I was watching BBC America World News the other day, and there was an interesting piece on the G20 summit. Dr. Irwin Stelzer, Senior Fellow at the Hudson institute made the assertion, “Europeans are very much in love with process, while Americans are very much in love with results.” As a European who has lived and worked in the US for 30 years, I resonate with this statement - gross oversimplification though it might be. I’m not sure where the US/Europe biases regarding process and outcome originally come from, but in my experience, they are biases rather than universal dogma. Americans can get deeply (and sometimes overly) enamored of process at the expense of outcomes just as Europeans can sell process short in a jump to outcomes.

The need to balance process with outcomes is, I think, well appreciated. Even the distinctions of types of work, and how these play into the importance of process are, I think, old news and generally understood. However, for all of the underlying theory and experience, there do seem to be cultural biases that all too readily derail the proper balance. One of the great things about the US is its “bias for action.” This was one of the characteristics that led me to move to the US in the first place, and has helped keep me here. However, taken too far, a bias for action all too easily becomes wasted effort or a screwed up opportunity. On the other hand, an overly deliberate focus on process can get in the way of outcomes realization.

I have seen many business process reengineering efforts derailed by a loss of sight of the outcomes. While these may have been clear at the outset, they somehow got lost in the process of re-engineering. In fact, for quite a few years I was involved in many client consulting engagements designed to help get derailed ERP initiatives back on track. Almost always the magic sauce we used was to go back to the original outcomes. If these had been well-defined up front, it was simply a matter of refreshing them then going through a rigorous triage to determine what features and functions were essential to realizing those outcomes. Anything else, while perhaps “good ideas” and/or “good things to do” were put on a back burner as “not critical to achieving the outcomes.” If the outcomes had not been well-defined up front (this was often the case - they were vague, lacked specific metrics and time frames, or were not really outcomes at all) then our task was to define the outcomes. In every case, once the outcomes were clear and compelling, the process could be brought back on track.

Process can all too easily become a substitute for thinking, rather than an aid to thinking. When I was at Ernst & Young, I learned (and still apply) the “ODW” mantra - Outcomes, Deliverables, Work-plan. The idea is simple - get clear on the desired outcomes first. Then figure out what deliverables are needed to realize those outcomes. Then you can build the right work-plan for creating those deliverables. It’s a very simple formula, but one that once internalized can help enormously with this outcome/process balancing act. In some respects, ODW is a process. And, of course, the work-plan that comes out of ODW is a process.

Finally, I think metrics are an important tool in helping keep the balance right. Not coincidentally, the Kaplan/Norton Balanced Scorecard has as an underlying premise the balance between outcomes and process (as well as the balance between today’s results and investments for the future.) It is an important discipline to distinguish between outcome measures and process measures. The former can tell you how well a process is performing, while the latter can provide insights into how to improve that process.

Lately I’ve been spending time with several IT teams from global Fortune 500 enterprises who are charged with fostering collaboration, innovation and the other hoped-for outcomes of Web 2.0. It’s been a fascinating experience - plenty of good news, but some aspects I find frustrating. More importantly, I believe these are things that are slowing progress in exploiting Web 2.0 et al in the enterprise context.

For most companies, the necessary infrastructure, while mostly in place, is not fully there. Desktop software may not be at the right level. Videoconferencing capabilities are first or second generation, and need to be upgraded to tap the full potential of today’s telepresence and high definition video. Instant messaging, previously banned as a perceived “renegade, redundant and dangerous technology is now seen as a useful tool, but the IT infrastructure must now be tweaked to embrace it. Early implementations of SharePoint that served as interesting experiments, must be updated and redeployed to take advantage of the latest release and goodies. More complex initiatives such as virtualization, unified communications, shifts from perimeter-based to asset-based security take time, energy and investment to sort through. Collaboration strategies tend to be emergent rather than holistic,
IT- more than business-centric, push rather than pull, infrastructure rather than application focused.

The good news is that for the more forward-thinking companies, these infrastructure initiatives are funded, resourced and underway. The people leading them are the best and brightest from the IT infrastructure ranks - they know what they are doing, and move assuredly through this complex space, checking off important milestones, and celebrating successes along the way.

The more frustrating, and ultimately limiting aspects are around the demand management (especially, stimulation/seeding) and application (especially value capture) of Web 2.0 - how to ensure that the emerging collaboration infrastructure is actually used, and used productively and creatively.

