Enterprise Initiatives

In part 1 of this series I asked the question, "Are you running IT like it's your business?" Then I highlighted five barriers for preventing IT leaders from being able to transform their IT shop into a well oiled, cost effective machine?

• Resistance to change
• Lack of resources (time, money, and human capital)
  
• Lack of tools
• Lack of metrics
• Lack of process

In part 5, I will focus on Lack of Process.

Many people in IT think of process as paperwork, overhead, or even a total waste of time. I have seen some processes that fit those descriptions. But in those cases, somebody implemented processes for the sake of having processes instead of implementing a set of processes that help IT deliver quality software and services.

Companies with no processes or ineffective processes have the following issues:

1. Reactive mode, constant firefighting
2. Consistently deliver late and over budget
3. Sweat shop mentality, working hard instead of smart
   
4. Low morale
5. High turnover

All five of these issues are extremely expensive. If you owned your own company and it had these issues would you ignore them? Many IT shops that have these issues look to offshoring as the answer. Can you say doomed? If you can't manage your own internal resources and projects, what makes you think you can manage a group of people in another country? Even if you pick the best offshore resources in the world, the overall success of your projects still rely on your ability to manage them. In other words, it depends on your processes.

There are many types of processes and methodologies that are proven. They range from strict methodologies like CMM and its 5 levels to Agile Methodologies and Extreme Programming (XP). The proper methodology depends on your company culture, your products and services, and your budget. If you are sending a man to the moon, you should use a very strict methodology like CMM. When lives are on the line or millions of dollars are at stake then no short cuts should be taken. If you are implementing infrastructure projects then the PMI methodologies can be a good fit. They provide a good step by step or check list approach that helps you assure that you have not missed a step. If you are delivering applications on the web or providing features for internal or external customers then you probably want speed and that is where Agile and XP come in. With these methodologies, you want to iterate through all phases and deliver in quick intervals. These methodologies focus on getting the right features into the hands of the users quickly and discourage trying to anticipate every user need.

But process isn't just about delivering new software and services. Project prioritization and production support are two critical areas that need to be managed effectively. If either of these two areas are not under control, your chances of success are greatly diminished. Here are the effects of not having a good prioritization process:

1. Over allocation of resources
2. Not working on the most important projects
3. Constant changing of direction, lack of focus
4. Frequently run over budget and delivering late

Here are the effects of not having effective processes to manage production support:

1. Putting out the same fires on a daily business
2. Poor quality applications due to constant patching
3. Poor customer satisfaction
4. Low morale and burn out
5. IT unable to launch strategic initiatives due to high cost and resource constraints
   

So what should you do? Two things. First, implement portfolio management. I wrote an article that could help you get started quickly. Second, look at implementing change management or service management best practices like ITIL or Cobit. By using the best practices for managing change and support, you can reduce your costs, improve your quality, and free up resources to work on high priority projects.

I grew up in a family business and brought the entrepreneurial spirit with me into corporate America. I struggle to accept how some IT leaders do not manage IT like it is their own family business. These leaders are smart people (usually) and I know that they would be taking a different course of action if it was their own family fortune that was on the line. For you IT leaders that live in the world of chaos and firefighting like I have described throughout this series, if you won't drive change for your company, consider doing it for your people. Working hard instead of smart is not what we all envisioned when entered the exciting world of computer science.

This wraps up the 5 part series on running IT like it's your business. I will follow up with a conclusion that discusses how to implement some of these initiatives. Thanks to those of you who have stayed with me for this long series. Please provide some feedback. I would be happy to clarify any points or dive deeper into any topic.