by Mark P. McDonald | January 20, 2010 | 3 Comments
“I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” J. Wellington Wimpy. The quote may be unfamiliar to people who have not seen the Popeye cartoons. The quote may seem unfair as a way to describe the business/IT relationship regarding benefits realization, but the ethos behind it illustrates the need to change attitudes toward [...]
Category: 2010 CIO Economy Leadership Tags: 2010, Economy, IT and Business, IT Leadership, IT management
by Mark P. McDonald | January 19, 2010 | 15 Comments
These years 2010 Gartner CIO Survey captured the priorities and plans of more than 1,500 CIOs. The CIOs reported that they see 2010 as a time of transition across three areas: Economically from recession to recovery and growth Strategically from a focus on cost cutting efficiency to raising enterprise and IT productivity Technology transition from [...]
Category: 2010 budgets CIO Economy Leadership Tags: 2010, 2010 planning, CIO Leadership, IT budgets, IT Leadership
by Mark P. McDonald | January 13, 2010 | 4 Comments
Who is your customer? The question dominated the late 1990’s as the quality movement and business process re-engineering demanded that every process have a customer. It was a sound idea in terms of making sure that what we do creates value for someone. However like many good ideas it can be taken too far, misapplied [...]
Category: 2010 Leadership Strategy Tags: Business Leadership, Business Management, CIO Leadership, IT and Business, IT management, IT strategy
by Mark P. McDonald | January 8, 2010 | 2 Comments
The issue of IT’s strategic position in the enterprise is a persistent issue of CIOs and IT executives. Given the strategic nature of the issue, many CIOs and IT leaders want to address this issue at the strategic level. However this may not be the right approach, particularly if you have not dealt sufficiently with [...]
Category: 2010 Strategy Tools Tags: Business Management, Business Strategy, CIO Leadership, IT and Business, IT management, IT strategy, Strategy
by Mark P. McDonald | January 6, 2010 | 5 Comments
It’s the season for kickoff meetings where executives and their teams review their achievements in 2009 and communicate the strategy for 2010. A common feature of these meetings is the CEO’s talk where they provide an executive view of these accomplishments and statements about their criticality to the future strategy. These talks give participants a [...]
Category: 2010 Leadership Tags: 2010, Business Leadership, Business Management, Business Strategy, CEO
by Mark P. McDonald | January 4, 2010 | 2 Comments
First, Happy New Year and best wishes for a 2010 may it be a successful year for you, your company and family. Its time for you and your teams to get a little amnesia at the start of the New Year. Particularly this year given that 2009 was the toughest year in at least the [...]
Category: 2010 CFO CIO Leadership Tools Tags: 2010, Business Leadership, CIO, CIO Leadership, Economic Recovery, IT and Business, Tools
by Mark P. McDonald | December 31, 2009 | Submit a Comment
Yogi Berra is attributed as saying “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” That does not stop people from making predictions and rather than predictions, lets say here are a few things we might see in 2010. 2009 was a tough year for enterprise IT between budget cuts, new pending regulation and the [...]
Category: 2010 CIO Economy Leadership Tags: 2010, 2010 planning, Business Strategy, CIO, personal musing
by Mark P. McDonald | December 24, 2009 | 3 Comments
Its the time of year to take stock of the past year and think about our wishes for the future. 2009 has clearly been challenging to CIOs and IT organizations but not without its ‘gifts’ so to speak. It has been a privilege to work with CIOs during the past year and I want to [...]
Category: 2010 Personal Observation Tags: 2010 planning, CIO, personal, Personal Observation
by Mark P. McDonald | December 10, 2009 | 3 Comments
This blog has discussed various signs of weak management (see link to the core post). Here is another one related to financial planning and goals. Back when I prepared my first project estimate. I do not remember the exact number but I do remember the precision of the estimate – down to the dollars and [...]
Category: 2010 budgets CFO CIO Personal Observation Signs of weak management Tags: 2010 planning, CFO, Signs of weak management
by Mark P. McDonald | December 8, 2009 | 3 Comments
Business recognition of IT’s value is a constant challenge for CIOs and IT executives. While we can talk about IT’s fundamental role in modern business, its leverage and how the business just does not understand; there are ways in which IT keeps itself from being business relevant that need to change. One of those ways [...]
Category: 2010 Leadership Personal Observation Tags: 2010 planning, CIO Leadership, cost cutting, IT Leadership, Leadership, personal musing, Signs of weak management
