Do you know how to motivate people?

I saw this great animated video presentation on the blog of Vaughan Merlyn and couldn't withstand sharing it here.

It is an RSA Animate’s remarkable adaptation of Daniel Pink’s presentation to the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) on motivation.

Just like Vaughan I can point a few reasons why I was taken by this video:

1. It is an excellent presentation skill example with all the tricks like hierarchical structuring, repeating of the main ideas, illustrative examples, etc.,etc.

2. Science made simple. Unless you are a scientist yourself, after typing a keyword "motivation" in any scientific search engine, you will drown in the sea of sophisticated research papers of any tinges from researchers of any caliber. This presentation gives an example how you can use the power of science and bring it to mere mortals.

3. The power of animation. With the magic of handwritten animation those 10 minutes have passed for me like in the twinkling of an eye.

Business-IT Integration Balance Model (Introduction)

Business-IT Integration Balance Model is intended to be used at negotiations between the Business and IT parties as a tool for initial strategic assessment of existing and desired situations in their relations.

The model helps to define the organizational changes necessary for proper Business and IT Alignment.

BUSINESS-IT INTEGRATION BALANCE MODEL

The main idea is that in relations of business and IT representatives different maturity levels of both parties are possible. And for proper balanced relations the maturity of each party has to correspond to each other.

As IT penetrates deeper in our lives and becomes a part of daily routine, you can often encounter a situation when business managers have relatively good understanding of technology possibilities and advantages. And at the same time people from IT (IT department, IT provider, IT managers, you name it) are not that willing to make a step towards understanding of business needs, requests, and of advantages and restrictions brought by technology. They are too much submerged in the technology complexity and their maturity is not sufficient for productive communication with people from the business side.

TYPICAL DIFFERENCE IN MATURITY LEVELS

As a result of this maturity difference we see the difference in mindsets, difference in values, difference in the language used. This is often described as abscence of Business-IT Alignment.

In an ideal situation there is not much difference between a business manager and an IT manager (you can also think about a CIO as a fully-fledged board member here). IT managers take responsibility for the results, budgets and the financial part of projects, notice new business opportunities or threats through the lenses of knowledge of appearing techhnologies and innovation trends. Business managers understand at least the basics, main principles of technologies used and value brought by them, and don't take the arrogant position in respect to IT, like "ah, I have no idea, it's the realm of techno-geeks" or "those IT guys, they can never make it just work". Instead they leverage on the possibilities which IT makes possible and take into account potential limitations or points of failure.

The business and IT realms in such a situation become integrated. And there are examples of companies where you can already find it.

But, of course, not every company can get it to the highest maturity level. And in fact, not every company needs it. A company producing glass bottles for the last 20+ years is not likely to revolutionize its business by introducing some changes in IT.

It is much more important here to watch the balance between the business need for IT, its IT maturity, the understanding of the situation by people from business on the one side, and IT provider focus, mindset, its business maturity on the other side.

If you try to map your company or some example from your experience on this maturity model, it will immediately become evident where and what type of disagreement might be there, and what possible improvements are needed.

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Notes:

Initially the model was introduced in 2006 by Paul Leenards and was based on the models of Nolan and McFarlan. You can find a brief description on his blog.

Resently I made a scientific research to challenge, validate the model and see how well it reflects the real-life situation. If interested, you can download the complete public report here.

Three Strategies of CIO

A nice quality of any really good generic model is that it can be relatively easily translated from its original area of focus to any other domain. In this way a model from organizational management after minor adjustments can prove helpful for finances, knowledge sharing or innovation management domain.

MS Word in its SmartArt function (even though I don't like it) has many recognized patterns for the commonly used model shapes.

Models in the form of pyramids, value-chains, lists or matrices are used everywhere. But appropriate shape is only one side of the coin. More important one is the side on which we can read the value of the coin, i.e. the content part of a model.

Lately I tried to play with a strategic model of Treacy and Wiersema and translate it to the IT domain.

