The book relates on page one: “The Adventures of an IT Leader invites readers to “walk in the shoes of a new CIO, Jim Barton, as he spends a difficult year learning IT leadership at the IVK Corporation, sidestepping the pitfalls that make the CIO job the most volatile, high turnover job in the business.” (Austin, Nolan, O’Donnell, 2009, pg. 1)
This book was assigned as part of a graduate level course titled Strategic Information Systems. It reads partly like a novel and partly like a management book. There is a list of characters on page two.
Included on page 301 is a section titled “Ways of Using this Book”. This section provided suggestions on how the books could be divided for a classroom setting. There are reflection questions at the end of each chapter.
Each chapter has been summarized and a conclusion section is at the end. Important definitions have been added at the end of each chapter as they appear in the text.
Chapter One – The New CIO
This chapter starts with the main character, Jim Barton, being assigned a new role at Chief Information Office by the new CEO, Carl Williams. Barton will be replacing Bill Davies. Davies was fired by Willaims hours earlier. It seems like Barton has reluctantly accepted the position and is in his office trying to get started. He writes on his office white board: “IT management is about management” (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 10)
The authors relate the idea that Business Smarts and Tech Smarts can be added together (Venn Diagram Style, shout out to the Philosophy Department) to create what they label Value. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 11) The idea being that someone with business acumen and technical knowledge could leverage both to provide value to the organization.
One quote that stood out: “He (Barton) remembered Davies arguing that superior technical features that could be effectively demonstrated to clients could be a factor in closing deals.” (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 15) An interesting thought. Could superior technology be leveraged in closing a sale? It may depend on the technology, application of the technology and the client that one is selling to. All might be considered as part of a larger sales strategy.
Another quote that was interesting: “Imagine in your day-to-day work. How much would be left to do in a day if a moratorium were declared on discussions about specific technologies? In how you think about IT management, how much would there be – principles, philosophies, practices – that could be said to be independent of the underlying technologies.” (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 16) How does one separate underlying technology management from the technology that drives the organization?
The chapter concluded with Barton reflecting on the information technology sectors history, IVK’s history and his place in those worlds and leaving a group of his coworkers in stunned silence as he stated: “I’m the new CIO.” (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 17)
Chapter Two – CIO Challenges
Barton is introduced to a character named “The Kid” in this chapter. The Kid reappears in later chapters. Maggie is also introduced as Barton’s love interest. As the chapter begins Barton is still undecided on taking the new CIO position. He takes a walk and heads to a local bar where The Kid is drinking a soda at the bar. The Kid is in the IT industry and challenges Barton’s thinking on the CIO position. The Kid says, “You’ve got to know what you don’t know”. The point is that you know some things but others you don’t know so you have to have a category for things you don’t know so you can begin to study them or find people who do know those things.
Then in a turn of events, Barton is out running and encounters Davies (who he replaced as CIO). They have a not so friendly exchange and Davies runs off.
The chapter ends with Maggie consoling Barton about his uncertainty and his new position.
Chapter Three – CIO Leadership
Barton has a conversation with his management team and attempts to plan meetings that would help set the vision and direction for the IT department. He was met with some disagreement on who should attend the meetings. A tentative plan was agreed upon and the meeting was ended.
Barton then arrives at Bernie Ruben’s office where further discussions are about people and their roles in the organization. Barton leaves Ruben’s office with more questions than answers.
Next Barton is in his office and begins to write his ideas on a whiteboard. The ideas he writes down are:
- IT management is about management
- Skill and talent mgt/key skills, key contributors
- Know what you don’t know (KWYDK)
- You won’t last one year (YWLOY)
After a visit to a bookstore and spending $1200, Barton is at home reading technical books about IT and eating take out. Hours pass and Barton thinks he is not any closer to an understanding of IT. He speaks with Maggie on the phone again. She reassures him and they end their phone call.
Chapter Four – The Cost of IT
Barton receives an email asking for his attendance at a meeting with the new CEO. Different department leaders would be answering the following questions:
How much are we spending in your area?
How does the spending fuel growth or contribute to the bottom line and how are we measuring this?
Barton spends time with Gary Geisler (the IT department’s financial guru) to try and gain some insight into how to answer those questions.
Geisler explains that the company spends about eight percent of sales on information technology projects. Further, that spending on information technology was increased as sales went up but that as soon as the growth leveled off there were projects already in process that made it difficult to scale back IT spending.
