The Biotech IT PMO 2.0

As a CIO, you have either made – or heard – recommendations to create an IT project management office. Perhaps you have implemented one, and your department is reaping the benefits of project planning, monitoring, and controlling. IT delivers its projects on time, on budget, and to spec. Congratulations! You and your IT PMO have put the foundation of consistent innovation in place.

Nevertheless, it is no more than a foundation. A PMO must…

For more, see the full article at CIO Review.

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Doubts about BYOD promotion schemes

[The proposal of a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) communications campaign] strikes me as a bit too “happy/clappy” about promoting BYOD adoption. Explaining the process won’t address deep-seated privacy concerns like Peter Nolan’s. If done the wrong way, such promotions smack of the old IT “if we explain it to you lunkheads one more time it will sink in” mentality.

I started as a BYOD advocate and I’m OK with it for myself, at least for certain devices (e.g.,work email on a personal tablet). However, if we in IT want to control devices, we should expect that some won’t want to hand over their personal property. Therefore, if we want to control them, we should be prepared to provision them.

Also, I’m just not sure that BYOD is a great lever for preventing shadow IT. My suggestion would be to start with a more open IT portfolio process, which would ensure that everyone buys into what’s proposed, being executed, and how approvals and controls work.

Adapted from a LinkedIn comment on this post re: shadow IT and trust as a strategy to prevent it.

IT Capability Checklist for non-IT leaders

I liked this checklist from Susan Cramm (article here, Word checklist here) because it’s targeted at managers who are rotating through IT.   Obviously, it is a critical rotation in industries where IT can be a differentiator.   But getting involved with — never mind leading — technology projects can be a bit daunting.

Leaders who have worked in these roles do so with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. On the positive side, the prospect of charting new territories is incredibly stimulating. On the negative, it’s also frustrating – navigating IT can be like traveling in a foreign country without an interpreter or a guidebook.

The aura of the dawn of the computer age persists in the software business.  Many IT professionals insist that what they do is beyond the ken of normal humans.  Not so… IT is amenable to rational analysis [unlike my blog].  Cramm says it perfectly here:

It doesn’t have to feel this way. IT is just like any other business function – challenged with developing and delivering products and services to demanding “customers” in the context of constrained resources and changing competitive, organizational and technological landscapes.