Treacy and Wiersema's analysis of successful companies led them to believe that there are three powerful ways of dominating markets, which they call Value Disciplines: Product Leadership, Operational Excellence and Customer Intimacy. Each discipline requires different skills, organisation and coporate focus although Treacy and Wiersema believed that no discipline could be neglected and companies need to be at least competent in all three.

• Operational Excellence: superb operations and execution often by providing a reasonable quality at a very low price. The focus is on efficiency, streamlining operations, Supply Chain Management, no-frills, volume counts. Most large international corporations are working out of this discipline.


• Product Leadership: very strong in innovation and brand marketing, operating in dynamic markets. The focus is on development, innovation, design, time-to-market, high margins in a short timeframe.


• Customer Intimacy: excel in customer attention and customer service. Tailor their products and services to individual or almost individual customers. Focus is on CRM, deliver products and services on time and above customer expectations, lifetime value concepts, reliability, being close to the customer.

The CIO role is usually explained by binary inherent contradictions: business acumen versus technology skills, operational fixation versus strategic ambitions, innovation versus cost containment, enterprise responsibility versus siloed demands, etc.

The triple of Treacy and Wiersema can give us a new perspective on those contradictions. Looking through the IT glasses we can see the model as possible strategies of an internal IT organization or as attention points on CIO agenda.

The three directions in this case will be:

First of all, similar to Treacy and Wiersema model, here your IT organization cannot succeed if any of three is lower than some minimum threshold. Second, depending on available budget, importance of IT how it is perceived by business, organizational maturity and other factors, one of three can really be a dominant strategy. But let's take a look at them one by one.

• Stable Infrastructure: (similar to Operational Excellence) The focus is on efficiency, low price and excellent stable operations. A company should not even notice its IT. And IT should provide reliable, stable and smooth support of all necessary functions at reasonably low cost. A better name for a CIO here is IT director.
  
  The necessary and sufficient innovation limit here is timely updates of hardware and software with as little disruption as possible. The partnership with business is limited to the reports with numbers and explanations in cases of accidents.


• Partnership With Business: (similar to Client Intimacy) Products and services are tailored here to the business needs. CIO and IT managers should understand the specifics of the business they support, main processes and information flows. Active communication between business and IT is essential. And the focus of conversations is on the business needs and problems and how they can be solved by IT.
  
  Infrastructure is important as a background here not to interfere in conversations with business managers. If the corporate e-mail server is down, it is not the best time for a CIO to discuss business needs. Innovation can be a part of conversations and make a part of portfolio. But usually this strategy is present when the core business does not require insights from IT visionaries. Besides, the number areas for possible internal improvements makes it not reasonable for a CIO to venture with radical externally-oriented innovation and risk getting spoiled relations in case of failure.


• Innovative Disruptions: (similar to Product Leadership) The role of CIO and IT managers here is to bring innovation and new opportunities. Every change in IT world - be it a new operating system, new gadget or new communication medium - can open new possibilities or bring new threats for the company. The CIO here is like a watchman skanning the technology horizon, picking the most promicing innovations, and taking measures against the most potentially dangerous ones.
  
  Infrastructure has to be stable enough here, same as in the previous point. Partnership with business is important to some degree. But instead of (or in addition to) adjusting to business needs and cementing the existing business model, IT serves now as a catalyst to organizational change.

What do you think about this "translation"? Can you find examples of those strategies or attention points in your experience?

Why business-IT alignment is so important?

Why alignment is so important?

Not just in general. Alignment is often said to be an interesting topic only for IT folks and not for business managers. So, why alignment is important from the point of view of the IT Function?

The answer is very simple - because you have no choice. In the open market you select your target group, you shape your proposition based on your strengths, if some clients aren’t satisfied you might not care – they are just not your clients and you should pay more attention to other ones.

At the same time in an organization you still do something which is to a large extent different from the core business, but now you have no choice. You have only one client that you have to please independently of your strengths and propositions. The only solution is to perfectly align with your client, i.e. “business”, and in ideal situation integrate with it.

So, what are the possible solutions?

