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- Brian Bowman
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- Kevin McIsaac
Conclusion: While the introduction of Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) will have a significant impact on the storage environment though 2006/7, over the next 12 months clients should be wary of the hype vendors will use to promote it. By year end 2005, technical staff should gain a basic understanding of the key features/benefits of SAS. Though 2006/7, IT organisations should begin using SAS, in conjunction with SATA, in DAS, SAN and NAS configurations when it provides a lower cost storage alternative [i.e. than Fibre Channel (FC)] while still meeting application and data service level requirements.
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- Kevin McIsaac
Conclusion: Most organisations (and agencies) use a formal staff (including management) performance review or appraisal process to give everyone feedback on their contribution and insights into their strengths and weaknesses. While most organisations publish procedures on how the process should operate, it is typically left to busy line managers to implement it albeit, in my observation, in a patchy way, eg because many work on long term projects their immediate contribution is hard to assess.
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- Alan Hansell
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- Rob Mackinnon
Conclusion: At the big end of town some remarkable process improvement breakthroughs are being achieved with a combination of Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma philosophies. However, the benefits that can be realised from these techniques can also be enjoyed by medium sized enterprises. Using recent work carried out by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) through its Commway initiative, this article briefly charts their journey to date and provides advice for those who wish to embark on similar journeys.
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- Rob Mackinnon
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- Kevin McIsaac
Conclusion: The mid-1990s was a gold rush for ERP vendors. The ERP concept of integrating disparate corporate applications was right for its time and was superbly promoted by major players such as SAP who ran saturation campaigns directed at CXOs. I experienced it first hand, being one of them at the time! The gold rush continued through the decade. Drivers included the market momentum the ERP storm had generated coupled with corporate anxiety about legacy system’s likely inability to meet Year 2000 compliance requirements.
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- Rob Mackinnon
In his excellent book on workplace change management titled, ‘Managing Transitions’, William Bridges focuses on the need for change agents to get the 4 Ps right when promoting their program.
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- Alan Hansell
Conclusion: When it comes to design and implementation of an Enterprise Architecture, traditionally the key decisions regarding software systems have been around building vs. buying, and vendor selections based on criteria derived from business requirements.
In the last five years however, many Open Source infrastructure software offerings have matured to the point of being rated best-in-class solutions by experienced software professionals. This means that build vs. buy decisions need to be extended to build vs. buy vs. Open Source decisions, a reality that has yet to sink in for many organisations.
Interestingly, the key benefit of using Open Source components is not necessarily cost savings, but reducing vendor lock-in, and the risk the vendor may go out of business or discontinue support for a product line.
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- Jorn Bettin
Conclusion – Organisations that that have a clearly developed software release management strategy to help decide when to implement new releases will find it will easier to manage their inventory of mission critical software, keep their TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) under control and gain industry recognition for their proficiency in managing their IT investments.
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- Alan Hansell
Conclusion:There is conflicting evidence on the role of IT in delivering higher productivity. Some studies attribute productivity gains almost entirely to IT, yet two recent surveys have found that astute management may have played a vital role.
For technology managers it’s important to understand how technology affects productivity because the argument that productivity gains can be realised often underpins business cases and investment decisions. Technology alone may not produce higher productivity but simply make the input component of the productivity equation more efficient. Under these types of conditions, therefore, the role of management becomes a key variable in realising productivity growth.
To understand how productive they are, managers should examine their organisation’s business processes and management practices over a number of dimensions. These dimensions would include business processes in conjunction with personnel quality and management; the aim of which is to know how an organisation functions as a whole and therefore to know how and where improvements to productivity may be applied.
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- zzGuy Cranswick
Conclusion: As executive management become more cynical about technology’s ability to deliver change, they continue to depend upon it as an enabler whilst keeping a closer rein than ever on the IT spending component of change programs. This places enormous pressure on the IT Executive. However, change programs are not just about technology. The problem is that the IT component is usually the most visible, and often the most expensive part of a change program. In my experience, if an IT-based project fails to deliver, though the Project Sponsor may nominally be responsible, the technology is often blamed and it is the IT Executive who may well be brought to account by association.
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- Rob Mackinnon
Conclusion: When asked to give a succinct report on the organisation's (or agency's) IS investment strategy to the Executive or Board one of the dilemmas managers face is what should be included and excluded. For the purpose of this publication the strategy report is quite different to the report on operational matters envisaged in the IBRS March 2004 article, 'What do you tell your peers every month'.
While the context and business imperatives might vary by organisation, such as the competitive environment and whether the organisation is in containment or growth mode, I believe there are common elements of a strategy report and have set them out below.