An important quote at the end of the chapter reads: “Ruben finished his picture with a ‘future’ diagram. “I’d say we are moving from supporting a hierarchical, traditional organizational structure to an increasingly networked organization that includes partners, such as customers and vendors. Technology-wise, we are moving toward service-orientated architecture, more real time operations, and expanding database structures more into data warehouses that we can mine for trends and other business intelligence.” (Austin et. al., 2009, pgs. 63-64)
A question that emerges out of this chapter (though not a grand revelation) is how to control spending
in times of growth and to prepare for a “leveling off” after a period of growth. At the same time keeping pace with technology and keeping systems from degrading over time. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 58)
Barton begins to write more on his white board and adds to his list, so it now looks like this:
- IT management is about management
- Skill and talent mgt/key skills, key contributors
- Know what you don’t know (KWYDK)
- You won’t last one year (YWLOY)
- IT costs > mapping? > IT services > chargeback
Cash flow v. accrual basis – “Cash basis accounting accounts for cash received or paid when the cash is received or paid. Under accrual basis accounting the cash is recorded when the revenue is earned whether or not the cash is actually received. Cash flow accounting is generally used by small businesses. Cash flow accounting is simple. Accrual accounting is usually used by large businesses that are obligated to follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and must follow Federal Accounting Standards Board guidelines. Accruaral accounting smooths out earnings over time since it accounts for all revenues and expenses as they are generated.” (Morah, 2024, Investopedia)
Middleware – “Middleware is a type of computer software program that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as “software glue”. Middleware makes it easier for software developers to implement communication and input/output, so they can focus on the specific purpose of their application. It gained popularity in the 1980s as a solution to the problem of how to link newer applications to older legacy systems, although the term had been in use since 1968.” (Wikipedia, Middleware)
Chapter Five – The Value of IT
In this chapter Barton is attempting to assign value to the IT department. He considered how to assess the value of IT in relation to ROI. He consulted with coworkers in IVK and there were different views on how to assign value to the information technology department.
Barton also considered how IT can enhance or diminish the value of the company through its common stock price.
Another of Barton’s ideas was expressed this way: “The obligation for IT, it seemed to Barton, was to have something to say about how IT created value for its internal customers, the business units” (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 71)
His significant other, Maggie, believes the value of IT could be in finding ways to implement technology in ways that would benefit the company in unique ways. The text relates that one company used demand signals to order popular sale items and not order less popular items. So, the system would detect popular items and push production according to demand. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 72)
The text also comments on an article by Nicolas Carr. He relates that IT advances do not matter because the functionality can be duplicated. For example, if one created a database for a specific purpose, that could be duplicated. IT advances may not even have to be reverse engineered to be realized. He makes several other distinctions in the article. The notion being that developing IT may only help a company gain competitive advantage in the short term because technology can be duplicated.
Barton also stumbles across a report that was compiled by a third-party vendor who rated Davies management performance on a scale of one to three. Level one was a manager who focuses on functional requirements and individual systems. Level two was less about systems and more about management of portfolios. Level three management was focused more on strategy and resources, leaving details to others. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 81)
Moore’s Law
The authors recall Moore’s Law, “In its simplest form, Moore’s Law states that the cost performance of computer doubles every eighteen months or so. The practical effect of Moore’s Law is that applications of new technologies not economically feasible just a few years earlier become economically feasible.” (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 84)
The relates that this creates two challenges. First is that the systems currently used need to be built with some flexibility so that new technologies can be integrated into the workflow. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 84)
Second, the staff then is tasked with staying educated on the latest technology and how that could be integrated into the current computer networks and business models.
Technology Eras
Additionally, the authors discuss the three eras of information technology development. The eras are the data processing era, the micro era and the network era.
(Image: Favaretto J. E. R. via Research Gate) This model is worth remembering and could be expanded to include the cloud era. IMO.
