Mark McDonald

Demonstrating the business value of IT is challenging CIO’s, CEO’s, CFO’s and other managers.  The problem is not that IT creates no value; it is just how do I measure and communicate that value.  Current practices in IT measurement and metrics do not help as they concentrate on reporting how IT spends money (projects on [...]

[Read more →]

I have had the priviledge to talk with you all through this blog for almost a year and more than 160 posts.  That is a lot of dialogue and I thank you for it.   Anything of that size contains good things and other things that perhaps are best unread.  This post highlights entries related to [...]

[Read more →]

Jim Collins has researched and written extensively about the characteristics of successful companies.  Recently he has published a short book, “How the Mighty Fall,” describing the characteristics of companies that fail.
Collins defines five stages of decline prior to the company’s failure.  Thinking about these characteristics it should be possible to provide insight into changes in [...]

[Read more →]

Overproduction is a source of waste or muda as defined in lean thinking.  In manufacturing overproduction is defined as making things before they are needed. Reducing overproduction in lean manufacturing involves concentrating on changes that reduce finished goods and WIP inventories.  In IT overproduction waste comes from IT solutions or services that are in excess [...]

[Read more →]

In the U.S., the debate is over national healthcare.  A central issues is the balance between cost and availability.  It’s a balancing act that business executives and the CIO engage in every year when they determine the IT budget.
In the national healthcare debate the issue is about having a fixed budget in order to care [...]

[Read more →]

Talking about the recovery is all the rage.  While it may be too early to know where the economy is going, its time to start listening to what people are saying and the language we use to describe what is going on.  Language reflects and directs our attention and expresses both how we think and [...]

[Read more →]

Measuring the relationship between IT expenditure and business activity is a challenging subject.  While measuring IT as a percent of revenue is a popular comparative benchmark, it is a measure that can provide a misleading indicator, particularly when it is considered in isolation.
IT as a percent of revenues is a ratio and therefore subject to [...]

[Read more →]

Warning this may be controversial, but here is a contribution to the budget debate.
How low can the IT budget go?  It’s a fair question and one that CFOs are certainly going to be asking as they prepare for 2010 budgeting.  Given that IT spending increases often lag economic activity, the initial scene for 2010 budgeting [...]

[Read more →]

Personal Observation – like all of these entries
Companies will start their 2010 strategy and planning sessions in the next six weeks, unless they have not already started.  Every planning process looks first at current operations and the competitive marketplace in an effort to forecast future operations, investments and resources. 
That is the rub – many will [...]

[Read more →]

Commercially successful technologies such as Business Intelligence,  CRM, SCM, SOA and the like have a similar investment pattern.  Once the proof of concept is complete, gaining value at scale from the technology requires significant investments to acquire, install, customize and operate the technologies. 
There is symmetry in this logic, the larger the investment required – the [...]

[Read more →]