IT Function has to be organized as a business itself, with three parts (strategic, tactical, operational) and with specific departments like sales, marketing, HR etc. Alignment topic is to a large extent then important WITHIN IT Function, so that marketing which sells the solutions and services understands the possibilities of operation lines, and they understand and accept the strategic vision of IT Function. Of course, in the vision of IT Function the strategy of business must play the central role here.

Different IT Functions can be created to serve different levels of maturity. Innovation and routine exploitation can rarely be done by the same people and same departments. We can see from many examples as well that it worked as a solution. The difficulty here is to establish the smooth flow of ideas and responsibilities between departments. Innovation is only temporary, which means that new ideas should constantly be found, researched and developed. Good ideas should be integrated in operations, less prospective ones should be abandoned.

Innovation is an important necessity for the survival of the more mature organizations. Numerous examples of launching a separate IT Function, i.e. separate business unit devoted to technological innovation, also support this.

And, of course, for smaller organizations, those less mature in terms of IT-awareness, or those representing industries where IT cannot provide any serious competitive benefits, here a possible solution can be to acquire all needed IT services – which are not more than a commodity in this case – from external providers. And internally in such organizations you need only a small group of IT-aware people who will coordinate the providers and, once again, will assure alignment with the organizational goals, vision and strategy.

ITIL Analogies

Analogies is an important tool in the communications portfolio. They can help explain complex phenomena or can help manipulate the perception of your audience.

How good are you at reading analogies? And can you notice that subtle point when from being useful an analogy becomes misleading? Try yourself on this example. And don't hesitate to write your thoughts in the comments.

ITIL is like Windows OS. You install it to get some basics to be able to work with your PC or notebook (i.e. IT organization). It has some crappy features: mediaplayer which does not satisfy your demands to watching videos, paint or photoviewer which do not provide you functions you need to view your photos and add basic corrections, explorer showing you only one folder while you want to compare, copy or move the content between two or more different folders. Still, those functions can meet your basic needs "somehow".

It is incredibly complex and non-intuitive. In case you see Windows for the first time, you without any doubt need a qualified specialist (external consultant) to find your way around and make things start working. Even when you have learned about it a bit (or a lot), you still can manage only basic functions on your own. And the more complex tweaking remains a sacred domain of dedicated professionals.

At the same time the OS provides the inevitable basis to be able to work with your PC. And without that basic functionality it is difficult to go on. But once you get a basic grip on things, you can add different other applications (read methods and frameworks) that fulfill your needs much better, look more friendly and are understood more easily. You install Picasa or FastStone for viewing photos, add MS Office (from the same manufacturer - e.g. Prince2?), install Winamp and your favorite video player for music and videos, maybe some very specific applications are added as well... Together they create your portfolio which helps in your specific situation. And the operating system - if it is working and stable - goes to the background and becomes an invisible commodity. You notice its existence only when it is loading too long or when it crashes.

One major problem here is that not that many people can understand all pros and cons of different applications and make conscious choice for the better ones. Some find this too complex, others do not care. Take the basic example of the web-browser app (you can think of ITIL analogy yourself here). Look at the market shares distribution and you will understand how many people have never thought of trying any alternative to IE. Should you still be an IT professional to change your browser nowadays? Maybe.

But can you do without Windows (ITIL) at all? - yes, why not. Just install a linux-based system or buy the competely different equipment set from Apple.

Will it be better? - I doubt. No matter how many drawbacks the major standard might have, it is still the standard. And it means the support by all additional services (whether applications or experts, frameworks and good practices). And it is those additional services - not the basic standardized foundation - which in fact bring you some real added value.

Focus on CIO

Different focuses, different opinions, different skills and tools portfolio's... By reading different books, articles or blog-posts you might create a strikingly different image of the position and role of a CIO.

The information technology is evolving on and is becoming less of something complex, strange and specific which only techno-geeks could understand. It resembles more of inherent and inevitable part of any business where every manager or executive must know at least a little bit about.

In the same way the clear trend can be seen in articles and opinions (and of course in reality as well). The role of a CIO is becoming less and less of something like a back-office function and more about strategic thinking, vision, understanding the drivers of growth and value. Technological knowledge and related skills might still be considered as a plus, but only if they don't interfere with the really valuable competencies of C-level position. Competencies like leadership, ability to think strategically, to convey and defend your vision, to sift out really promising innovation trends come to the forefront.