Barton begins to write more on his white board and adds to his list, so it now looks like this:
- IT management is about management
- Skill and talent mgt/key skills, key contributors
- Know what you don’t know (KWYDK)
- You won’t last one year (YWLOY)
- IT costs > mapping? > IT services > chargeback
- Understand what got Davies fired (UWGDF)
- Compete vs. Qualifiers – C vs. Q
- IT value as a function of the company’s market value
Chapter Six – Project Management
This chapter focuses on project management. Terms like scope creep, agile project management and others are used in the context of the continuing unfolding story of Barton at CIO. He is now in a meeting with members of his team who start off cordially in a meeting that then turns combative. There is disagreement between Rebecca Calder and Jorge Huerta over how projects should be managed. Calder thinks there are unknowns in a project and Huerta believes the unknowns can be mitigated through disciplined project management. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 89)
Barton begins to write more on his white board and adds to his list, so it now looks like this:
- IT management is about management
- Skill and talent mgt/key skills, key contributors
- Know what you don’t know (KWYDK)
- You won’t last one year (YWLOY)
- IT costs > mapping? > IT services > chargeback
- Understand what got Davies fired (UWGDF)
- Compete vs. Qualifiers – C vs. Q (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 76)
- IT value as a function of the company’s market value
- He adds two columns: Managing problems you can anticipate – planning techniques and methods
- And Managing problems you can’t anticipate – exploring, adapting, course correcting techniques and methods. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 98)
Scope creep – Scope creep occurs when a project expands requirements, deliverables, features or tasks beyond what was originally agreed upon in planning meetings during the project launch.
Contingency – a future event or circumstance which is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty.
Prescient – Having knowledge of things or events before they happen.
Gantt Charts – A Gantt chart is a bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. It was designed and popularized by Henry Gantt around the years 1910–1915. Modern Gantt charts also show the dependency relationships between activities and the current schedule status. (Wikipedia, 2024, Gantt Chart)
PERT Analysis – PERT (Program evaluation and review technique) is a method of analyzing the tasks involved in completing a project, especially the time needed to complete each task, and to identify the minimum time needed to complete the total project. It incorporates uncertainty by making it possible to schedule a project while not knowing precisely the details and durations of all the activities. It is more event-oriented than start- and completion-oriented, and is used more for projects where time is the major constraint rather than cost. It is applied to very large-scale, one-time, complex, non-routine infrastructure projects, as well as R&D projects. (Wikipedia, 2006, PERT analysis)
“PERT also uses time as a variable that represents performance specifications and resource application. In this technique, you first divide the project into activities to form a sequence. Then, you calculate the time needed to complete each action. This method examines and represents all activities of a project. This is usually to identify the least possible time to complete each task and the minimum time it can take to complete the entire project.” (Indeed, Understanding PERT vs. CPM)
CPM – “The critical path method (CPM) in project management is a technique used to oversee projects where there’s a specific time required to complete a project. Project managers use it to determine the critical and non-critical tasks that can help reduce conflicts and achieve desired results. CPM identifies essential activities to ensure no delayed actions can affect the entire project.” (Indeed, Understanding PERT vs. CPM)
Agile Project Management – Agile project management is an iterative approach to delivering a project throughout its life cycle.
Iterative or agile life cycles are composed of several iterations or incremental steps towards the completion of a project. Iterative approaches are frequently used in software development projects to promote velocity and adaptability since the benefit of iteration is that you can adjust as you go along rather than following a linear path.
One of the aims of an agile or iterative approach is to release benefits throughout the process rather than only at the end. At the core, agile projects should exhibit central values and behaviors of trust, flexibility, empowerment and collaboration. (Association for Project Management, June 28, 2024)
Parkinsons Law – works expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
Function points – Functions point analysis is used to give stakeholders an idea of the cost and manpower requirements for a software project. It is estimated by the number of functions contained in the software code. (I think?)
Chapter Seven – The runaway project
Barton is in his office reviewing work. He has his team further analyze the Compete and Qualifier framework by adding the sustainability of the Compete investments in months. This could be presented to others to express the life span of the Compete investment in months.
Williams (the CEO) liked the Compete and Qualifier framework and ordered other departments to perform the same analysis in a future meeting. Barton was pleased but his fellow department managers gave him a look of resentment.
Infrastructure replacement was a big investment for IVK in the IT budget. This chapter also brings out the notion that IVK is spending large amounts of money to a third-party vendor named Netifects. They have been paid without producing any results for the IT infrastructure and Barton wants to choose another vendor. After meeting with other leaders in the company Barton decides to end IVK’s relationship with Netifects. (Austin et. al., 2009, pgs. 107-119)
Later in the chapter the authors bring up the idea of “current state” vs. “desired state”. This may also provide a bullet point for discussions or presentations. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 111)
The chapter also brings out the notion of competing platforms. What technologies is an organization currently using? If their systems are based on a Microsoft platform, how well will new systems integrate in that environment? Or if the organization’s IT infrastructure is run on other systems like Linux or Unix, how well will new systems integrate with those systems? Further, does the organization have the capability to hire, train and retain the human resources needed to keep those platforms running? (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 113)
What is the vendors’ technology expertise? Is it Windows, Linux or other platforms? For example, American Eagle has expertise in WordPress, Sitecore, Drupal and many others. Do those platforms fit into the organization’s short-term and long-term goals? (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 117)
Qualifier Investment – a business investment that gets your company in a position to compete but no more than that. Qualifiers keep you in business or buy you a spot on the starting line.