For the purpose of this article assume the presenter is allocated has 40 minutes to one hour.
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- Alan Hansell
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- Irene Pimentel
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- Brian Bowman
The next ''Big Thing'' in business computing is more about new IT deployment, sourcing and management models than about the evolution of technology itself. Vendors such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard have continued to fine-tune products and services that were announced in 2001 to a point where they are now viable choices for technology buyers. Given labels such as ''On Demand'' by some, or the Adaptive or Agile Enterprise by others, they can all be considered part of the Utility Computing paradigm.
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- Kevin McIsaac
Conclusion: Much of the work undertaken by IT Departments (systems development, maintenance, systems upgrades, selection of new technologies, etc) could well be managed under a project framework. Instead many organisations choose to manage this work using permanent teams under a hierarchical structure. This is serious mistake that inevitably drives higher than necessary IT costs.
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- Peter Grant
Conclusion:In May 2005, Google released Desktop Search for Enterprise for organisations to use Google without using their public toolbar. The enterprise search market is well served and there are a number of tools which serve particular functions depending on the requirements of the organisation. Google’s objective is to capture the enterprise search business and consolidate their dominance of the entire search function market.
As the Google Press Release disingenuously phrased the announcement:
“With the addition of Google Desktop Search for Enterprise, businesses of all sizes can offer their employees one-stop Google search for the desktop, intranet, or web." Google’s aim is to enlist everyone to the use its brand and so aggregate every possible eyeball in support of its main advertising business.
One-stop use of a single brand is one of the reasons for the stock markets sentiment in pushing the Google share price to nearly US$300.
Google’s intention is to encircle individual consumers and businesses so they use Google automatically when they need information. As an information intermediary Google can capture; although it’s unclear just exactly how, information about users and connect it with businesses.
To avoid reliance on Google, examine how many of its products are used with the organisation. While there is nothing sinister in what Google are offering, managers must ensure security and privacy concerns are assessed and addressed now. Guidelines for employees using Google applications should be clarified to minimise potential risks.
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- zzGuy Cranswick
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- Irene Pimentel
Conclusion: The capacity to understand and transform business data into knowledge and use it for commercial gain is one of the differentiators of a well performing organisation or agency. How this might be achieved is the focus of this article.
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- Alan Hansell
Conclusion: Putting forward arguments for IT business/process improvement can sometimes bring about eye-glazed responses from senior executives. ISO/IEC1 15288:2002 ‘Systems Engineering – System lifecycle processes’, hereafter ISO 15288, can be an ally in terms of providing an authoritative source of reference when putting forward a case for change. It is a comprehensive standard that covers all system life cycle processes from Stakeholder Requirements Definition through to System Disposal as well as providing guidance on essential governance matters.
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- Rob Mackinnon
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- Brian Bowman
Conclusion:In the last three years company mergers in the IT industry worldwide have shrunk the number of technology related brands. New brands arising from the acquisition of companies, such as HP and Compaq, need to be reinforced by a renewed marketing effort to convey what the new brand means i.e. its service offer, value proposition, product range, style and so on.
The new merged brands are not the sum of their two parts. In some cases these brands have to reorganise their products and redefine how to sell them to achieve what they expected as a consequence of the merger or takeover. The effort on branding, that is on the style and presentation of a brand is not always persuasive on its own. A focus on product and service is essential, yet can be overlooked, even though consumers are now more able to assess the value of brands than in the past.
For buyers of technology products, whether for home use or business, the value of a brand is an essential element in the decision to buy. But as Chris Morris discussed in “What to do when your Vendor gets Acquired” (IBRS July 2003) a company’s product is a real thing, with services and functional components and management has discretion on whether to change it or let it stay, based on the design of the new business model after a merger or takeover.
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- zzGuy Cranswick
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- Kevin McIsaac
Over the last few years I have grown to learn that there is this thing called ‘Real Work’. I haven’t been able to identify what ‘Real Work’ is but I can tell you this, ‘Real Work’ must be very very important.
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- Peter Grant
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- Irene Pimentel
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- Irene Pimentel
Conclusion: Recent media coverage has highlighted a shortage of qualified trades’ people in the labour market. The technology industry has not had a problem in attracting people; however, with an aging population and other market forces at play, the ICT industry also faces shortages.
In February CIO magazine reported that the ATO had moved a software development project from Canberra to Melbourne because it couldn’t fill 100 new positions required to complete the project. This instance may be exceptional, and Canberra is an atypical labour market, but nevertheless it is a sign. <p "> <p "> With the overall available labour falling in coming years, business and IT managers will have to plan new ways to attract and retain a scarce resource. A new competitive pressure will be thrust on IT departments.
