What good is analyzing trends? Well, first of all you can determine whether you agree with them. Then decide if they will impact you

First a summary of the STRATEGY and MANAGEMENT trends from CIO Insight’s list of Top IT Trends in 2008 in as brief a format as I dare:

Economic slowdown, customer e-service demands, m-commerce opportunities, technology enabled process improvement, change in world markets and resources, changes in CIO’s role and IT management, IT grad/resource shortages, new innovation sources, and focus on data management.

Refer to these previous posts, and/or the CIO Insight list , if you need more details:

STRATEGY Sum Up, detail posts 1 and 2

MANAGEMENT Sum Up, detail posts 1 and 2

Then my summary of the prescriptive, cautionary remarks related to the trends:

Make sure projects fit with strategies first, before ROI and staff analysis,

Don’t underestimate size, complexity, and on-going nature, of customer-facing projects related to E-Service and M-Commerce,

Use a PMO to research business process innovation outside the company, industry and country.

Pay attention to changes in “growing market” living standards and IT maturity when partnering, acquiring, and resource offshoring/outsourcing.

Focus first on centralizing non-IT executive control and awareness of ALL (IT and non-IT) projects, then possibly on expanding the CIO’s role.

Harness current data and systems for innovative decision-making through Master Data Management.

I’ve attempted to deal with these significant trends in a general way resulting in a response to the trends. Hopefully, you see the value of this process in relation to generating company-specific prescriptive measures.

How do you analyze trends? What sources and processes do you use? Did my trend analysis process inspire you to take a look at trends and how they are impacting you? Is this part of your strategy development process? How does trend analysis impact your project priorities?

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Post from: EveryJoe

Trend Analysis Results in Prescriptions and Cautions

My sum up to CIO Insight’s Top IT Trends in 2008 related to MANAGEMENT reveals a need to focus on centralizing non-IT executive control vs. expanding the CIO role, and cleaning up and innovatively using data already out there for decision-making.

The CIO Insight MANAGEMENT trends of 1. No downturn for CIO role, 2. CIO role becoming more demanding, 3. IT metamorphosis continuing, 4. IT grad shortage changing the face of IT, 5. IT outsiders providing inspiration, and 6. Master Data Management expanding, caused these reactions in my two posts related to MANAGEMENT:

• Focus on centralizing non-IT executive control and awareness of IT and non-IT projects, NOT on expanding the CIO’s role.
• Conduct research for innovations outside the company, industry and country.
• Harness current data and systems for innovative decision-making through Master Data Management.

How do you feel about the MANAGEMENT trends and my reactions to them? Do you think the CIO role should be expanded? Why or why isn’t such expansion necessary?

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Post from: EveryJoe

Top IT Trends in MANAGEMENT Drive Projects: Sum Up

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CIO Insight: IT grad shortage changes the face of IT- CIOs expect fewer young people to enter the IT profession and say half of those that graduate with IT and computer science degrees aren’t well prepared.

PM411: I’m not as tuned in to this “shortage” of talent. Should companies expect IT graduates to be prepared properly? I’m jaded by my MBA experience years ago where there was a huge lag in including technology innovations in the curriculum. Is this getting better? Are fewer younger people entering IT? Chime in.

CIO Insight: IT outsiders provide inspiration- innovative IT organizations look to consumers, youth and leading users for new ideas.

PM411: “New” is often found in other companies, industries and countries. Better to have a great research arm looking for these innovations as they occur and efficiently evaluate and apply them to your company.

CIO Insight: Master Data Management expands- data integration remains a top priority, with data quality one of its most enduring obstacles.

PM411: Data quality is probably the most important management challenge. The emphasis should be on how to harness the data and systems that are already out there to innovate the decision-making processes of a company.

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Are colleges providing computer science degrees that are useful? How important is data quality as a challenge?

My MANAGEMENT trend sum up of CIO Insight’s trends follows in my next post.

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Post from: EveryJoe

Top IT Trends in MANAGEMENT Drive Projects: Grad Shortage, Source of Inspiration, and Master Data Management

CIO Insight’s Top IT Trends for 2008 were particularly interesting in the STRATEGY and MANAGEMENT areas. My last three posts dealt with STRATEGY. Now I’ll react to the MANAGEMENT trends . First up are the trends related to the role of the CIO and the metamorphosis of IT:

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CIO Insight: No downturn for CIO role- the CIO role will become more important and the IT function will grow more centralized.

PM411: This “prediction” has been talked about for 20 years- the problem is not solved by CIO role expansion, but by executive governance boards taking the responsibility for which projects should be done, supported by a PMO-like organization that considers ALL projects, both IT and non-IT.