Compete Investment – a business investment that potentially gives your company a competitive advantage. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 76)
The Compete and Qualifier model could be useful in analyzing any business value proposition. What does your team provide that helps the organization to compete in a market? What does your team provide to help the organization qualify to be in a market? This might also apply to tools needed for your team to perform tasks in the organization. Do the tools needed help to qualify or compete in a market? This type of analysis might help identify value centers within the organization.
Kludge – an ill-assorted collection of parts assembled to fulfill a particular purpose.
Chapter Eight – IT Priorities
Barton is in a meeting with Geisler and the topic of security beaches is addressed. John Cho is the security analyst who is monitoring the logs to detect intrusion. In an earlier meeting with Fenton, Barton asks why there can’t all the security holes be closed. Fenton responds, “It’s not possible to be sure that you have no security weaknesses. Or rather, it would require an infinite amount of expenditure. So, we target the high-likelihood or high-consequence holes first and work our way down the list. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 124)
The topic of funding a special security project for John Cho is tabled. Geisler relates that some special projects cannot get funded because they are preventive maintenance projects and have no direct customer benefit. So, it is harder to get them funded.
Geisler remarks, “We can, sometimes (get special projects funded) but we have trouble getting some projects approved. Especially the deeply technical ones that don’t provide direct customer benefits. Chos’s project is a preventative maintenance thing, as I understand it. No direct benefit, just prevention of future, hypothetical harm. IT was in the proposed project list; it just didn’t get any funding.” (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 125)
“I’ve decided to ask Carl for control of the entire IT budget. Right now, IT controls none of its budget, it’s all at the discretion of the business units. This has been causing problems. We’ve neglected important infrastructure investments. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 129)
Barton begins to write more on his white board and adds to his list, so it now looks like this:
- IT management is about management
- Skill and talent mgt/key skills, key contributors
- Know what you don’t know (KWYDK)
- You won’t last one year (YWLOY)
- IT costs > mapping? > IT services > chargeback
- Understand what got Davies fired (UWGDF)
- Compete vs. Qualifiers – C vs. Q (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 76)
- IT value as a function of the company’s market value
- He adds two columns: Managing problems you can anticipate – planning techniques and methods
- And Managing problems you can’t anticipate – exploring, adapting, course correcting techniques and methods. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 98)
- IT spending should be aligned with IVK strategy. Spending could be split into three categories: Mandatory spending (i.e. Security), ROI (projects that have high ROI) and OCI (option creating investment. Investments that do not have high ROI but may pave the way for future breakthroughs)
At a final meeting, Barton presents his plan to take over the entire IT budget. The participants are skeptical but, according to the text, Barton gets the control he wants.
IDS logs – (Intrusion detection system logs and IPS Intrusion prevention system) automated systems that monitor and analyze network traffic.
Chapter Nine – IT and the board of directors
The chapter opens with Barton in a meeting with his management team. They are refining a presentation Barton is going to give to the Board of Directors regarding IT future planning within IVK. The presentation they are working on is divided into five sections:
- History of IT at IVK – Informal Management
- Moving to more formal management
- Results already attained
- Strengths and weaknesses
- Opportunities and risks
There are themes Barton wants to address to Williams and the Board.
First, the rapid growth of IVK had led to some management practices that were not guided by a formal management process. Barton sees informality as a risk. Barton believes this could be mitigated through more management systems and controls.
Second, Barton wants to address under investment in information technology at IVK. He understands that budgetary constraints may be in the future. At the same time, there are projects that are underway that should be continued or risk wasting the value already invested.
Third, Barton wants to increase the Board of Directors’ involvement in information technology decision making. The idea is that the more folks that understand and accept the risks, rewards, responsibilities and trade offs of IT decision making, a sense of joint responsibility may evolve.
The chapter continues with Barton giving his presentation to the board and the presentation being gladly accepted by the members.
