncertainty.

Uncertainty/Risk is inherent in the marketplace; Uncertainty/risk is inherent in every venture:  The impact of uncertainty can be, at least in part, addressed by research and knowledge. Whether a product can be delivered on time; whether a competitor will bring a similar product to market before you, the risk is going forward with incomplete information. Essentially, from a business perspective, the difference between Uncertainty and Risk is that Risk is quantifiable while Uncertainty is not quantifiable (or hasn’t yet to be quantified).

2.   The Leadership Role Playing in Dealing with Uncertainty 

Of course, leadership plays an important role in dealing with uncertainty. Leadership is an element of management that can help mitigate the impact of uncertainty/risk by enabling a team to encounter uncertainty and deal with it strategically and systematically...the belief in a vision, or in the leader. That makes sense!

Leadership supplies the framing context in understanding uncertainty and it needs to have a culture of leadership that encourages optimism, planning tries to incorporate the uncertainty (perhaps using modeling tools, scenario planning)

Translation of "how to deal with uncertainty" into "how to change uncertainty to certainty or reduce the degree of uncertainty":

(1) There are several kinds of training for uncertainty....uncertainty about the extent or limitations of current knowledge.
(2) Uncertainty about one's mastery of current knowledge
(3) Uncertainty about how to distinguish between the two.
(4).Uncertainty suggests a state of mind; cognition
(5) Uncertainty is to overcome in action and in view of the potential for errors.

3.    Organizational Capacity to Manage Uncertainty 

There's nothing to be done about uncontrollable situation although a good plan can identify the external factors, and the process can enable a company to work around the externals. Thus, besides leadership, strategic planning, and process play a role in reducing risk and deal with the issues of 'uncertainty' within major projects, enterprise scope, and ecosystem.

From industry experts’ view, that uncertainty is essentially a lack or void in the current knowledge base. "Uncertainty," is a future event that can be mitigated by the acquisition of new knowledge (facts). If you can plan beyond the first point of uncertainty in a project, if you cannot see past that point, but admit to this helps to reduce the risk of uncertainty. So the approach is to plan in a short time and takes incremental effort, allowing the acquisition of new information along the way. Put simply, the Agile philosophy.

What this means in terms of the ability to manage Uncertainty is the following:

(1) First, you have to be able to visualize and identify the Uncertainty;

(2) Second to identify that it is necessary to convert the Uncertainty to Risk through the application of quantification methods in order to be able to manage the Uncertainty as Risk. 

(3) Take Entrepreneurs’ spirit to turn the status quo upside down as corporate planning in large organizations may concern more about not disturbing the bureaucracy and keep inertia to the change and uncertainty.

Therefore, insightful leadership, agile planning, and incremental effort, etc. those are key factors in dealing with uncertainty, so adapt to it and thrive on it.

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Three Aspects Why C-Level Business Executives Should Learn more about IT “Magic”?

To have other business executives learn more about IT is actually part of the organization's Change Management Agenda.

IT becomes so pervasive in today’s enterprise, however, for most of the business executives, IT is just like a costly “magic” they know little about, that's why they don't trust it so much. Should CIOs keep on fighting C-level's "magic" with rational means or should the other C-level execs be trained to understand technology to defeat the unhappy mixture of ignorance and faith? Indeed, C-level execs are getting more involved in the technology aspect of their business, As some joked: IT is just too critical to leave it to the CIO alone.

1. Technology Literacy Helps to Craft A Good Business Strategy

When asking super busy C-level executives learn more about IT, they will definitely ask: "What’s in me?" How can IT help them do their job better, how can their "hard-learned" IT knowledge enrich their leadership? As a matter of fact, all industry leaders across vertical sectors declare they are in information businesses, and high-performing companies do think their IT as the competitive differentiator when senior teams really understand the business growth potential from IT, they may adjust the attitude to learn more about it.

• Technological literacy enables the leadership team to unleash business potential catalyzed via the latest technology: Senior business executives may use Enterprise Architecture as a common communication tool, the executive teams spend a significant portion of time on crafting business strategy, at mature organizations, IT strategy is an integral component of business strategy, thus, all executives need to have a strategic level of understanding of how technology could become the key driver to catalyze business changes. The executive team's collective attitude & aptitude to learn more about IT will directly impact the quality & practicality of business strategy. 

• Strategic goal alignment, business risk management and use of the best practice IT tools are three solutions all executives need to master: If IT strategic goals are derived from the business strategic planning process then all key players are more likely to be truly engaged, aligned and accountable. If the risks are well understood prior to the execution of major projects, organizations are less likely to make investments without identifying how these risks will be mitigated. Further, a good strategy needs to embrace creativity, context, cascade, zoom in the future in which technology might be the innovation disruptor for organizations and business ecosystem, manage risk with intelligence every risk has opportunities, and every opportunity has risks. Those are all good reasons why a business should learn more about IT.