A couple of points. Without the right infrastructure, Web 2.0 doesn’t work, or doesn’t work well enough to sustain itself - it is the table stakes. But, a shyness in addressing the broader landscape of collaboration and innovation across the enterprise and its ecosystem ultimately limits the value of the infrastructure.

I use the word “shyness” with some thought - there is literally a shyness about getting into things that are thought of as “really needs to be in the business.” The Catch-22, however, is that without IT leadership in demand shaping/management, you might not have the exact infrastructure you need to really tap the power of the emerging collaboration capabilities. And I’m taking “infrastructure” quite broadly to include all the shared components and services that support Web 2.0 and its inevitable implications (e.g., Cloud Computing).

So, my recommendations to these teams typically include:

1. Keep going with the infrastructure plans and deployments! Celebrate the infrastructure, market its capabilities, keep up the great work!
2. Step back and look at your broader collaboration strategy. What other projects or programs are underway that impact or are impacted by this initiative? What other projects or programs are needed to ensure success? What does success look like? How would we measure it?
3. Add a demand shaping/demand management perspective to the collaboration initiative. Wrap it into the overall collaboration strategy and plan.
4. Expand the collaboration initiative team and brief/charter to bring in the business and customer/user perspective, and some “Net Gen” people or really understand how the Web 2.0 world works in the social/consumer space.
5. Foster adoption from the grass roots up. Think “chaos theory” and “emergence” - but don’t lose sight of the fact that we are human and ultimately, political and social animals.

I recently started a post on this topic which I am continuing here with some additional principles that you might consider adopting if you are leading a transformation of IT capabilities. (If you wonder what that means, please refer to the first post in this series.)

Principle #3. You don’t have to call it a transformation!

Calling a major change program a “transformation” has a nice ring to it - gives it a sense of importance and gravity. And therein lies the trap! Transformation programs are often characterized by a high level of communication up front - burning platforms, compelling future state visions, sense of urgency, blah, blah, blah. They are equally characterized by a gradual fading away of all the hype and noise as people lose interest, fail to see any real action, and get drawn back into the realities of their day jobs, and the magnetic hold of the status quo.

Sometimes it is better to plan on a quiet start and a loud finish, rather than the other way round. After all, a transformation is an outcome more than it is a plan or intent. Imagine a personal trainer saying, “I am going to transform you into a fitter, healthier person who will look better, and live longer. Here are your exercises and diet plan.” While she might be willing to make that promise, it is false, and I am likely to be disappointed and to lose interest pretty quickly. Imagine on the other hand she said, “I’m going to teach you some exercises and show you a diet plan. If you do the exercises as taught, and change your eating habits per the diet plan, you will over time transform into a fitter, healthier person who will look better, and live longer.” Now that is an authentic promise. It is believable, realistic and a far more authentic approach for her to take. The real transformation is for me - can I really get myself to exercise and eat per her recommendations? Rather than promise an IT transformation, lets focus on what we are going to change, what we are going to do differently, what new outcomes will result, and why these outcomes are valid and worthwhile.

Principle #4. You can’t transform IT by transforming IT!

It is said that businesses get the IT they deserve. This is a round about way of saying IT organizations exist for the businesses they serve, and that it is the unique confluence of business and IT that ultimately creates value from IT investments. When we talk about “the performance of the IT organization,” except for basic IT infrastructure services, we are talking about the product of business-IT performance. In other words, it is ultimately the way that businesses harness the potential value of IT that is being transformed, rather than the IT organization as the subject of transformation. It’s of little use if the IT organization introduces a new investment prioritization process designed to shift IT investments to a more innovation-focused profile if this is not embraced by business leaders.

Please let me know about your experiences with IT transformations. Have you developed any principles that might be of interest to others?

We are getting close to wrapping up our multi-company research project on “Redefining Employee Computing.” This was focused on the emerging trend of moving away from a highly controlled and locked-down approach to what used to be known as “end-user computing” to a more open and self-service model. One of the research team came across this post in Forbes.com about the “Un-marketing of IT.”

I thought the post was spot on! It includes a short interactive survey (4 questions) and you can see the results instantly. It’s not a pretty picture. Overwhelmingly, respondents conclude:

1. IT’s limiting of the the use of technology creates a poor impression of IT.
2. IT does not provide an adequate explanation for limiting the use of technology.
3. When IT limits the use of technology, it does not provide alternative ways to accomplish tasks.
4. IT does not provide a responsive support structure to address issues caused by limiting the use of technology.

