Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

The following article by Tom DeMarco was orginally published in Cutter Information Corp.'s American Programmer (now Cutter IT Journal) and later included in Mr. DeMarco's book, Why Does Software Cost So Much (and Other Puzzles of the Information Age) (Dorset House, 1995).

Since companies today are faced with intense global competition for price, quality, and service, CIOs and other IT managers are confronted with unprecedented pressures. IT managers are expected to deliver quality IT services and systems in an environment of rapid business and technology change, short delivery cycles, and ever-changing business requirements.

Advances in wireless networks and positioning technology have given us the ability to determine the exact location of a mobile device. The possibilities and implications of this fact are enormous. Think about it: a person, piece of equipment, or valuable shipment can always be found and tracked. We can know where they are, how best to direct them to where they should be, and can determine when they will arrive.

For decades, technologists have been predicting the replacement of traditional teaching with more sophisticated, less people-intensive approaches. Starting with videotapes in the 1970s to the current interest in distance learning via the Internet, vendors and organizations have sought to find a less expensive, less time- and travel-consuming method for training people.

As the availability of large amounts of information increases, companies' abilities to exploit that information for business purposes becomes proportional to the level of quality of the data. When bad data items are injected into a system, there are significant impacts, all of which cut into profitability.

Say goodbye to those extension cords.