Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders
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Insight
Executive Update
The Principal-Agent Problem: An Old Alignment Issue with New Urgency
If frequent mention of business-IT alignment were a capital offense, I would have been executed long ago instead of writing this Executive Update, which intends to amend my various comments in earlier Cutter publications about business-IT alignment. It's no crime to champion the cause of an important business issue, but I must plead guilty to a misdemeanor in overlooking an important subtlety, a fine distinction in the topic whose importance is heightened in our current economic mess.
As organizations relentlessly seek cost-cutting opportunities in our darkening economic environment, energy consumption is likely a bright target. The IT organization should prepare for that day when an operations executive asks the CIO: how will your department contribute to the company's collective belt tightening with energy cost savings? Being prepared isn't just for Boy Scouts.
Cloud computing is and will be a major trend. By this, I specifically mean that there is a trend toward the progressive replacement by your organization of its owned facilities, hardware, and operations by virtual facilities housed somewhere in the great Wherever and rented on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Different people have diverse beliefs as to what a successful contract is. Some would consider a contract successful if it did not end up in court. Others believe it to be successful if they did not need to manage the contractor too much. In a recession, it will be about getting it cheaper than before.
Portfolios are widely accepted and used by IT organizations to help manage sets of related IT assets, activities, and resources. These include projects, applications, infrastructure components, and IT services. The goals and intentions of using portfolios as management tools are all related to improving the business value delivered or derived from IT assets and capabilities by:
Abstract
Tapping into the full potential of an organization's human capital, especially in a project environment, remains a difficult challenge.
Studies of workers in the IT sector continually show large variations in the capabilities of individual staff members.