by Mark P. McDonald | November 28, 2012 | Submit a Comment
Enterprise Games picks up where Jane McGonigal’s book (Reality is Broken) left off – how gaming ideas and practices can apply to business. This book is a hidden treasure that I would not normally have picked up, but I am very very glad I did. Michael Hugos, the author is an accomplished practitioner and innovator [...]
Category: Book Review Business Process Digitalization Innovation Management Tags: Book Review, Business Management, Business Process
by Mark P. McDonald | March 2, 2012 | 10 Comments
Where is your human middleware? Every organization has it, but few people see it for what it is – a sign of distortion. I first heard the term ‘human middleware’ when I was talking with a group of CIOs and a CIO from an insurance company commented that there organization did not really transform until [...]
Category: 2012 Amplifying the Enterprise Business Process Distortion Tags: 2012 planning, amplify, Business Leadership, Business Management, Business Process, distortion
by Mark P. McDonald | June 12, 2011 | 2 Comments
Conventional wisdom thinks of a business as consisting of a front office, which markets, sells and serves customers and a back office that fulfills demand and handles operations. I wrote about this topic about a month ago in the following post: It’s time to start talking about the ‘middle office’ The dichotomy of front vs. [...]
Category: Innovation Lean Thinking Strategy Tags: Business Process, Management, mid-office
by Mark P. McDonald | March 12, 2010 | 1 Comment
Productivity drives growth in the economy and in your market value. The shift from a focus on cost cutting to raising productivity is among the three transitions CIOs reported in their responses to the 2010 CIO Survey. Please see the highlighted links for more detail. This post concentrates on how IT raises productivity, a question [...]
Category: 2010 Economy Leadership Strategy Technology Tags: Business Management, Business Process, Economic Recovery, Economy, IT strategy, Strategy
by Mark P. McDonald | February 24, 2010 | 1 Comment
If IT is strategic, then the IT budget should be driven by more than operational needs. So what are the drivers of IT resource and budget requirements? Process is perhaps the single greatest force shaping the structure of IT costs. In fact according to the 2010 CIO survey “Improving business process” is a top 5 [...]
Category: Lean Thinking Strategy Tags: Business Process, cost cutting, Operational Leadership, Strategy
by Mark P. McDonald | February 4, 2010 | 5 Comments
When asked CIOs estimate that 80% of their business processes are automated or supported by IT. The strength of this connection ties changing business processes and applications together. It also changes the scope and role of IT in the enterprise. Improving business processes has been one of the CIOs top expectations from the business for [...]
Category: CIO Strategy Tags: Business, Business Process, IT organization
by Mark P. McDonald | September 28, 2009 | 1 Comment
The answer to the question: Is business is more complex, seems obvious. The real question is not is business complex but where does your business put that complexity to its advantage and performance? “Complexity? Where do I put it? I can tell you where I would like to put it!” For many enterprises the question [...]
Category: 2010 CIO Strategy Tags: Business, Business Process, IT Leadership
by Mark P. McDonald | July 10, 2009 | Submit a Comment
Electronic medical records or eMedicine is the buzzword in healthcare today. The Obama administration estimates that creating new technology alone will save billions for U.S. Citizens enabling an expansion of health coverage and a rising standard for all. The issues with paper-based records are well known and other industries have raised productivity through replacing [...]
Category: Leadership Personal Observation web 2.0 Tags: Business Process, Information, Medical car
by Mark P. McDonald | July 2, 2009 | 13 Comments
Mention the word capability and people ask you to define it. Define it and people ask you to tell them how it is different from a process. When you mention that many capabilities are named after processes they say “aha” so there is no difference. But, they miss the boat. So here goes. A process [...]
Category: Innovation Leadership Strategy Tools Tags: Business Process, Business Strategy, IT strategy, management innovation
