by Mark P. McDonald | November 30, 2011 | 1 Comment
Precision is the enemy of IT value and a root cause of why it is so hard to measure IT’s. About the only thing that you can prove with precision is that is not wasting money. Precision requires that specific investments that produce pre-defined and specific results. You want to produce more widgets, then you [...]
Category: CFO CIO Management Tags: Finance, IT Value, Metrics, Value of IT
by Mark P. McDonald | November 25, 2011 | Submit a Comment
This past week marked a milestone as Gartner brought its symposium format to India for the first time. More than 1,000 Indian IT professionals met in Mumbai to learn, discussion, participate and contribute to each other on issues ranging from cloud computing to the future of IT itself. Between the presentations, workshops and 1 on [...]
Category: 2012 CIO Economy Leadership Management Strategic planning Tags: 2012 planning, IT strategy, Leadership, Personal Observation, Strategy and Planning, symposium
by Mark P. McDonald | November 17, 2011 | 3 Comments
Business relevance and alignment is a persistent issue in IT and a challenge for CIOs. In this year’s CIO agenda presentations at Gartner Symposium these issues were discussed and measured based on CIO business priorities and plans. The 2011 CIO survey looked at this issue and we described it in an analogy that IT believes [...]
Category: 2012 CFO CIO IT Governance Leadership Strategic planning Strategy Tags: 2012 planning, Business Strategy, IT and Business, IT strategy, Strategy and Planning
by Mark P. McDonald | November 14, 2011 | Submit a Comment
Technology is perhaps the most global of all industries. OEMs and contract manufacturers in Asia Pacific, work with operating software developed on the West Coast of America, enterprise systems originating in Europe and innovation coming from everywhere. Technology trends are also global as proven practices travel at the speed of the web to companies all [...]
Category: CIO Leadership Management Re-imagine IT Tags: 2012 planning, IT and Business, symposium
by Mark P. McDonald | November 11, 2011 | 1 Comment
Gartner’s first Fall Symposia and ITXpo in Barcelona is complete. I am writing this blog post on my iPad while I am flying to Frankfurt to start the trip to Australia and the Symposium there. It has been a rather full week with hundreds of presentations, meetings, more than 50 CIO workshops, thought leadership presentations, [...]
Category: 2012 CIO Economy Innovation Leadership Management Personal Observation Strategic planning Tags: 2012 planning, CIO Leadership, IT and Business, Strategy and Planning, symposium
by Mark P. McDonald | October 12, 2011 | 2 Comments
Throughout this year we have been talking about the need to re-imagine IT in the face of changing business priorities, technology innovation and IT performance. Re-imagination involves finding new answers to new questions and that involves hearing from you. Gartner Executive Programs runs an annual survey of CIOs that seeks to understand CIO priorities, plans [...]
Category: 2012 budgets CIO Leadership Management Strategic planning Tags: 2012 planning, IT and Business, IT Leadership, Reimagine IT, Strategy and Planning
by Mark P. McDonald | September 22, 2011 | 1 Comment
This is a question that CIOs ask either formally in search of a performance yardstick or informally as they ponder their own career and success. I have written a few posts in the past about this issue and the other day I came across a quote that provides another dimension worth thinking about. “I knew [...]
Category: CIO Leadership Management Tags: CIO, CIO Leadership, Technology Leadership
by Mark P. McDonald | September 15, 2011 | Submit a Comment
It is time to re-imagine IT and lead from the front. As the world continues to change, IT must find new answers to new questions concerning growth, cost efficiencies, innovation and productivity. This post is a brief synopsis of the CIO experience at this year’s Symposium in Orlando. The theme of this year’s Gartner Symposium [...]
Category: 2011 CIO Leadership Tags: CIO, CIO strategy, Strategy and Planning, symposium
by Mark P. McDonald | September 12, 2011 | 5 Comments
IT trends and transformations over the past decade have been driven by a common theme: reducing cost. CIO-led initiatives for outsourcing, consolidation, shared services, applying lean manufacturing principles, have all revolved around the need to take costs out of IT. All of this cost cutting must have worked to one degree or another as IT [...]
Category: 2012 CIO IT Governance Leadership Lean Thinking Management Re-imagine IT Small IT Strategic planning Strategy Tags: 2012 planning, CIO Leadership, CIO strategy, IT Leadership, IT management, Small IT
by Mark P. McDonald | August 15, 2011 | 1 Comment
Every organization knows about its front office that generates revenue and its back office that operates those processes. Few recognize the capabilities within the space between – the middle office – capabilities that determine your effectiveness and comparative advantage. Executives know how to improve the performance of their front and back office processes. They change [...]
Category: CIO Innovation Leadership Management Strategic planning Strategy Tags: Business Strategy, IT strategy, mid-office, Strategy and Planning