Like so many things in life, service providers seem to care mostly about making their own lives simple - as opposed to thinking through the entire customer experience, and making lives effective and productive for the customer. I see too many business executives who have to tote two laptops and two personal organizers (one of each for business use and one of each for personal use). If personal computing is the most visible face of IT, it’s often not an attractive and welcoming face. And then we wonder why business executives cry, “IT costs too much and delivers too little!”

I know I will get hate mail for this post - “It’s not our fault, it’s the lawyers and HR folk!” “We’re only trying to protect the company and its assets!” I recognize these factors, and why the locked down PC environment was necessary. However, a new day is dawning and it’s time to enable the enterprise. Some constraints are OK - but they need to be explained, alternative ways to work need to be made available, and a responsive infrastructure is essential if we really want IT to be a strategic capability.

I want to tackle the thorny and often controversial topic of transforming IT capabilities - probably through several posts over the next few weeks. I first started looking at how large companies went about transforming IT about 20 years ago. I got very focused on it in a formal way about 16 years ago when I was leading a multi-year longitudinal study of 25 global corporations under the auspices of the Ernst & Young Center for Business Innovation. This research led to the infamous Business-IT Maturity Model that I refer to from time to time on this blog (it has evolved substantially in the last 10 years), to a normative IT Process Landscape (which has also evolved somewhat over the years) and to a great deal of insight about IT transformations - things that seem to work well, and others that seem to fail consistently. Finally, it led to a book, which was very satisfying to write, well regarded at the time, but is now somewhat too dated to try to hawk on this blog!

First, a couple of observations. Defining transformational change can be somewhat tricky as it is inherently subjective. We might believe, for example, that a change in a business analyst’s role to shift from a focus on a business area to a focus on an end-to-end business process (order-to-cash, say) is an incremental change, but to the analyst it might feel transformational. Notwithstanding this subjectivity, I think of transformation as change that is:

• Broad in scope (for example, encompassing change in processes, tools, organization structure, vision, mission, rewards and recognition)
• Deep in nature (i.e., intended to lead to a significant change in organizational outcomes)
• Far-reaching in impact (i.e., affecting a broad base of stakeholders)
• Recognized to be risky in that the absolute details of the end state may be unclear or ambiguous at the outset

Further complicating the definition of transformation is that not all transformational change is labeled as such. Sometimes the infamous “butterfly effect” leads to transformational change as a result of an intervention that looked on the surface to be purely incremental. For similar reasons (the unpredictability of the behaviors of complex systems), not all programs labeled transformational actually result in transformation - in fact, the vast majority do not! How many programs do you recall titled something like “Quality First,” or “One Company,” or “Journey to Innovation,” and so on that are now distant memories with little more to show for them than the printed tee shirts and embossed paper weights?

Why do IT organizations feel from time to time they need to transform? Reasons, of course, vary but the typical rationales include:

• A shift in business operating model - often from a holding company model with independent business units to a more integrated model, with common and shared capabilities.
• A shift in underlying technology paradigm - for example, from mainframe to client-server (historically) or from client-server to Web 2.0 (currently).
• A shift in sourcing model - for example, outsourcing major pieces of IT, and then transforming the “retained IT” organization for an increased focus on business value, growth and innovation.
• A change in CIO where the new boss wants to shake things up and make her mark by driving IT performance to new heights.

Why do I feel that I need to post on this subject? Because I’m tired of seeing the same transformational issues time and time again! It seems to me we ought to be better at reinventing the role of the IT organization, delivering more value from costly IT investments, getting significantly closer to the businesses we serve, and being more sympathetic to the IT professionals who have heard it all before, want to keep their heads down until the latest transformation wave passes, or who just want to know, “What’s in this for me?”

I’m also tired of seeing so-called transformational change programs so badly bungled that the organization learns to ignore strategic change initiatives (the “this too shall pass” syndrome). I’m tired of seeing so many IT leaders tackle transformational change as if they were the first ever to try it, and that there is nothing to be learned from all those who have gone before - especially learning from the failures, as well as from the success stories. I often (with prior permission) put CIO’s in touch with clients I’ve worked with who have successfully transformed their IT capabilities - I do this in response to a request, but 8 out of 10 times discover that they don’t follow through! The client who has been through the pain is more than willing to take their time to share their experiences, but the CIO who’s asking the questions does not even take the time to make to the call.