A nice recent article by Harvard Business Review "Should Your Next Job Be CIO?" illustrates the situation by referring to other studies, examples and self-explaining numbers.

"Gartner Inc.'s 2008 worldwide survey of more than 1,500 CIOs showed that over 50% held responsibilities in their companies outside IT, including strategic planning, operations, and shared services."

"almost 26% of the CIOs responding were executives who had never served in IT before becoming CIO"

Another example from the same HBR article shows that the current job of a CIO is not that much different of the one of CEO. Even though the transition from the CIO position to the one of a CEO are still rare in large successful companies (see examples here and here), it might not be the case in 5 or 10 years. And the responsibilities and values for both positions have very much in common already today.

So, whether you just consider a CIO carreer or have been working at this position for somewhile, don't forget to revise your skills and competencies once in a while and make sure that "soft" ones make a large enough part of them.

Business-IT Alignment - is it a proper name?

Business-IT Alignment has always been a hot topic among CIOs, IT managers and consultants. Alignment was in the Top-10 IT management issues from 1980 through 1994, as reported by the Society for Information Management. Since 2006 it has been the topmost important issue on the agenda of CIOs around the world according to research by Luftman.

According to McKinsey after the recession shaking the world in 2008 IT has become even more important to improving business efficiency and reducing costs across the enterprise. One of the main conclusions from their survey of 444 executives representing the full range of industries, regions, and company sizes around the world was that despite the economic crisis, leaders need to continue improving the integration of their business and technology strategies.

Every now and then you can see articles and blog posts arguing that 'Alignment' is not a proper name, that it does not reflect the core of the issue.

This argument can be traced in the scientific publications of the past. Alignment was not the only name in the literature. You could find it by the names of fit (Chan 1992); (Henderson & Venkatraman 1993), linkage (Reich 1993), and integration (Henderson & Venkatraman 1993), as well as bridge (Ciborra 1997), harmony (Luftman & Brier 1999), and fusion (Smaczny 2001).

The same argument is going on these days in the blogs, practice communities, on forums and in whitepapers. Some experts eagerly argue that other name should be used instead of 'alignment'. Other even say that we cannot talk about business and IT anymore, because business is IT.

Well, sure IT is not a golden baby among other departments supporting business, such as Finance, HR or Marketing. But at the same time IT is relatively young constituent of business and technology is changing very rapidly and frequently. This brings up misunderstanding and misalignment problem again and again. So, no matter by what name, the problem has to be addressed.

Personally I can agree with any of the names mentioned. Some of them really highlight specific aspect of alignment. Other show desirable ideal state.

However the whole concept and domain of alignment is so large and at the same time vague and undefined that narrowing it down will not bring much good.

You will not find the exact definition of alignment that will provoke no objections. Some call it a final state, desirable destination while other describe alignment as a process, an ongoing journey. Some see the problem in different language used by business and IT, while other say it is all about organizational structure, roles and responsibilities.

Alignment to a large extent intersects with other urgent topics and areas of attention, such as IT Governance, Information Management, IT/IS Strategy, Change Management... And in different sources you will find different opinions on what is a part, what is the whole, or whether they are just two different domains.

Besides, it is not only alignment between Business and IT. Vertical alignment of strategy, management and operations is not less important and forms a part of the whole 'Alignment' concept as well.

I believe that for such vague concepts there is no sense in adding misunderstanding and disagreement by introducing new 'better' names or just buzzwords. 'Alignment' is a historically formed term and it is the most accepted by experts and scientists.

Maybe it is not the best one. But, same as many other 'large' historically formed names with a large body of knowledge and multiple ideas behind, alignment has a name and it has a spirit, an idea. Idea of coming to agreement, consensus and mutual effort towards the common goal.

There is no formal certification or attemts of setting rigid rules and definitions concerning what is alignment, what belongs to it and what not. Until it happens (which is very unlikely) there is not much reason in trying to fight against it and promote other alternative names. If only for marketing or other very specific goals.