Putting one foot in front of the other (part 6)

In a previous post, I suggested some of the fundamental, structural changes I think IT will have to undergo in the next 10-15 years. And to me, these changes are not optional: organizations will have to make them; the only question is who will risk the difficulties and step up to lead them (and reap the substantial rewards)?

With that done, I’ve come back to Earth a bit to kick off a series of more modest posts that look at some of the baby steps IT needs to take to evolve into a truly strategic capability.

To me, once an IT leader adopts the correct orientation of her department as a strategic asset primarily focused on delivering business value (rather than IT capabilities), she has a number of very tactical areas to address:

Demand pipeline
Structured requirements
Developer-heavy staffing
Agile methods/approaches
Service catalog
Portfolio management (including rationalization)

In this post, we’ll take a look at the last, portfolio management.

Putting one foot in front of the other (part 5)

In a previous post, I suggested some of the fundamental, structural changes I think IT will have to undergo in the next 10-15 years. And to me, these changes are not optional: organizations will have to make them; the only question is who will risk the difficulties and step up to lead them (and reap the substantial rewards)?

With that done, I’ve come back to Earth a bit to kick off a series of more modest posts that look at some of the baby steps IT needs to take to evolve into a truly strategic capability.

To me, once an IT leader adopts the correct orientation of her department as a strategic asset primarily focused on delivering business value (rather than IT capabilities), she has a number of very tactical areas to address:

Demand pipeline
Structured requirements
Developer-heavy staffing
Agile methods/approaches
Service catalog
Portfolio management (including rationalization)

In this post, we’ll take a look at the fifth, service catalog.

Putting one foot in front of the other (part 4)

In a previous post, I suggested some of the fundamental, structural changes I think IT will have to undergo in the next 10-15 years. And to me, these changes are not optional: organizations will have to make them; the only question is who will risk the difficulties and step up to lead them (and reap the substantial rewards)?

With that done, I’ve come back to Earth a bit to kick off a series of more modest posts that look at some of the baby steps IT needs to take to evolve into a truly strategic capability.

To me, once an IT leader adopts the correct orientation of her department as a strategic asset primarily focused on delivering business value (rather than IT capabilities), she has a number of very tactical areas to address:

Demand pipeline
Structured requirements
Developer-heavy staffing
Agile methods/approaches
Service catalog
Portfolio management (including rationalization)
In this post, we’ll take a look at the fourth, Agile methods/approaches.

Being in the right place at the right time

When I think about the difference between a great leader and an exceptional one, part of the answer is being in the right place at the right time, whether that means the right organization at the right time, the right industry at the right time, or the right discipline at the right time.

And when I think about the most pressing challenges facing organizations in 2010, one of the most critical is how to transform IT into a strategic, core competency analogous to the transformations manufacturing and supply chain went through in the eighties and nineties. Which means that IT leaders today are in the right place at the right time to be exceptional—if they can manage this transformation.