CIO Insight: CIO role becomes more demanding- CIOs have to excel at strategy and operations, particularly in building high-performance IT organizations.

PM411: This again is a bit misguided especially as it relates to strategy and operations. Centralization and expertise must increase among different NON-IT parts of the organization related to project priorities and control, and THEIR understanding of IT.

CIO Insight: IT metamorphosis continues- IT organizations keep undergoing major changes but they aren’t all changing in the same way.

PM411: Changes happens constantly in different ways to different organizations and different people? What else is new?

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I expect my view of the CIO role to be in the minority. Asking the CIO to be the CEO is ridiculous- rather, project management centralization that includes support for innovation and strategy needs to occur. Without this type of thinking, the “IT metamorphosis” will create a monster.

What do you think? I want to be challenged especially by those of you who are actively managing IT, operations, strategy, innovation, and project management functions- you often know better how these trends can play out.

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Post from: EveryJoe

Top IT Trends in MANAGEMENT Drive Projects: CIO Role and IT Metamorphosis

My sum up to CIO Insight’s Top IT Trends in 2008 related to STRATEGY reveals a need to focus on how projects are managed and controlled and how PMOs contribute to innovation.

The CIO Insight STRATEGY trends of 1. companies slipping into slow-down mode, 2. IT focusing on E-Service, 3. …and preparing for M-Commerce, 4. process improvement driving IT adoption and 5. the world getting flatter, caused these strong reactions in my two posts related to STRATEGY:

• Make sure projects fit with strategies,

• Don’t underestimate customer-facing projects,

• Use a PMO to research business process innovation, and

• Pay attention to changes in “growing market” living standards and IT maturity.

How do you feel about the STRATEGY trends and my reactions to them? Does this give you a framework for your IT projects?

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Post from: EveryJoe

Top IT Trends in STRATEGY Drive Projects: Sum Up

Continuing with my reaction to the STRATEGY trends from CIO Insight’s Top IT Trends for 2008 :

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CIO Insight: “Process improvement will drive IT adoption- CIOs see process modeling and management applications as the most important development five to 10 years from now.”

PM411: YES! Business process modeling will technology-enable the innovation process. Still need strong research of innovation going on outside the company, the industry, and your country, to feed modeling efforts.

CIO Insight: “The world gets flatter- strong foreign economies and technical workforces present opportunities for growth, savings and technology.”

PM411: This will be interesting to watch as the living standards increase causing higher technical workforce costs. Also, maturity of IT in different world markets varies wildly. See my recent posts on how India’s living standards are changing and China’s IT maturity.

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The idea of research of business process innovation outside industries and countries is still a relatively new concept. With developing world market’s living standards and IT maturity changing I expect that the newer world markets will be the ripest areas for innovation to be copied by US companies.

What do you think? Is “copy” a bad word?

CIO Insight STRATEGY trends sum up in my next post.

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Post from: EveryJoe

Top IT Trends in STRATEGY Drive Projects: Processes Improve in a Flatter World

CIO Insight took a shot at the Top IT Trends in 2008 recently. They separated the trends into four categories: STRATEGY, MANAGEMENT, SECURITY and TECHNOLOGY. I am dealing with the trends in STRATEGY and MANAGEMENT in my next few posts. Here’s CIO Insight’s view of the initial STRATEGY trends followed by my reactions:

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CIO Insight: Companies slip into slow-down mode- spending on services, projects with poor return on investment will be hit first, followed by staff at larger companies.

PM411: Why not cut projects that don’t fit with strategies first? If return on investment is applied to individual projects, without alignment with strategies and other projects, then predicted staff hits will be in the wrong areas resulting in severe staff shortages where you need resources most.

CIO Insight: IT focuses on E-Service- expect to see IT organizations put more time and effort into using the web for customer service.

PM411: Yes, but these can be some of the most complicated and demanding projects because of heavy communication, analysis and change requirements of customers.

CIO Insight: …and prepares for M-Commerce- ubiquitous smart phones in the hands of time-pressed customers are too big an opportunity to ignore.

PM411: This again is extremely complicated and demanding. The degree of change in these areas guarantees that projects must be tightly monitored for satisfaction and quickly declining use of old technologies and processes.

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How are we doing so far? What do you think of these STRATEGY trends? Are my reactions in line with your thinking? Why or why not?

More CIO Insight STRATEGY trends, and my reactions, in my next post.

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Post from: EveryJoe

Top IT Trends in STRATEGY Drive Projects: Slow Downs, E-Services, and M-Commerce