Also, I have to say that I come across many IT organizations that are frankly so out of touch with today’s business and technological realities that they need a major dose of transformation. Week after week I talk to IT managers and leaders who have no idea what RSS, Wikis, and Cloud Computing are, and what their implications might be for the business they support. The don’t know what an RSS reader is, or why they should want one. They have never participated in a social network, and so have no opinions or ideas about how Web 2.0 capabilities might be turned to business advantage.

So, let me suggest the first couple of transformation principles:

Principle #1. Communicate from the outset with absolute integrity and the unvarnished truth.

Your IT people are smart and will not be easily fooled. In fact, trying to fool them will undoubtedly backfire. So engage them in the dialog; be honest about what is going to be needed; don’t take anything “off the table” as sacred cows not to be discussed. In most transformations, some people will not make it through - that’s a fact than cannot be hidden or avoided. Make it clear to people that those that get engaged in the journey are more likely to come out as winners, but there’s no guarantees. On the other hand, those that stand in the background lobbing stones will absolutely come out as losers!

Principle #2. Take the time and effort to collaboratively build a compelling but plausible vision for the future.

The temptation is to short-change this step - IT leaders already have the vision in their heads and assume everyone else in the organization “gets it.” They don’t! The next temptation is to develop the vision with a subset of the IT leadership team, and then emboss it in a paper weight or memorialize it on wall-sized posters. After all the wordsmithing and polishing, the “vision statement” (which is not what I mean by “vision”) means nothing to anybody except the select few who created it. Visions need to be rich and multi-faceted. They need to be in peoples heads, hearts and stomachs. They need to be compelling and to serve a higher purpose that gets people up in the morning and that merits putting themselves through the pain and anxiety of change.

Have you been through an organizational transformation? Did it work? Why? If not, why not? And please watch for more to come on this topic in subsequent posts.

I loved this quote by George Gilder in Forbes.com’s Coming Creativity Boom, Referring to Cloud Computing, Gilder states, “The rule for the new architecture is that hardware softens on the edge and software hardens at the core.” For those who have tracked my uses of the terms “core” and “edge” in this blog over the last year, you will recognize why this quote so resonated with me. For those that are not familiar with my use of those terms, please check out here and here, for examples.

I’ve referred to Cloud Computing a few times in this blog (who hasn’t), mostly in a tone that has been “pro” this important trend. Lately, however, I’ve seen more negative commentary - more disbelievers and naysayers highlighting the reasons why Cloud Computing is not for all, or why it’s dangerous, or over-hyped, and so on. Yes, the cautions are appropriate - like any paradigm shift, the technologies behind Cloud Computing are immature, our enterprise infrastructures for working in this new paradigm lag the new arhcutectures, and there are real and valid concerns about security, reliability, and serviceability.

However, I’m frankly puzzled that in October 2008, there is as much naysaying as there is! From my perspective as one that has studied trends and patterns in enterprise computing for some 40 years, several truths seem to me, to coin a term, to be “self-evident.” These include:

1. In many respects, we’ve used Cloud Computing principles before - quite successfully. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, service bureaus were an important part of the enterprise computing scene, especially as they evolved beyond overnight batch computing to the provisioning of on-line computer terminals. These often supported innovative and extremely powerful forms of end user computing (what some of us refer to nowadays as “edge computing”) such as complex modeling and simulation, and data analytics. In fact, many of these tasks could only be done through remote service bureaus - they had the computing power and the sophisticated software that the typical enterprise IT set up did not.
2. Many of the services to which users need access - processing cycles, data storage - truly are commodities. When communication bandwidth was limited and/or was expensive, we needed those processing cycles and data storage to be as physically close to the user as possible. Today, as we approach 10 gigabits and more as the lower threshold in many parts of the world, this computing power can be anywhere - just as long as we have ubiquitous access to high bandwidth. Yes, I know we are not there yet, but the rapid growth in high bandwidth telecommunications is a reality, and shows no sign of slowing down. For the skeptics, you might dig into Gilder’s Law and how that is playing out in reality.
3. Energy costs and climate change are impacting decisions about where to place data centers. Compounding these issues is the need to make IT costs more elastic - to be able to react on demand to both increases and decreases in compute power. Cloud computing satisfies this increasingly valuable requirement.
4. We can do things in the Cloud that cannot easily be done in the enterprise computing environment. Just as all those teletypes and green screens hooked up to service bureaus gave us access to powerful modeling languages such as APL, analytics software such as SAS and SPSS, and to the so-called Fourth Generation Languages like Focus and Nomad, so too will Cloud Computing give us access to capabilities for business innovation, and for participating in communities in ways that cannot be achieved within the enterprise firewalls.
5. The Cloud is inherently collaborative and integrating. The standards that make Cloud Computing feasible, also make it easy to “mash up” new capabilities, and to incorporate a geographically and thematically dispersed communities (customers, suppliers, interest groups, and so on). By contrast, the vast majority of enterprise computing that has been developed over the last 20 years or so is inflexible, non-integrated and difficult or frequently impossible for users who were not part of the original design intent, or who are outside of the enterprise firewalls, to take advantage of.
6. In a nod to the economic climate, I believe Cloud Computing is more cost effective - certainly, delivers a more flexible and palatable pricing model - one that is inherently value-based (pay “by the drink.)

My recommendation to IT leaders is this - stop reading about and worrying about all the reasons Cloud Computing might not work for you, and start identifying situations where it could work - and where it might in fact give you a business edge. OK, to be realistic, do continue reading what the smarter and independent analysts are saying about pros and cons - you have to be educated on this rapidly evolving field, but my point is, find ways to make this work where it makes sense. Experiment - one of the attributes of Cloud Computing is the ease with which you can get into it and play. Don’t think in terms of a wholesale switch - you don’t need that, and it probably does not make sense for most of us today. (Though if I were counseling a start-up, I’d think seriously about leveraging the Cloud to the full!) Again, think of the “edgy” things you’d like to do for or with your business partners, and approach those as your learning opportunities for this new architecture.

Continuing my reflections on our recent return to the UK for a 2-week vacation. To recap, my wife and I were born in the UK, moving to the US 30 years ago (originally for a 1-year tour of duty!) and my mother-in-law moving to the US about 20 years ago. I've got back to the UK frequently over the years, but through business travel. This was the first time in quite a while to see the country up close and stay with real Brits (friends and relatives) all over England, as well as in some fine old country inns and one West End London hotel. (For earlier posts on this, see here and here .)

So, what else did we find?

• People still ride Penny-Farthing bicycles out in the countryside! Just kidding - but I did have a delightful cream tea in a cafe in Knutsford, Cheshire, that had a magnificent collection of these strange machines!
• People are generally much more environmentally aware than in the US. For example, they mostly use cloth bags for groceries - taking them with on trips to the stores just the way I recall my mother doing all those years ago! My very good university friend Bob Bailey (a partner in environmental consulting firm Quantum Strategy & Technology) told me about several innovative government programs that are helping with climate and sustainability, and are driving some worthy small-business innovations. Behaviors such as trash disposal in landfills are heavily taxed, incenting people to me more creative in how they design, use and dispose of stuff. Similarly, local incentives are increasing bicycle ridership (no, not the penny-farthing style) and helping both the environment and health care!
• Britain has inevitably become even more Americanized than when I was living in the US. Like in the US, television programming appears to be mostly puerile rubbish - a similar “all about me” TV syndrome.
• Ubiquity of Fast Food and ‘all you can eat’ restaurants has led to a burgeoning obesity problem - something that was not seen until the last 15 or 20 years. The good news is that the food across the UK is mostly really good, and often excellent. The bad news is the gargantuan portions and the toll those are taking on waistlines!
• Apparently, there’s a lot of crime, but knives seem to be the weapon of choice given the lack of availability of handguns. We saw a large metal container in a suburban high street, labeled “Bin-a-knife” - a repository with amnesty for people to dump their knives.
• Just about everyone we spoke to in the UK is ecstatic about the upcoming exit of George Bush! However, they would like Gordon Brown to accompany him into obscurity (The two GBs!)

My esteemed colleague Susan Scrupski had a great post the other day entitled “The trouble with social media is, well, people” where she captured something quite important. It has always been clear that social networking can be both a positive and negative force - but Susan nicely connected the potential and impact of social media to global mindsets, and how our attitudes to social networking (and ways to use it) might shift in a recession.