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- zzGuy Cranswick
Conclusion: System erosion concerns the run down state that systems decline into when improperly tended by management, users and IT staff. Whilst there are many characteristics that describe eroded systems, the common theme is that these systems fail to provide the value originally ascribed to them when the business case to develop them was prepared.
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- Rob Mackinnon
Conclusion: Most senior managers are unclear whether their organisation is investing too much or too little in Information Management (IM) (IT plus business solutions with redesigned business processes). For some managers who cannot get resources to automate a process or get extra information on their desk tops, too little is being invested. Conversely, other business managers claim IT gets more than its share of resources and they are starved.
A common response when requests for extra investment in IT are made is, “How much are our competitors investing and are we at a competitive advantage or disadvantage?”
These are difficult questions to answer because I have observed:
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It is hard to get sound and comparable IT related investment data from competitors
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Published reports provide few performance metrics facilitating comparison
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Although organisations may be in the same industry, differences in their management priorities and use of unorthodox accounting practices frustrate comparison.
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- Alan Hansell
VOiP is apparently, “the only sexy thing out there” in technology today. Decoded, this quote means that it’s VoIP is apparently, “the only sexy thing out there” in technology today. Decoded, this quote means that it’s growing quickly. Telephones and sex go back nearly a hundred years so the metaphor is not surprising.
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- zzGuy Cranswick
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- Brian Bowman
Conclusion: Amazingly some senior business executives still proudly state, ‘I don't understand anything about information technology'. One can see how an executive might have thought this way in the 1970s but now some 30 years later and with ICT fundamental to day to day operations of every organisation such a view is just simply unacceptable.
In today's environment senior ICT executives should take every opportunity to make the CEO and board members aware of the business opportunities and risks associated with effective ICT investments. CIO's should also make sure ICT governance processes involve senior business executives in strategic not operational decision making.
CIO's need to encourage their CEO and other members of the Executive to start saying ‘I need to understand the impacts of information technology on our business'.
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- Peter Grant
Conclusion: Organisations that take the approach that they are just buying a software product rather than a solution to a business problem are under-estimating the complexities of technological change. Occasionally organisations find it tempting to take this approach at the end of the financial year when they may have a small budget available and a compelling interest in ensuring they achieve perfect budget performance.
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- Sara Sause
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- Irene Pimentel
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- Rob Mackinnon
Conclusion:The IT Contribution Model is the latest measurement performance model to be offered to managers in evaluating IT investment. Professors Marc J. Epstein and Adriana Rejc have created a highly abstract and all inclusive model of processes to classify and measure the role of IT in business outcomes, with a reference to profitability.
The quality of the model, however, and the argument to sustain it, is diminished by: the high level of generality and abstraction i.e. IT strategy as an input variable; and a naïve mechanistic explanation of the causal relationship between applied resources and economic results. The conceptual underpinning is not helped either by basic errors of logic, such as the expounded procedure to determine a metric which is circular and a formal tautology and cannot be used to derive what it lamely wishes.1 This inept thinking is compounded by the equally lazy use of these adjectives: ‘critical’, key’ and ‘careful’, to explain various aspects in the creation of the model’s implementation.
Managers are already obliged to do many of the things the Model offers, albeit at a lower scale, and not necessarily finding the linkage between IT investment and overall profitability. The IT Contribution Model is a conceptual system or engine for making a measurement although systems, such as this model, do not validate its own results, regardless of its own coherence.
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- zzGuy Cranswick
Conclusion: Last month I wrote advising IT practitioners to learn the language of risk management, particularly in the context of ANZ/NZS 4360:2004. The article also contained advice to ensure that IT has a place at the decision-making table when considering the implementation of corporate risk management software.
An assumption was made in the article that in your organisation some corporate risk management initiatives were already under consideration. However, suppose this is not the case. How can the IT practitioner pitch a case for an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) project as a strategic system? This article provides a guide for doing so, allowing the IT practitioner to assert leadership in a burgeoning area of corporate practice.
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- Rob Mackinnon
Conclusion: IT executives are often held accountable for the non-delivery of business benefits when in most cases they are not in a position to ensure the appropriate business process and behavioural changes are made to realise the benefits. To avoid being blamed for someone else’s non-delivery IT executives need to have the governance owners in their organisations introduce a benefits management regime. One useful approach was developed by Cranfield University in the late 1990s.
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- Peter Grant