22 November 2013

Notes on Mark Burgess' talk about Uncertainty in IT

Very much enjoyed listening to Mark Burgess (@markburgess_OSL) at the Cloudstack Collaboration Conference Europe in Amsterdam. Some of my takeaways:

  • Need for interoperability of infrastructures
  • Infrastructures -> pervasive & decentralized
  • The cloud is more than the cloud - think about the various other bits and pieces that you depend upon
  • What are the promises that we can keep?
  • The system's environment  pokes and prods at systems from the outside - things fail
  • Systems are grown in captivity and then thrown out into the wild
  • Systems thinking: Dynamics (what do systems do?) & Semantics (what is intended, the purpose, the human part)
  • We miss the causes of failure if we ignore the environment
  • DevOps: Dev = semantics (intent) & Ops = Dynamics (behaviour)
  • We have to understand both in a balanced way
  • Continuous delivery requires continuous automation (analogy: storm drain that prevents flooding)
  • No such thing as an immutable system (no intended change is not the same as no change at all)
  • An operating system is a city
  • Failures are semantic; processes are dynamic
  • Talk to business executives about IF THEN MAYBE in terms of risks and gambling 
  • Uncertainties in IT (see photo)


24 February 2013

Millennials see convergence of demand-supply paradigm

In my ‘Trends in no-man’s-land between business and IT, and other exotic places’ workshop for The Hague University for Applied Sciences on 21 February 2013, the students had the opportunity to share their opinions about the relationship between business and IT, and how the business fulfills their responsibilities with respect to ‘business information management’. The millennial perspective: less division of the business and the IT department in formal demand-supply relationships but shared responsibilities, and not only the need for IT people to have a better understanding of the business perspective but also for business people to be able to assess benefits and risks associated with IT. A detailed paper will be published in a couple of weeks time.

20 February 2013

13 questions to assess Business Information Management Quality


Quality of information systems
·         Is the right information available to support the business processes?
·         Is there insight into the managerial improvement requirements for information systems?
·         Is the business using the potential of IT, e.g. social media, big data, BYOD?
·         Is the business using IT to achieve strategic goals?

Acquisition and management of  IT services
·         Is there insight into the costs of the information systems and whether they are normal?
·         Is there insight into the budget that is available for use and operation of information systems and for improvements (changes, projects, programmes)?
·         Is the right amount of time and money being spent on information (technology) – as opposed to other business assets?
·         Does the business manage their side of change to information systems effectively?
·         Has the business got the (delegation of) quality, cost and timeliness of IT services and projects under control?
·         Are adequate specifications for IT created?

Business use of information and IT
·         Are business employees getting the most out of the currently available information and information systems and using them efficiently?
·         Is operational interaction with IT effective and efficient?
·         Is there insight into (1) what the users think about the information systems and (2) their ‘bottom-up’ improvement requirements? 

19 February 2013

Management of information and IT – business responsibility or business entitlement?


One of the great things about traveling around the world is that you get to learn about differing ideologies. And when you’re an IT Paradigmologist you focus on differing IT paradigms. Something that has fascinated me for several years in an apparent difference in perspectives between Europe – particularly in the Netherlands – and the US as far as business responsibility for IT is concerned. 

Whereas demand-side activities such as specifying requirements, acceptance testing, monitoring data quality, ensuring effective usage, and negotiating and managing service levels from an IT customer perspective have often been recognized and organized as business responsibilities in Europe, enterprises in the US seem to leave this up to the IT department. Somebody recently used the term ‘entitlement mentality’: the business just expects IT to deal with it and wants to be involved as little as possible. The interesting question is why. 

Politics? Sure, it’s convenient to blame the IT department (always a willing victim) when things go wrong but it’s not exactly in the enterprise’s interest. 

Capabilities? Yes, managing information and IT from a business perspective requires a combination of analytical and communication competences and more. And if you’re not confident, that’s a very human reason to steer clear of taking on this responsibility. Guidance is available for those who recognize the value.

Significance? Information is a business asset but if other business assets such as people, land and capital are more important, of course they will be your higher priority. But even in that case, business managers are running considerable risks of productivity loss, missed revenue and damage to reputation if enterprise information is incorrect or gets into wrongs hands. Can business management afford to take the risk? The following questions will help you make up your mind.

Two overarching questions for starters: is your enterprise spending the right amount of time and money on information (as opposed to other business assets) and is it well-spent? 

Are your enterprise achieving the following high-level business-related goals?
  1. Ensuring that the organisation is provided with the information that it needs
  2. Acquiring and managing IT services effectively and efficiently, from a demand (business) perspective
  3. Ensuring that the organisation uses information and IT effectively and efficiently

Achieving these goals is a corporate responsibility that needs to be addressed and followed from the most senior levels of management to the front line worker. Organizations must be held and must hold their employees accountable to manage information appropriately and responsibly.