As Susan says, “Social media was great when it ran on positive mental attitude and a go-go economy, but now that people (the stuff networks are made of) are acting like humans, well, harrumph, it's time to re-examine this social media phenomenon, eh?”

My take on this is that ultimately, you have to believe that increased transparency is positive - though there will be a period while companies and individuals adjust to the facts that:

• Anyone can say just about anything - whether you like it or not!
• Anything you do say (or is said about you), anywhere on the web, might come back to haunt you!
• Expect a free flowing and open dialog - now how are you going to (a) live with it, and (b) take advantage of it?

I had the privilege of participating as both a speaker and an attendee at one of nGenera’s joint IT/HR Summits in Austin last week on ‘Next Generation Technologies for Next Generation Enterprises.’ These are 3-day sessions where CIO’s and VP’s of HR come together to share and learn about key business issues on their joint agendas. It truly was a privilege to be part of this event which included presentations by Andrew McAfee (Harvard Business School), Don Tapscott (nGenera Insight), David Ulrich (University of Michigan), Tammy Erickson (nGenera Insight) and yours truly. I got a lot out of the speaker sessions, but also found the dialog and networking to be highly stimulating and informative. Inevitably, many of the conversations steered to the global economy and the role of IT leadership in a recessionary climate.

With a nod to Professor John Henderson’s old joke (”there are two kinds of people - those who believe there are two kinds of people, and those that do not”), I did find two sharply divided worldviews among the many engaging CIO conversations I was involved in. I will, with some poetic license, represent those opposing worldviews below. These represent the extremes - most of the CIO’s I spoke to at the event were closer to a middle ground - but examining the extremes may stimulate your own thinking about this issue. What do you believe is the proper role of IT leadership today?

I will refer to the opposing views as Ivan Innovator and Cecil Controller. Here are their contrasting positions:

Ivan Innovator

A recession is a time for the IT function to shine by showing leadership and fostering innovation. To do that, and to buy ourselves both business credibility and IT bandwidth, we have to aggressively cut costs, but also need to shift IT resources from low to higher value activity. The cost cutting actions are something we’ve wanted to do for some time, but now the economic climate provides the air cover we need. So, our value proposition to the business is double-edged: we are going to agressively retire IT systems and assets that are no longer critical to running or growing the business, and will redirect the resources that are freed up by this rationalization and consolidation of our technology platform and focus them on more innovative and higher value initiatives.

We recognize that some people are going to be inconvenienced by the cost-cutting - they are on the obsolete systems because of a particular report or function they like to use. Unfortunately, we can no longer afford the luxury of keeping old, redundant systems around. While they were written down long ago, they are a drain on resources - keeping them running and the constant need to build and maintain interfaces with other systems.

The other side of this is that our business partners have never needed us to focus on growth and innovation more than they do today. There’s been a literal sea change in available technologies, and we have to find value-producing ways to tap these new technologies. If we can beat our competitors to the punch, we can turn the economic climate to our advantage. And that is our focus.

Cecil Controller

Economic conditions spell a period of retrenchment for IT. We have to take out costs to help the business weather this downturn. As such, many of the initiatives we have started or were planning are being put on hold. This is hunker down time - we don’t know how long it will last, but we’re betting at least a year. Optics are all important here - I need to show my business partners that I understand the economic climate, and that this is a time for IT to take a low profile, cut back its spending, and do our part to help the company weather the down market.

I find it interesting to think about the drivers of these opposing views. Are some CIO’s inherently more optimistic, and therefore proactive? Or is it the company and its leadership that sets the tone - either empowering the optimists to grow and innovate their way out of a recession, or scaring the pessimists to step into the shadows and idle till the clouds pass by? Like the nature/nurture arguments, there is no simple answer. But I feel the energy and sense a more positive outcome around the proactive innovators compared with the reactive controllers. I know who I’d sooner be around and work with, and, if I were a CEO, who I’d like to have on my team as CIO.

I have been working with a team preparing for a new multi-company research project - Continuous Business Strategy - that will kick-off in mid-November. I think this will prove to be an interesting project, to say the least! Certainly, the research team has already engaged in several heated discussions and come across some intriguing information in our secondary literature research.