A more important idea presented in the text is the notion of evolved complexity. As a result of IVK acquiring other companies, their systems had grown and were “glued” together. Cho and others in the IT group believed that the bringing together of the systems was increasing the security risk to the systems at large. So, the question is: how do we manage evolved complexity or complexity in general? (Austin et. al., 2009, pgs. 145-146)
Chapter Ten – Crisis
This chapter sees Barton heading to a Wall Street analyst meeting. Williams (the CEO) sent Barton on this mission. As Barton is preparing for the meeting, he receives a call from Bernie Ruben. Ruben reports that IVK’s web site and customer service systems are down. This event dominates the chapter and Barton makes and receives many phone calls. The result is the web site is restored and the customer service database is brought back to some sense of usefulness. Cho and others recommend shutting the all the company systems and restoring them from scratch to make sure any malware is eliminated. The chapter closes with Baron looking at his watch and he still had to get downtown. (Austin et. al., 2009, pgs. 157-171)
Systems – a group of things working together as a whole. A system is a group of things that connect and produce some kind of coherent whole. This should include achieving a goal. In computer science controls take an input, process it and obtain an output. In accounting a control might be having transactions over certain amounts be approved by a person or group of people.
Controls – to regulate or direct influence over.
Database index file – an index database structure reduces the overhead needed to search a database. The index file can be searched faster and easier than, for example, a query was conducted using last name or street address. (Progress Software, March 01, 2024)
Chapter Eleven – Damage
Barton attempts to discover options to present to Williams in this part of the narrative. Barton and his team prepare three options. One, do nothing. Two, shut down the company, except for operations that could run manually, as soon as possible and rebuild critical production systems from development files. Or three, build a mirror site from development files and shut down the original production systems only after the mirror site is up and running. In the end Williams is very upset with the options and fires Hansen and Wells. The meeting ends with Barton and the rest of the managers leaving Willams as he is making a phone call to set up legal representation for IVK.
Barton begins to write more on his white board and adds to his list, so it now looks like this:
- IT management is about management
- Skill and talent mgt/key skills, key contributors
- Know what you don’t know (KWYDK)
- You won’t last one year (YWLOY)
- IT costs > mapping? > IT services > chargeback
- Understand what got Davies fired (UWGDF)
- Compete vs. Qualifiers – C vs. Q (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 76)
- IT value as a function of the company’s market value
- He adds two columns: Managing problems you can anticipate – planning techniques and methods
- And Managing problems you can’t anticipate – exploring, adapting, course correcting techniques and methods. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 98)
- IT spending should be aligned with IVK strategy. Spending could be split into three categories: Mandatory spending (i.e. Security), ROI (projects that have high ROI) and OCI (option creating investment. Investments that do not have high ROI but may pave the way for future breakthroughs)
- Always tell your boss bad news first; tell him as soon as the possibility is known; don’t put it off until you know for sure. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 178)
- SYH2DP – Sometimes you have to duck a punch.
Chapter Twelve – Communication
Now that the dust had settled from the previous meeting, Barton began a conversation with Bernie Ruben. Ruben expressed confidence that Barton would bounce back from the breach. Then Barton expanded his white board notes and now they look like the following:
Barton begins to write more on his white board and adds to his list, so it now looks like this:
- IT management is about management
- Skill and talent mgt/key skills, key contributors
- Know what you don’t know (KWYDK)
- You won’t last one year (YWLOY)
- IT costs > mapping? > IT services > chargeback
- Understand what got Davies fired (UWGDF)
- Compete vs. Qualifiers – C vs. Q (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 76)
- IT value as a function of the company’s market value
- He adds two columns: Managing problems you can anticipate – planning techniques and methods
- And Managing problems you can’t anticipate – exploring, adapting, course correcting techniques and methods. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 98)
- IT spending should be aligned with IVK strategy. Spending could be split into three categories: Mandatory spending (i.e. Security), ROI (projects that have high ROI) and OCI (option creating investment. Investments that do not have high ROI but may pave the way for future breakthroughs)
- Always tell your boss bad news first; tell him as soon as the possibility is known; don’t put it off until you know for sure. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 178)
- SYH2DP – Sometimes you have to duck a punch.
- Effectively communicating IT related business issues to business managers requires SYSTEMATIC EFFORT, just like everything else you try to accomplish in business; spend sufficient time on it. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 194)
After work Maggie and Barton are back together and this is of course the perfect time to interject that James Barton is a huge fan of indie and alternative rock. His play list includes Brocken Social Scene, The Decemberists and of course The Dandy Warhols. Whoever said being a CIO isn’t cool is just wrong.
