Irwan Jo's List: Information Technology Management

• Adding to the challenge, organizations rarely agree internally on business priorities for IT.
• sufficient management focu
• All large organizations have hundreds of millions of dollars locked up in IT assets.

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• In spite of these efforts, the costs of developing and maintaining applications now account for about half of the average IT budget and continue to rise.
• 80 percent of application development
• Application development and maintenance is a prime candidate for lean methods
• large differences in productivity among organizations suggest that some are far less efficient than others.
• increase productivity by 20 to 40 percent
• designers rework their specifications, coders wait for specifications to stabilize, testers overproduce as their testing environments have to be set up repeatedly, unmet requirements pile up in a large backlog.
• (which must increase its discipline in specifying project requirements)
• quality ownership remains fragmented across multiple functional silos and is hardly ever tied to end-to-end performance incentives.
• a practice that individual managers might resist because they have learned to rely on certain people over the years.
• the technical system
• the behavioral system
• the management system
• demands a substantial investment of time, as well as a sustained focus from upper management and an ongoing revision of incentives and metrics.
• this diagnostic method is called a “materials and information flow analysis.”
• The ADM department measured a project’s cost and staffing, but not waste, and had no specific goals to improve productivity.
• decided to launch a pilot program to learn how to implement the lean philosophy and to create momentum for a broader transformation of the entire ADM organization.
• The team also established a more formal set of procedures for handling any exceptions, such as high-priority changes that might come in after deadline.
• Developers and testers were cross-trained
• Managers could also tap offshore resources and the staffs of third-party vendors to meet peak demands without hiring additional personnel in the more expensive locations.
• A new management “dashboard”—essentially a spreadsheet that tracked performance and highlighted trouble spot
• process redesign, load-balanced work groups, and performance-management systems to the rest of the application maintenance organization over the following year
• changing behavior, broadening the focus from specifics to general principles, and setting up the right incentives.
• Perhaps the most difficult part is changing the behavior and convincing the staff and managers of the value of lean approaches.
• At the financial institution, the bimonthly release schedule is one such specific change.
• Two-month release schedules may not be appropriate for dynamic environments requiring shorter times to market,
• Finally, no transformation can sustain itself without the proper metrics and incentive systems that ensure change.
• Leaders must adjust incentive programs, including financial awards and public recognition, to track and reward managers and staff for meeting goals on both measures.

