IT is a Service to the

Business

Is the Tail wagging the

Dog?

The Challenge

Business

“Our IT is a black box we spend millions

a year on…”

Executives

Howard Halligan

COO of Reader’s Digest Association

This is a challenge

with IT, but it is

really a business

strategy problem for

IT to be properly

managed.

Executive IT Right™

You are smart and accomplished in your discipline…

You have the right to understand how technology

helps and impacts your business.

Understanding does

not mean knowing

how to do it.

If you “Own” IT: You or the

senior team member you

designate has the

responsibility to understand.

Illuminating the

Current State is a

crucial point in the creation of a Plan.

Govern

Plan

Assessment Strategy

4 Step Solution

IT

IT’s Clients

• C-Suite

• Department Leaders

IT Staff

• Organizational Framework

• Talent Assessment

• Core Competencies

Systems

• Architecture

• Infrastructure

• Major Tools

Processes

• Major Project

• Day-to-Day Tickets

• Support

Intellectual Property

• Code

• Content

• Core Knowledge

Financials

• Where is IT budget being spent

Step 1: Assessment

Primary Assessment Tool:

One-on-One Interview

Warning: Resist any DIYInterview Urges – even if youare a skilled interviewer.Relationship dynamics formanagement, peers and staffmake getting the true detailsdifficult for someone in themix…

Step 2: Strategy

“strat·e·gy

/ˈstradəjē/

noun

“the skill of making or carrying out

plans to achieve a goal”Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Web page

Technology alone does not a

Strategy make!

• Articulate what the organization needs in non-technical terms in the form of requirements

• Define a win(s):• Improve customer interaction, retention, etc.

• Reduce cost

• Increase efficiency

• Use facts wherever possible – invest time to unearth them if necessary

IT is most effective when efforts are

aligned with business strategy.

“The great thing about fact-

based decisions is that they

can overrule the hierarch.”

Jeff Bezos

CEO of Amazon

Requirements

To learn more on Business Strategy and

Requirements click to this Presentation

• Know where you are… (Current State)

• Know where you want to be… (Strategy as Future State Driver)

• Illuminate the terrain over which you must travel… (Current and Best Practice processes and talent)

• Make a Plan to get from here to there

Step 3: Plan

Leverage primary navigation principles

to create a Plan

– IT Collaboration

• Correct View: • Collaborative Communication

• Iteration

• Wrong View: • IT: “The business tells us what

to build.”

• Business: “We tell IT what we want (and never get it)

• Both are a recipe for failure

Make sure to write down the

Strategy and Plan

Collaboration

Step 4: Govern

“What gets measured gets improved.”Peter Drucker

“gov·ern

/ˈgə-vərn/

verb

“to control, direct, or strongly influence

the actions and conduct of”Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Web page

The organization must have a Business

process to ensure it can govern IT

Projects

Key Points to IT Governance

• Process to ensure:• Trust between Business and IT• A culture of mutual accountability• Common nomenclature• Transparency

• Requirements become Business Case

• Plan divided into phases/steps/milestones

• Decision making authority for start and toll-gate go/no-go is established

• Periodic check-in on

• Oversight on the Portfolio of Projects in the enterprise.

To learn more on best practices in IT

Governance click to this Presentation

Rent It: If the function is a pure commodity and there is

no differentiation (eCommerce, Payroll, Workflow

Management) should be 100% SaaS (Software as a

Service).

Buy It: Solutions that are self-hosted either on PCs

(WinX and Mac), Servers or Devices. Heavy use, most

current not always critical.

Build It: Only if there is nothing in the market and

functionality is required that only you can do; an

opportunity to uniquely differentiate a product. The bar

for this should be very, very high.

Few organizations face an

original IT problem

• Executive Summary• What is going on

• Where the organization wants/needs to be

• Based on facts verified by multiple sources

• Detailed notes from all interviews

• Detailed state of resources, systems and processes

“In the presentation of our IT Assessment

results, there is always at least one ‘ah-ha’

moment for the client…”Scott Lubeck

President of Bert Davis Consulting Services

Assessment Results

Jewels

Data (not the systems) is the

IT Crown Jewel of the

company

Data Migration is almost always half

the cost and effort of a new system

deployment – plan on it.

Have data backed up in structures

outside the SaaS/Main system so if

anything goes out of business or

stops working, its accessible.

Craig A. Miller

cmiller@bertdavis.com

224-374-1808

Email or call for a free consultation on illuminating and

solving the IT challenges for your

organization.

More from Craig A. Miller