Posted on Wed, Feb 17, 2010 @ 02:22 PM
I had the opportunity to attend the VMware partner conference in Las Vegas this week. My wife suspects that it may have been just a ploy to get out of town to avoid dealing with the 2 feet of snow that just happened to hit town while I was away. Pure coincidence. Really!
Not only was I lucky to avoid shoveling snow, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Rick Jackson, VMware's Vice President of Marketing. The conversation turned to The Cloud and what lessons from the past might teach us about what lies ahead.
The Example
Rick observed that how some organizations used Lotus Notes holds a valuable lesson for CIOs. Notes is a powerful and flexible tool, with one of its biggest benefits being the ability to develop custom applications and tools that integrate directly into the program.
Managers in the industry quickly figured out that using Notes, they could simply work around IT and implement their own solutions, thinking, "We don't need to have IT involved. We can work faster and cheaper without them." This would go on for some time, with more and more independent projects working from Notes.
Thus, the CIO would get run over by a proverbial bus* because then came the inevitable — something would go wrong.
- Lost data wasn't backed up.
- An audit turned up a licensing violation.
- There was a security breach.
- An intellectual property dispute erupted.
At this point, everyone turns to the CIO and collectively says, "This is your fault, what are you doing about it?" In essence, the organization puts the bus in reverse and runs the CIO over — again. Nobody ever said life being CIO was fair.
The Lesson
Rick's advice to CIOs in this situation is to take control now. Clearly communicate to your organization that you have a plan for The Cloud, because if you don't, people will develop one of their own.
Nowhere is communicating your plan more important than to the managers who are responsible for budgets, particularly if their budgets include charges for IT services, as these are the ones likely to be driving that bus.
Questions to Ask:
- Are you helping your employees understand what The Cloud means?
- Do your education and communication strategies include risks as well as rewards?
- Do you have a migration plan?
- Are you including managers' input in helping build your plan?
* Disclaimer on Rick's Behalf: The overused bus analogy is 100% mine. Rick is far too eloquent a communicator to have to resort to such a crude technique. My many thanks to Rick for so generously sharing his time and thoughts.
Lance Frew is the President and Chief Financial Officer at MCPc and helps guide the organization in achieving its strategic vision as an industry-leading technology products and solutions provider. Connect with Lance on LinkedIn.
Image credit: fontplaydotcom
Posted on Sat, Jan 09, 2010 @ 03:39 PM
Author: Lance Frew
One great aspect of working at MCPc is that we're regularly interacting with hundreds of clients. They're from all over the country and are of all different sizes, industries, cultures and missions. Despite these differences, the organizations that are most successful have certain characteristics in common that we can all learn from. Here are some of the lessons our customers have taught us through our shared experiences.
The Lesson
The IT departments that are most effective have a crystal-clear understanding of what is at the heart of their organization - the mission, vision and values. They make sure the people, both internal and external, are aligned with these.
Strategy is important, obviously. But strategies need to be consistent with the mission, vision, and values of the organization. Given that today's IT departments touch literally every facet of an organization, we see the best-performing organizations have IT departments whose strategy never loses sight of what is core to the organization.
An Example
When was the last time you thought of your printer in "Life or Death" terms?
For some, that could be literally true. We work with many wonderful healthcare providers such as University Hospitals (UH) headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. When they looked for a partner to work with them on their print management solution they made it perfectly clear that they wanted to drive cost savings AND improve patient care - the latter being the most important.
The scorecard UH uses to continually evaluate our performance measures both cost and the levels of service their caregivers are able to maintain. The clear alignment they provided makes sure their people internally and the people of MCPc are all working to achieve the right balance.
Questions to Ask:
- How well do you and your staff understand what is at the heart of your organization?
- Do your partners understand it as well?
- Is the message being constantly reinforced?
- Are they behaving in a way that is consistent with your culture and values?
- When you review their performance, are you talking to them about how well they are extending your organization's mission?
Are your people (internal and external) performing effectively or just working the status quo? Help drive their success by aligning their performance with your organization's mission and reward them when they get it right.
What have your experiences taught you about the power of alignment?
Lance Frew is the President and Chief Financial Officer at MCPc, and helps guide the organization in achieving its strategic vision as an industry-leading technology products and solutions provider. Connect with Lance on LinkedIn.
Image courtesy of andrewlee1967.