• All executives will stay on the same page for strategic conversation: The importance of the CIO having an active seat at the "C-table" (& board interaction as appropriate) is to build trust, transparent relationship with peers, CIOs need to speak business language, while business executives need to gain more knowledge about IT, the whole senior executive team has much better opportunities to stay on the same page, and each executive can also share their own vertical expertise & T-shape knowledge, all of them should look at business strategy and solutions from outside-in customer lens, as well as progressively look for opportunities in optimizing key business processes.      
      

2. Information (Data) & Technology is the most Valuable Asset besides Human Asset in Modern Businesses

Using the word 'magic' to describe what IT does is not so constructive to IT transparency and progress, and the industry. Magic sounds like there was little effort, it just happened. It provides no additional understanding - IT just lost the opportunity to toot its horn the "right way"... and actually undermine how much intelligence/experience/skill was required to solve the issue.

• Information is the lifeblood of modern businesses: The perceived status and value of the CIO is directly linked to the perception of the VALUE that is being managed. The 'International Accounting Standards Board' (IAS) has recently recognized that the traditional form of asset management is not recognizing the value of bespoke intangible assets under the CIO management (IT software, internal systems, operational processes, the maintenance of GRC standards, staff training, etc). New accounting rules have recently been written and agreed, across all western nations that identify, recognize and value the intangibles noted above. Thus, business leaders have to understand more about their IT asset. 

• Engage business executives to inquire and push transparency button: Transparency is the key: nowadays, many IT organizations are still running in the dark with puzzles about value, cost, risks, constraints, other business executives may not feel they are part of it. Part of this “illiteracy” of management, is exactly what drives their own frustrations with IT but an “unwillingness” to acknowledge it. IT should actually love the transparency; it makes IT stronger and better at what it does and be perceived as change/innovation agent. Business executives' learning appetite to push transparency button will keep the other C-Levels apprised of what the Information assets, Information Requirements and associated tooling are for the company and what new trends in Information (like big data) are going to impact the company how. 

• Justify all Business/IT Investment: By understanding and learning with each other, the business is held to the same standard to prove the benefit of their IT investment as the IT department is held for justifying their cost, the problem goes away. When the CIO takes the time to explain every component of IT costs and justify each and then the business is forced to do the same, things change. There's no rocket science involved here, mostly politics. What possible objection could there be to balancing the cost measurement with the benefits realization? 

3. Be a Learning Champion & Change Agent to Cultivate the Culture of Innovation

The spirit of organizations comes from the top, if the executive teams have a better passion for learning more about IT, perhaps it will shape the culture of innovation more effortlessly, and have all other project/change buyer-in happen more smoothly. And the leadership team set the right tone for changes.  

• To have other business executives learn more about IT is actually part of the organization's Change Management agenda: More than 70% of change management project fail, perhaps it's related to management team's collective attitude upon learning and change. Understand further on why executives are reluctant to learn more about IT: Is it due to the emotional attachment to the old way to do things, dislike IT as the disrupter? Or even personally they are technology fans, just lack understanding of what their IT function is doing due to communication gaps or management blind spots. Or executives themselves don't like change even they are the people who are advocating changes all the time. 

• Creative Leaning Formulas: Trust is implicit in true leadership qualities. The CXOs who have reached that level should have this quality. However, we know this not to be true in all cases. Technology is a cornerstone of businesses of any size. thus, creative learning can enforce trust relationships within the executive team.

           (Transparency + Projects completed on-time) = Trust
          
           (Collaboration with leaders/departments + Toot horn * successful projects) = Buy-in
        
           (Topics + RightwaytoInform*HelptoLook Intelligent)=C-Level Success (what’s in it               
           for me)
          
           Topics = (Buzz Topics = Systems Scalable + Data Mining + Reliable + secure))
           
           HelptoLook Intelligent = Right Topics + Buzz phrases + examples) 

• IT is a trendsetter for next practices cross-organization: if "magic" thinking of IT is one of the root causes to divide business & IT, then, Imagination is the word why business executives should learn more about IT. Historically, technology indeed stimulates the mankind's imagination, to make impossible possible. Thus, by promoting IT knowledge/insight, IT can really become a trendsetter, rather than an order taker, as many IT practices can be scalable to the enterprise scope while business executives would appreciate the opportunities to re-imagine growth opportunities via learning more about IT. First, understand IT, then, support IT in order to improve overall organizational maturity, with a good attitude to cultivate the culture of learning and innovation. 

Learning more about IT within C-suite will make the enterprise or institution "smarter," more client-centric with enablement for growth, build trust and transparency, manage risks with intelligence and streamline information-driven decision scenario. 

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