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• The survey found that deploying these technologies to create networked organizations that foster innovative collaboration among employees, customers, and business partners is highly correlated with market share gains
• 70 percent of the executives we recently surveyed⁴ said that their companies regularly created value through Web communities
• more than 68 million bloggers post reviews and recommendations about products and services.
• Mothers share their experiences using P&G’s new products with members of their social circle, typically 20 to 25 moms. In markets where Vocalpoint influencers are active, product revenues have reached twice those without a Vocalpoint network.
• Some companies neglect the up-front research needed to identify potential participants who have the right skill sets and will be motivated to participate over the longer term
• companies must also provide feedback to stimulate continuing participation and commitment.
• Using Web technologies to expand access to experts around the world, the company set up new innovation communities across siloed business units. These networks have helped speed up service delivery while improving quality by 48 percent, according to company surveys.
• At one high-tech enterprise, the sales force became a crucible for testing collaboration tools.
• In another instance, the US intelligence community made wikis, documents, and blogs available to analysts across agencies (with appropriate security controls, of course). The result was a greater exchange of information within and among agencies and faster access to expertise in the intelligence community
• Sensors in manufacturing lines for products as diverse as computer chips and pulp and paper take detailed readings on process conditions and automatically make adjustments to reduce waste, downtime, and costly human interventions.
• But many companies are taking data use to new levels, using IT to support rigorous, constant business experimentation that guides decisions and to test new products, business models, and innovations in customer experience.
• This brick-and-mortar retailer gathers transaction data on its ten million customers through a loyalty card program.
• It then uses the information to analyze new business opportunities—for example, how to create the most effective promotions for specific customer segments—and to inform decisions on pricing, promotions, and shelf allocation.
• Most companies are far from accessing all the available data. Some haven’t even mastered the technologies needed to capture and analyze the valuable information they can access.
• senior leaders must buy into a “test and learn” mind-set and then serve as role models for their teams.
• McKinsey research has shown, however, that the use of IT in areas such as smart power grids, efficient buildings, and better logistics planning could eliminate five times the carbon emissions that the IT industry produces.
• Such technologies include virtualization software (which enables the more efficient allocation of software across servers) to decrease the number of servers needed for operations, the cooling of data centers with ambient air to cut energy consumption, and inexpensive, renewable hydroelectric power
• Business leaders should be alert to opportunities for transforming product offerings into services, because their competitors will undoubtedly be exploring these avenues
• requires a mind-set fundamentally different from the one involved in designing products.
• Multisided business models create value through interactions among multiple players rather than traditional one-on-one transactions or information exchanges.
• piceworks offers IT-management applications to 950,000 users at no cost, while it collects advertising from B2B companies that want access to IT professionals.
• the greater the number of free users, the more valuable the service becomes for all customers.
• Our research has shown that disruptive business models arise when technology combines with extreme market conditions, such as customer demand for very low price points, poor infrastructure, hard-to-access suppliers, and low cost curves for talent.
• Many small businesses around the world have difficulty finding Chinese manufacturers to meet specific needs. Some of these manufacturers are located in remote areas, and their capabilities can vary widely.
• China’s leading B2B exchange, with more than 30 million members, helps members share data on their manufacturing services with potential customers and handles online payments and other transactions
• About half of the world’s people now live in urban areas, and that share is projected to rise to 70 percent by 2050.
• “Wired” cities might be one approach. London, Singapore, and Stockholm have used smart assets to manage traffic congestion in their urban cores, and many cities throughout the world are deploying these technologies to improve the reliability and predictability of mass-transit systems.
• Technology can also improve the delivery and effectiveness of many public services. Law-enforcement agencies are using smart assets—video cameras and data analytics—to create maps that define high-crime zones and direct additional police resources to them
• Public policy also stands to become more transparent and effective thanks to a number of new open-data initiatives. At the UK Web site FixMyStreet.com, for example, citizens report, view, and discuss local problems, such as graffiti and the illegal dumping of waste, and interact with local officials who provide updates on actions to solve them.
• Putting that vision in place requires forward-thinking yet prudent leadership that sets milestones, adopts flexible test-and-learn methods, and measures success.
• Our broad message is that organizations should incorporate an understanding of the trends into their strategic thinking to help identify new market opportunities, invent new ways of doing business, and compete with an ever-growing number of innovative rivals.

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• These include abrupt currency and wage fluctuations, intense competition for employees, and regulatory limits.
• Offshore service providers can mitigate these risks in the way a financial manager would—by diversifying their holdings.
• This next-generation model not only improves overall global delivery but also brings greater predictability to cost management while fostering better coordination, flexibility, and responsiveness—characteristics that can give global companies a sharper edge in this period of rapid change.
• adding other geographies to their portfolios
• India, for instance, remains a top offshoring destination because of its reputation for low-cost, high-quality talent
• Qualitative factors—such as time zone, the suitability of the local skill base, the region’s proximity to key customers, and the existence of government initiatives—also play an important role.
• We found that when centers in Hyderabad and Bangalore grew to around 2,000 to 3,500 seats, for instance, their cost performance began to deteriorate.
• In addition, a few centers were highly skilled in some applications, but because competing projects stretched existing resources and slowed development time, the provider was unable to leverage and channel the right skills for the appropriate tasks.
• Consolidating core operating functions eased the oversight burden, allowing management to focus its attention on high-level issues, while enabling individual centers to cooperate on day-to-day matters more directly.
• standardize processes, establish common frameworks, enforce best practices, improve delivery speed, and streamline process handovers for round-the-clock global coverage in the global operations hubs.
• focused on developing specialist skills to enhance innovation speed and superior project delivery for high-end IT projects.
• As the industry matures, so too must its service model

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• Track key variables. Keep a close eye not just on milestones but also on factors that have an impact on profitability.
• Why don't more project managers sound an alarm when they're going to blow past their deadlines? Because most of them have no earthly idea when they'll finish the job. They don't even think it's possible to know. Too many variables. Too much that's out of their control.
• Keep your team informed. We recommend regular weekly meetings, with the key numbers posted on a whiteboard or computer desktops so that everybody can see them.
• Update your stakeholders and customers. All customers want their jobs finished on time and on budget — or preferably faster and cheaper.
• By the end of the project, we were behind by those six weeks. But because we had kept the customer in the loop every step of the way, we were on time as far as he was concerned.
• The moral we took away from this? If your customer doesn't think you're late, then you're not late

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