Barton and Maggie continue their conversation and discuss strategy for Barton’s recovery at IVK. Barton tried and was somewhat successful at getting some sleep before the next day at IVK.
Barton has a meeting with Bill Davies (former IVK CIO) and Davies gives his opinion of how Barton should proceed. Davies relates something like this, get some problems resolved and when you are pretty sure of the problems and solutions then take those to Williams. Davies recommends presenting solved problems only, not just problems. Davies calls it “The Doctrine of Completed Staff Work”.
As the chapter closes, Barton meets with The Kid back and Vinnie’s Bar and Grill. The Kid offers encouragement and a sounding board.
Stakeholder analysis is also a point of discussion at the end of the chapter. “ As the structure of the business firm has evolved away from the hierarchical, vertically integrated form associated with the industrial sector of the economy toward more complex forms in which power is decentralized, and integration among organizational entities is less clear cut that before, the new organization forms are more political, in an operational sense, than bureaucratic, and are marked by stakeholder groups that form temporary coalitions to influence patterns of behavior.” (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 203) This could be the most important passage in the entire book. IMO.
The Doctrine of Completed Staff Work is defined at the end of the chapter. “Completed staff work is the study of a problem, and presentation of a solution, by a staff member in such form that all that remains to be done on the part of the commander is to indicate approval or disapproval of the completed action. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 206)
Chapter Thirteen – Emerging technology
Barton, it seems, is still struggling to understand the security event that occurred and how to generally explain information technology processes to Williams (the CEO).
The narrative then shifts to focus on Web 2.0. Barton is internally surprised when a colleague asked about it as an emerging technology and its implications for IVK. As the chapter ends there is some discussion that Web 2.0 could be a benefit and a bad publicity outlet for IVK. Barton wants to learn more about it and leverage Web 2.0 to IVK’s advantage.
Web 1.0 – Earliest version of the internet. Known as the “read only web”.
Web 2.0 – Websites that feature user generated content and a participatory culture.
Web 3.0 – New version of the web that incorporates decentralization, block chain technology and token-based economics.
Web 4.0 – Humans and technologies working as partners. Tailored, interactive, intelligent web interactions.
Chapter Fourteen – Vendor partnering
As Bartons adventure continues, he is in a meeting with other managers discussing the firing of Netifects and how that company could be replaced by another vendor that could be their new IT vendor. Disagreements arose in the meeting that centered around three issues.
First the group wanted to select an off the shelf package from a vendor that could service their needs now and in the future. The group wanted to pick a vendor that was big enough to serve IVK in the long run while being distanced from competitors.
Second, there was debate about how to structure a contract with the vendor. Some wanted a hardline contract with the vendor that included financial penalties for not meeting service metrics. Others wanted a less aggressive contract with more collaboration and profitability for all involved.
Third, there was disagreement on the service delivery model. Each vendor had different ways to meet the requirements IVK had specified. The meeting ended with no agreements on which vendor to select. Barton then leaves the meeting and goes to speak with the VP of human resources, Maria Navaro. Baton leaves Maria’s office reflecting about work and time he needs to spend with Maggie.
The Fox Meyer Drug ERP failure and bankruptcy is mentioned on page 228. More information is available on the Internet. As of this writing a PDF of the incident is available here: https://zimmer.fresnostate.edu/~sasanr/Teaching-Material/MIS/ERP/FoxMeyer.pdf
There is also a vendor assessment metrics framework on page 233 that may be useful.
Chapter Fifteen – Managing Talent
The first theme that arose in this chapter is misuse of company time. Ivan Korsky, a key employee, is found out to be working on a personal project on company time and the company network. James Barton and Tyra Gordon are discussing what to do about this issue.
Barton and Gordon generate different thoughts about the matter. One is that Ivan may be more valuable working part time on company projects and part time on personal projects. The other is that they are dealing with a new management paradigm as they enter into a new age work force.
Baton also has a conversation with Bernie Ruben about the issue of Ivan working on personal projects during company time. They discuss monitoring technology and the results that may obtain or problems it may produce. Ruben reflects that IVK is paying people for their smarts more than their time.
Baton and Ruben then discuss whether IVK has the right organizational structure in place. They discuss outsourcing IVK technology services and restructuring the group. The restructuring could involve placing key employees together to form a sort of team of super employees. The other restructuring model would involve placing key employees together with other less talented employees and form a mentor mentee group where less experienced employees could learn from the more experienced employees.
