Organizational Design
« Previous EntriesIT management’s patriotic duty
Monday, July 5th, 2010It’s time for a few I-told-you-so’s (ITYS), some industry commentary, public policy ramblings, and just connection to IT leadership to justify the rest.
ITYS #1: In his Fatal Exception blog, InfoWorld’s Neil McAllister asks, “Is the SaaS experiment finally over?” (7/1/2010). Citing Gartner, which elsewhere continues to cheerlead Software as a Service, he points out that [...]
Business Relationship Management
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010It appeared in Forbes, it was about how to run IT better, and it was fatuously patronizing.
For a change of pace, it didn’t come from superficially informed business pundits who assume their general-purpose insights qualify them to offer up brilliant ideas for us we’d otherwise never have thought of.
The article (called to my attention by [...]
The case for decentralized control
Monday, April 26th, 2010Douglas Adams put five books into his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy. KJR being a less ambitious undertaking, this will be the last installment in the Keep the Joint Running Centralization/Decentralization Trilogy.
And while Arthur Dent was endangered by the Vogons … the most dangerous bureaucrats in a multidimensional universe … we’re merely trying to [...]
The case for centralized control
Monday, April 19th, 2010A ship can only have one captain. A car can only have one driver. We can’t all just hold hands and sing Kumbaya – someone has to make a decision and take responsibility.
In the world of metaphor, centralized control always seems to make more sense.
The evidentiary world is less certain. Take, for example, a little [...]
In defense of specialists
Monday, March 1st, 2010Four words to eliminate from your vocabulary are good, bad, right, and wrong.
No, I’m not promoting rampant immorality, abandonment of your ethical code, or abolishment of truth, righteousness, and the American way.
What I want people to do is to avoid using these as categories, into which they file ideas so that later on they know [...]
Specialists, generally speaking
Monday, February 22nd, 2010Generalists, according to the old joke, know nothing about everything, as opposed to specialists, who know everything about nothing.
Their managers know nothing about anything, which is why they hire consultants like me — people who know everything about everything.
Or at least know how to create that impression.
Debatable propositions
Monday, January 25th, 2010A good debater, I’m told, can successfully argue either side of an issue. I’ve also been told, mostly by debaters, that this is desirable … that learning to debate is an excellent way to create fair-minded citizens.
Being debaters, they do an excellent job of making this case. Ironically, they do not seem able to argue [...]
Cwazy wabbits
Monday, September 14th, 2009This year’s must-read business book … and by must-read I mean you must read it because every other manager is reading it … is Steven Spear’s Chasing the Rabbit (2008).
Fortunately, it would be worth your time to read, even if it wasn’t a must-read book. Like Jim Collins’s Good to Great (2001) and Joyce, Nohria [...]
Business Agility
Monday, June 29th, 2009You have to read this book.
If you lead an IT organization, or part of an IT organization, you have to read it. I didn’t even write the sucker and I’m saying this — what does that tell you?
The book is Business Agility: Sustainable Prosperity in a Relentlessly Competitive World (Wiley, 2009).
Higher hierarchies
Monday, June 22nd, 2009Hierarchical decision-making is rooted in levels of authority, not in depth of expertise and specific knowledge of the situation.
It isn’t entirely foolish, either: Presumably, those higher in the hierarchy (which might be a pun but I doubt it) are there because in the past they demonstrated leadership and good judgment in their areas of responsibility.
The [...]
Bob Lewis is president of 