Key questions that give an indication of how well business organisations have got their business information management under control, are:
  1. Is the right information available to support the business processes?
  2. Are business employees getting the most out of the currently available information and information systems?
  3. Does the business have insight into what the employees think about the information systems and their ‘bottom-up’ improvement requirements?
  4. Does the business have insight into the managerial improvement requirements for information systems?
  5. Is the business using the potential of IT, e.g. social media, big data, BYOD?
  6. Is the business using IT to achieve strategic goals?
  7. Does the business have insight into the costs of the information systems and whether they are normal?
  8. Does the business have insight into the budget that is available for use and operation of information systems and for improvements (changes, projects, programmes)?
  9. Is the business spending the right amount of time and money on information (technology) – as opposed to other business assets such as people, buildings, capital etc.?
  10. Does the business manage change to information systems effectively?
  11. Has the business got the (delegation of) quality, cost and timeliness of IT services and projects under control?
  12. Does the business create specifications for IT work that are fit-for-use?

Business managers should be able to answer these questions positively, otherwise they’re allowing the business to run a risk and are in any case risking the embarrassment of a negative audit report. IT managers who are aware of this situation can demonstrate their value to the business by proposing corrective measures. Whether these apply to the business or IT, demanding on how business information management is organized, is of secondary importance. The most important thing is that these responsibilities are recognized and addressed.

22 January 2013

Consciously competent

In an animated ASL BiSL Foundation session on 22 Feb we discussed the competences that are needed for business information management (BIM) activities (based on BiSL). Some of my conclusions:

  • The question "which process is most important?" was difficult to answer.
  • Most processes are connected in a chain so all processes should have the same degree of maturity. Therefore if one particular processes is lagging behind, that is the process that deserves the most attention.
  • If you look at processes fro a business perspective and if operational business continuity is your highest priority, then the 'use management' processes are very important, and the 'review and testing' process because that prevents the deployment of low quality functionality into production.
  • On the other hand, if the organization needs agility to survive and is prepared to take some operational risks, then other processes will be more important.
  • In other words, "it depends".
You could sum it up by saying that competences depend to a degree on the activities and processes but also on the characteristics of:
  1. The business (e.g. stable/dynamic, simple/complex)
  2. The business goals (e.g. costs cutting or growth)
  3. The user organisation (e.g. maturity, culture, size, politics)
  4. The information systems (in the broadest sense)
  5. The IT organisation
  6. The relationship between business and IT
  7. The BIM organisation
  8. The content of the work (e.g. small changes or large projects)
In other words, when deciding on the most important competences for a job profile, by all means start with the generic competences such as communication, analysis, judgement, accuracy, organizational awareness, structured way of working, but also take a good look at the other eight factors.

16 January 2013

How to sell BIM to a manager

Some observations made at a pizza session organized by www.functioneel-beheerder.com and hosted by the Port Authority of Rotterdam om 15 January 2013. The topic was how to 'sell' the need for the operational layer of business information management to a manager. About 20 people partipated, many of which fell in the category of 'functional administrator' (Dutch functioneel beheerder), in other words somebody who helps regular business people use information (systems) effectively and efficiently, deals (as an intermediary) with the IT department, and specifies and tests (acceptance) new and changed functionality.

  • Functional administrator's (FA) aren't proactive in selling their services - often too modest, loyal and hard-working, like Boxer, the horse in Animal Farm who works himself to death
  • If you can't find a manager who has a problem, then maybe you're the problem (working in the wrong organization)
  • Which resources (carrots and sticks) are scarce in your organization? Sometimes money doesn't motivate people, so what does?
  • Know your customer - whats his/her business agenda (KPI's) and personal agenda (career, pet projects)? 
  • Don't talk about IT to a business manager but translate the issue into relevant topics such as reputation damage, loss of business, loss of customers, operational costs, non-compliance to regulations
  • Make sure that you know what's happening in the business so that you can advise on business and information - you should be part of the department, not isolated in an ivory tower
  • Talk to the users and business managers (two separate groups), build relationships, win hearts and minds
  • It's not important how you demarcate, classify or position your work - just do something useful (in the eye of the beholder)

07 January 2013

Disruptive IT Paradigms (presentation synopsis)

IT Service Management (ITSM) has traditionally been based on such axiomatic truths as following well-defined processes, having sole ITSM providership  to the business, and being loosely coupled with adjoining IT disciplines like application development. However, increasingly disruptive forces such as the speed of business change, the value of information not only to survive but to succeed, and the commoditization and consumerization of IT are driving a rethink. Thinking is based on distinct concepts or thought patterns, often referred to as paradigms. Examples of dominant ITSM paradigms are incident/problem/change, demand-supply and service level agreements. But are these still relevant? Mark Smalley, the IT Paradigmologist, challenges the effectiveness of these and other traditional paradigms. He will introduce you to some of his own paradigms such as if-then-maybe and reboot-and-replace while also referencing paradigms from respected ITSM pundits. This presentation will provide you with a new vocabulary, if not new concepts, to help you analyse our changing world and prevent you from becoming disrupted.

IT Spring - the Aftermath (presentation synopsis)

In 2011/2012 I wrote and spoke about Occupy IT and IT Spring - the ‘democratization’ of the user community. The relentless consumerization and commoditization of IT gave business people more insight into what IT could do for them and more confidence to challenge bureaucratic and conservative IT Departments. More than ever – and rightly so – the business is now in the IT driving seat. But with great power comes great responsibility and, just as the Arab Spring has left countries challenged with creating a new form of government, the business is struggling with how to govern and manage information and IT. This presentation reflects on this power shift and gives insight into the responsibilities that the democratized business needs to fulfill in order to get the most value out of information and IT.