The end of the chapter, the second theme, finds Barton attending one of Cho’s band performances. Barton and Cho discuss jazz. Reading between the lines Barton is thinking how musicians work together could be applied and scaled to business operations at IVK. Some key quotes are as follows.
Cho responding to Barton relates “Our ability to solve the problems and seize the opportunities in real time depends on our technical mastery. But technical mastery is not enough by itself; it’s, like, prerequisite to going beyond it, into true artistry. Plus, the best players combine technique with simplification-with experiences you tend to play less but accomplish more.” (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 249)
Barton complementing Cho says, “Sounds like you all know certain songs.” To which Cho responds “That s part of how we collaborate so well. We have a common language and a lot of shared references. We call them standards. We’ve all studied a bunch of the same recordings, and memorizing solos is both a way to build your own voice and create a pool of ideas we can later tap into to develop ideas-like Sonny Rollins’s sax solo on one of his originals, St. Thomas or Miles Davis’s solo on So What from Kind of Blue. We know the chord progressions. We know the rhythms, grooves, from different recordings. SO, with a thirty second conversation, we can orient ourselves-even a group that’s never play together, if they’re good.” (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 250)
Chapter Sixteen – Standards and Innovation
IVK’s IT infrastructure was becoming increasingly complex. This chapter discusses the theme of how to manage change in the corporate IT infrastructure environment and adhere to standards so that the systems all work together to achieve company objectives.
A key quote from the text that may serve as an example “IVK has historically been a mostly Microsoft shop, but open source and more Unix-based platforms had made inroads. Wherever this has happened a bridging application had to be developed, which then had to be maintained and modified whenever the application on either side of the bridge changed. And people forgot to include changes to bridging application in the project plans, which meant extra work not in the schedule in the best case, malfunctioning systems in the worst case. Often these problems were easy fixes for IT support staff, but total overhead increased as more of the fixes became necessary. It happened again and again, whenever enthusiasts for various unfamiliar technologies gained critical mass within IT.” (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 254)
The chapter ends with a story whose moral is as follows: The models we currently have in mind may work better in some applications than others. Other interpretations of the story are possible. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 259)
Chapter Seventeen – Managing Risk
Managing risk is the main topic of this chapter. Barton and Williams are discussing risk and what avenues may be best for IVK to pursue to mitigate risk of a cyber security incident. A framework of Tolerable, Intolerable and High-Cost, Low-cost assessment is presented on page 272.
Barton relates that risks that are tolerated may lead to systems that don’t operate at optimum levels. Intolerable risks may lead to greater costs to protect the network. While other risks that are low and tolerable may be addressed later.
Barton and Williams talk about poker as an analogy for risk. Which to some degree brings luck into the equation. So, maybe cyber security rests on planning, action, mitigating risk and luck. What do you think?
Chapter Eighteen – Looking Forward
Sadly, this last chapter of the book brings the story to a close. Barton is surprised by a party the IT department holds in honor of his one-year anniversary of being the Chief Information Officer of IVK.
Barton finds out the identity of The Kid. The Kid is Jonathan Luce, a wealthy software developer and philanthropist.
The chapter ends with Maggie stepping into the scene. Maggie greets Jonathan like an old friend, and it is at that point Barton realizes that Maggie and Jonathan know each other.
Epilogue
After reading the entire book, this will likely be the most important chapter. It summarizes some of the themes into categories and further divides the categories into hyphenated sub-categories. The categories are as follows:
- Communication – Style and frequency of communication with others in an organization.
- People management systems – This was the theme in chapter 15, Managing Talent.
- Cost and value of IT accounting systems – How IT creates value. Competes vs. Qualifiers.
- Project management / implementation system – Managing anticipated and unanticipated problems.
- Vendor Management System – Vendor selection and contract management.
- Infrastructure Management System – How much to invest in current vs. new technologies and standardization.
- Scanning for and analyzing emerging technologies – Seeking out new technologies and how to integrate them into existing infrastructure. (Austin et. al., 2009, pgs. 287-295)
Comments
This book presents new ideas and frameworks with a story telling approach. I believe the authors have poured out and molded their knowledge and experiences into this book. This book is good for anyone interested in management or information technology. That said, it is not a technical book. It gives insight into the managerial side of information technology. There are technical terms used and researching those terms further can give technical insight. However, this book gives no real technical guidance, coding samples or programming language instruction.
