Let's face it, nobody today is thinking about anything other than the unraveling global economy and its effect on our companies and our lives. Cutter Business Technology Council's charter is to predict and write about trends, and since this is the mother of all trends, the editors at Cutter Consortium asked the Council Fellows for their advice to IT leaders about how to survive during this financial mess. For a few useful insights, read on ...

Tom DeMarco

Tom DeMarco advises, "Take a deep breath and ...
"... reduce salaries. There is an unwritten law in companies that salaries can go up but can never go down. Repeal it. If you're faced with a mandate to cut personnel costs by, say, 10%, you could do that by laying off 10% of staff. That way all of the pain is absorbed by 10% of the people while the others carry on as before. Alternately, you could trim everybody's salary by 10%. The pain is evenly distributed. As a social matter, this makes good sense: discomfort for all instead of catastrophe for a few. But there's a much more important reason to take this approach. You and your people take something out of your own hides, but nothing out of your customers'.

A side effect of trimming salaries rather than staff is that when things pick up again, you're in a much stronger position than your competitor who has to hire from a rapidly diminishing pool of resources."

Lynne Ellyn

The wolf is at the door, writes Lynne Ellyn
"There has been so much ink devoted to the conflict between CFO and CIO in the past. CIOs must step up and do all that they can to help the CFO navigate the treacherous financial waters ... Focusing on continuous improvement, efficiency, and strong partnership with all business units is a must at this time. Inventory all applications in the portfolio and review each with senior business partners. Undoubtedly, your applications portfolio includes applications that are of marginal value. Get rid of them now to help reduce costs and improve focus on value-driving technology."

She also advises renegotiating support contracts and cautions strongly against reducing security at this time: "Already, criminals are moving more aggressively to exploit cyberassets. The world economic crises will fuel a rise in cybercrime. Do not expose your corporation to this crime wave!"

Ellyn inspires, "Good leaders can inspire during good times. Extraordinary leaders can inspire during the worst of times."

Tim Lister

"When the going gets tough, the tough start changing."
Tim Lister urges IT leaders to make those hard choices that have always been hanging." He offers up eight examples including:

• How about building a fully functional prototype instead of building a spec?

• What about going European, if you are not already European? Give everyone who wants it three or four weeks unpaid vacation, apart from their three weeks paid?

• How about giving two of your best developers a project to do all by themselves, even though it was estimated at five to six work-years of effort?

And then he challenges them to come up with another eight ideas right now ... "or you should not be a leader."

Christine Davis

Strategize or surrender is Christine Davis' advice
"It is important that those in IT leadership positions understand that this is not a time to be passive and wait out the storm. It is about survival. IT organizations will be asked to find ways to reduce costs. If the IT leadership simply keeps operating the same way and merely cuts each line item of the budget without rethinking the overall approach, it is simply surrendering. This is a time to rethink, reprioritize, reengineer, and regenerate.

Ken Orr

How to come out the other side? Keep your head up. Ken Orr writes, "In bad times, there is a tendency to draw inward, to look out for yourself, and to protect what you and yours (family, company, department) has. But this is also a time to think boldly.

"What can IT folks do today that takes advantage of this crisis and uses it as a means to attack big problems?

1. We can begin a serious enterprise architecture project to find out what we currently have and project where we need to be going.

2. We can begin a meaningful study of our systems development practices.

3. We can revisit our IT organizational structure and move away from a strictly systems-level focus."

Mark Seiden

And, from Mark Seiden, "Untravel."
Writes Seiden, "Among the best ways to save money is to not waste it. Switching to telecommuting and using videoconferencing for face-to-face contact -- "untraveling" -- not only saves time and money, but it reduces the wear and tear of travel, is safer, and you're helping save the planet, too."

Seiden's advice is practical: telecommuting can save companies money." There is the potential of greater efficiency as a result of fewer interruptions from the 'sea of cubes,'" writes Seiden, "Telecommuting seems to be one of the benefits that many employees want and are willing to pay for! It might give a company a way to save up to around $10,000 per employee per year in loaded salary through a voluntary salary reduction that employees perceive as improving their quality of life."

Seiden advocates reducing, though not entirely eliminating, business travel. Some benefits of cutting back on travel?

• Air travel is expensive -- in time and money.

• Air travel is one of the greatest contributors to climate change.

• Travel time is often time not worked, and more is lost recovering from exhaustion and jet lag or from catching a cold from the sneezer sitting next to you.

• Accidents and physical danger pose risks to travelers.

• Laptop losses by business travelers are among the most frequent occurrences triggering data breach notifications, which cost businesses $6.3 million on average per breach.

Conference travel still makes sense, says Seiden. "The value in a large professional conference is in the chance encounter, the birds-of-a-feather pickup session, meeting new people and going out for a beer with them."

Get a copy of the complete Business Technology Trends & Impacts Council Opinion (Vol. 9, No. 11) containing this advice. To schedule an interview with any of the Council Fellows, contact Kim Leonard (+1 781 641 5111 or kleonard@cutter.com). For biographical information, visit www.cutter.com/meet-our-experts.html.

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