For IT leaders, I can’t think of many topics that are more pressing or deserving of a fresh look than business/IT strategy. I’ve been involved in many strategy efforts over the years - from strategy planning for my own company when that was my gig, to business and IT strategy planning for clients, strategy reviews, strategy refreshes, and so on. I’ve seen a lot of problems and dysfunctional behaviors in the name of strategy over the years. Even the term ’strategic planning’ takes on all sorts of meanings - some deserving of the label ’strategy’ but many not. When the issue is “IT strategy,” the level of dysfunction increases significantly. In this post, I will take a couple of common dysfunctions I come across frequently that I think will improve at strategy shifts from a periodic to a continuous management tool.

1. IT strategy is not the point - it’s all about business strategy.

I recall a session many years ago (I’m guessing it was around the mid-80’s) where I was speaking at a CIO conference in Phoenix (it could have been a Society for Information Management event) following the illustrious Professor Warren McFarlan. After his presentation on IT strategy, during Q&A a CIO asked, “In my company, if there were a business strategy, I could craft a dynamite IT strategy. But there is no business strategy - what should I do?”

Warren, who could be sometimes be pretty blunt and confrontational and an ‘in your face’ kind of teacher, virtually attacked the hapless CIO. “You CIO’s are always complaining about lack of business strategy,” taunted McFarlan. “You draw two boxes, one above the other. The top box you label ‘business strategy’ and the lower box ‘IT strategy’ and you grumble that the business strategy box is empty. Listen up - the business strategy box is always empty! And it’s your job to fill it!”

This was one of those frame-changing moments for me. I was well aware of the reality, but McFarlan’s blunt and visual description of the circumstances validated my worldview around strategic planning. Most of my IT strategy development work with clients has been business strategy development in disguise. In fact, over the years we developed a business outcomes-based approach to IT strategy that on the one hand forced business strategy to the surface, while on the other hand avoiding offending anybody by insinuating they did not have an actionable business strategy. I think we will find that shifting to a more continuous strategy process will have the effect of better integrating business and IT strategy formulation activities. Their separation has always been for me an unhealthy dysfunction - business strategy formulated in a way that is devoid of appreciation for the information and IT possibilities.

2. Much ’strategy’ effort is not very strategic.

A lot of work done in the name of strategy is in reality tactical - often more about budgeting than competitive positioning - more about status quo than change. I’ve seen some extremely robust strategy planning efforts involving large numbers of teams from across the company on a several-month, once every three years effort. On the face of it, this looks like a great idea. In practice, it often is not very effective. I recall one client where such a planning initiative was going on (I think the third of fourth time they’d run this kind of effort) and the management committee crafted the strategy over about 12 hours across three sessions. The formal corporate initiative was largely ignored. Again, I believe we will find that at its best, a more continuous approach to strategy formulation will improve the strategic quality of the result (though this will not necessarily be the case.)

3. Strategy formulation and execution are too loosely coupled.

Many scholars and researchers have commented on the formulation/execution gap. Peter Weill differentiates appropriately between “strategic intent” and “current strategy,” and Gary Hamel provocatively suggests, “If you want to understand the real strategy, look at what people are doing!” There are almost always disconnects between the strategy as formulated and the rewards and recognition systems and hidden organizational logic that drive management and employee behaviors. Once again, I believe we will find that the shift to a more continuous strategy process will tighten many execution gaps.

I will delve deeper in future posts into strategic planning dysfunctional behaviors and the promise of leveraging Web 2.0 to move to a more continuous and productive strategy process.

WSJ’s Business Technology blog had an interesting post asking Why Do You Hate Email? The post quotes Michael Osterman, saying:

Email has been stretched far beyond its limits…

I agree based upon what I see in my consulting clients, but not just in the traditional ways we imagine ’stretching’ to include (e.g., cc’ing the world, horrendously long tomes). In many cases, Email has become a de facto work flow solution - a function for which is is horribly unsuitable. This has happened due to the old “if the hammer is your only tool, every problem looks like a nail.” Absent the tools or wherewithal to really think through workflow needs and opportunities, Email became the answer. This is akin to the common mistake of automating bad business processes rather than re-engineering them in the light of automation possibilities.

I got more into this in a post a while back on The Myth of Information Overload. Challenge every Email sent and recieved - is this something that belongs as an email, or should it be part of an automated work flow process? I beleive that in the current economic conditions, we need to be digging deep to harness the next level of productivity and effectiveness gains - the technology is there - and there’s never been a better time to leverage it!