Deliver

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The “Deliver” curriculum discusses the actions that you can take to ensure successful day-to-day delivery of operational services and technology innovation. 

As Peter Drucker once said, “Strategy is a commodity and execution is art”.  Delivery is the engine the drives the IT credibility cycle. CIOs must be successful operators in order to have the credibility necessary to influence the strategic and innovation agenda.

Success in operations requires coordinating the activities of many hands working together in structured processes in order to deliver predefined services at acceptable levels quality and cost.  High leverage operational strategies include strategic sourcing, service level management, cost transparency, consumption forecasting, process definition/tuning, and technology footprint reductions.

Alternatively, innovation requires a job shop orientation – assembling cross enterprise teams and coordinating their efforts using appropriately adapted methods with the goal of translating broad ideas into new technology products and business capabilities.  High leverage innovation strategies include prudent prioritization and sequencing, value accountability, staged funding, time boxing, iterative development, change management, strategic sourcing, and component reuse.


Deliver Articles

Date Article Curriculum
12/9/09 Drive Big IT Projects by Thinking Small
It's unfortunate — but true — that it's easier to think shallowly about a big problem than deeply about small ones. In the last post, a business leader and an IT leader appealed to you for help in defining how to deliver a large initiative using a fast-cycle, iterative approach. To force deep thinking, it is important to focus on three key principles: Generate business value early and often. This means determining what combination of...
Deliver
11/3/09 Can You Get the Business and IT to Agree?
My last post asked you to help resolve the business-IT standoff concerning the approach for a large transformation project. To recap, the business leader wants to use a three-year "big bang" consultant-driven approach while the VP of IT wants to use an iterative, fast-cycle approach. The standoff has become apparent to the powers-that-be and the two leaders have been tasked with developing a joint recommendation. With some additional education, the business leader is ready to...
Deliver
10/7/09 IT Versus the Consultants. And You're the Judge.
This is not what you need. Yet again, the IT folks and consultants are at odds and you are stuck in the middle. The last 365 days have been spent in a series of non-stop meetings, debating, disagreeing, and trying to decide what needs to be done and how to do it.
Deliver
6/19/09 How to Support Your IT Innovators
The key to freeing IT up is to increase the "IT smarts" of your business counterparts. Overall, business leaders don't feel very smart about IT. For example, in my recent survey, only 25% consider themselves “IT smart”, only 11% personally use and fully leverage the capabilities of the technology currently in place, and 50% agree with the statement that "business leaders don't understand how to use their systems and technologies". This lack of competence and confidence means that technology is managing them rather than the other way around.
Deliver
5/27/09 9 Ways to Run Smarter IT Projects
We've all been there. Trapped on a plane, heading home — only to be diverted to another airport. The mind races head — what to do? Caught in this situation our world view narrows to focus on one singular objective: how to get home. Mid-course, the options are few — take a bus, rent a car, book a room, or take a later flight. Once home, rested and refreshed, the memory fades, but a lingering question remains: What should I do differently next time? We've all been through the IT equivalent of the diverted flight.
Deliver
5/12/09 Get Your IT Project Fast-Tracked
To get funding for IT-enabled projects, it's necessary to navigate the IT demand management process to prove that you are investing wisely in IT. Unfortunately, the process can be as bad as its name. Bad, but necessary, given the unquenchable thirst for IT services and the fact that, according to my survey (still in process)...
Deliver
2/13/09 Help IT Run a Less-Risky Business
Bad luck just seems to follow you around. First your dog was run over, then your priceless Monet was stolen from your front steps, and now, your house is flooded due to a botched up repair to the water heater.
Deliver
12/30/08 New Year's Resolution: Do Experiments, Not Projects
Recently, I asked some business executives for their top three IT wishes. Across the board, their responses echoed a common plea: "I wish IT projects would come in on time and on budget." Funny thing is - this very reasonable sounding request is actually quite unreasonable. You see, we are no longer simply automating existing manual processes. We are trying to change the way people think and behave.
Deliver
11/20/08 Smaller IT Budget? Pursue Value-Driven Development
Nowadays, there is precious little money available for developing new IT capabilities. You do the math. Prior to the credit crisis, around 75 cents of each dollar was spent to keeping existing systems up and operational. Now, overlay the reductions due to the recession and the result is that a lot of business needs are chasing very few discretionary dollars. If you are tasked with managing these discretionary dollars, you had better be on top of your game. Value-driven development allows managers to play the game at a higher level than ever before. While the value-driven development approach is consistent with the traditional development process, it ensures that value is managed throughout the entire development lifecycle, rather than limited to the upfront discussions involving project approvals.
 Deliver
10/23/08 Lean Times: Adversity Builds Character - And Capabilities
We live in a new world that looks a lot like the old world. Black is the new brown. Working and saving is the new investment strategy. It's just like our grandparents taught us: What goes up, must come down. In spite of our fancy asset allocation, short selling, and creative financing strategies - a simple fact remains: It's not what we earn, it's what we keep. Spend wisely, and your dollars will go a lot further than you think. Of course, for the generation that eschewed the basic laws of economic physics, spending wisely is not a core competency.
Deliver
7/18/08 Emergency Care for Your Sick IT Systems
You arrive early one morning only to discover that a mission critical system, the one that supports the fulfillment of inventory in support of your retail operations, is DOA - again. It's a sobering reality that many companies are at major risk due to the fragile technologies that support operations. System downtime or degradation extracts a huge financial toll; up to 3.6% of revenue.
 Deliver
7/10/08 Meet the Challenges of Consistent Innovation
There is a fascinating article in this month’s Harvard Business Review entitled Investing in the IT That Makes A Competitive Difference that discusses how “internet and enterprise IT are now accelerating competition.” As processes become more digitized within enterprise IT, they can be propagated more quickly across the organization. Companies that select the right operating model to digitize, embody the processes within enterprise IT, deploy the solution consistently throughout the enterprise, and then continuously leverage the platform for further innovation and propagation will lead their industries.
Deliver
10/26/07 Leading Change with Every Move You Make
This article outlines how smart leaders leverage the attention focused on them by using teachable moments to convey their leadership agenda.
Deliver
7/1/04 Take Back Enterprise Technology From the Vendors
"It's time for CIOs to stand up to rapacious vendors."
 Deliver
11/1/03 Surviving Failed IT Projects
"How to sidestep the organizational death march."
 Deliver
8/1/02 Three Tips for Delivering Short Cycle Projects
"The fundamental laws of projects."
 Deliver
10/15/01 Managing Software Development Efficiently
"Break out of the software development cycle chaos."
 Deliver
2/15/01 IT Project Planning - Adult Supervision Required
"What is it about technology that can cause smart people to make dumb decisions?"
 Deliver