The following are some themes presented:
IT budget expenditure as public relations insurance: Should information technology expenditure be thought of as mitigating future public relations problems? Spending some money to mitigate the possibility of sending out advisory notices to clients might be a wise public relations strategy. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 124-125)
Security that meets or exceeds industry standards: There may be no one hundred percent secure system. However, the expenditure may be like designing a flange for a piece of mechanical equipment. When designing a flange should there be two bolts holding the flange in place or four? Four or eight? Eight or sixteen? The idea being that you meet or exceed the industry standard, whatever that may be. Do everything you can now and have further documented plans in place. In that way if you are called to a deposition or higher-level meeting, you may have firmer legal or logical ground to stand on. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 128) Admittedly, this all may be easier said than done.
Budgets: A good question may be who controls the budget? Controlling the budget may give more control over which projects get focus. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 129)
Presenting and prioritizing projects: Having projects rank ordered from most to least importance, have a conversation with others in the organization about what risks can be mitigated and what risks they are willing to accept without funding. Maggie (Barton’s significant other) calls it a “consensus process”. (Austin et. al., 2009, pgs. 130-132)
How do we manage evolved complexity or complexity in general? (Austin et. al., 2009, pgs. 145-146)
What is an organizations recovery procedure in the event of a system outage or cyber-attack? (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 158)
Barton’s white board was a method he used to record principles he learned as he was settling into his role as an information technology manager. Here are the major ideas he recorded on his board:
- IT management is about management
- Skill and talent mgt/key skills, key contributors
- Know what you don’t know (KWYDK)
- You won’t last one year (YWLOY)
- IT costs > mapping? > IT services > chargeback
- Understand what got Davies fired (UWGDF)
- Compete vs. Qualifiers – C vs. Q (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 76)
- IT value as a function of the company’s market value
- He adds two columns: Managing problems you can anticipate – planning techniques and methods
- And Managing problems you can’t anticipate – exploring, adapting, course correcting techniques and methods. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 98)
- IT spending should be aligned with IVK strategy. Spending could be split into three categories: Mandatory spending (i.e. Security), ROI (projects that have high ROI) and OCI (option creating investment. Investments that do not have high ROI but may pave the way for future breakthroughs)
- Always tell your boss bad news first; tell him as soon as the possibility is known; don’t put it off until you know for sure. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 178)
- SYH2DP – Sometimes you have to duck a punch.
- Effectively communicating IT related business issues to business managers requires SYSTEMATIC EFFORT, just like everything else you try to accomplish in business; spend sufficient time on it. (Austin et. al., 2009, pg. 194)
Finally, this is intended for a class in information technology or information systems. The themes presented may not include conclusions or solutions. I believe the book is meant to provoke discussion and thought. In my opinion, the book accomplishes this goal admirably. Having said that, this book may not fit all academic objectives.
Thank you for reading.
Kind regards,
Editor
References
Austin R. D., Nolan R. L., O’Donnell S., (2009) The Adventures of an IT Leader, Harvard Business Press, Boston Mass.
(n.d.). What is agile project management? Association for Project Management. Retrieved June 28, 2024, from https://www.apm.org.uk/resources/find-a-resource/agile-project-management/
Carr, N. G. (2003, May). IT Doesn’t Matter. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved June 21, 2024, from https://hbr.org/2003/05/it-doesnt-matter
Morah, C. (2024, June 13). Accrual Accounting vs. Cash Basis Accounting: What’s the Difference? Investopedia. Retrieved June 22, 2024, from https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/accrual-accounting.asp
Favaretto, J. E. R. (2015, September 22). Stage Level Measurement of Information and Communication Technology in Organizations. Research Gate. Retrieved June 22, 2024, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311966246_Stage_Level_Measurement_of_Information_and_Communication_Technology_in_Organizations
Indeed Ed Team (2023, August 28). Understanding PERT vs. CPM (With Definitions and Benefits). Indeed. Retrieved June 23, 2024, from https://ca.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/pert-vs-cpm
(2005, August 22). Gantt chart. Wikipedia. Retrieved June 22, 2024, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantt_chart
(2012, October 10). Middleware. Wikipedia. Retrieved June 22, 2024, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middleware
(2006, January 24). Program evaluation and review technique. Wikipedia. Retrieved June 22, 2024, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_evaluation_and_review_technique
Progress Software (2024, March 1). Using Database Indexes Tutorial. Progress.com. Retrieved July 20, 2024, from https://www.progress.com/tutorials/odbc/using-indexes#:~:text=An%20index%20is%20a%20database,single%20field%20name%2C%20like%20EMP_ID.