Enterprise 2.0 Isn’t a Checklist

May 27, 2009 at 1:46 pm · Filed under Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, Organizational Design, Social Computing

When speaking at national Data Warehousing conferences years ago I was surprised by two clear patterns:

1. Each year, over 50% of the people in attendance were new to the field and often were there because they’d ‘inherited’ responsibility for a data warehousing initiative, but knew nothing about the industry or the practices.
2. Because of #1, the majority of the attendees were under tremendous pressure to perform. They were looking for recipes — checklists that they could take home and just start working on.

This appears to be indicative of all emerging disciplines/practices. But for Enterprise 2.0, unlike Data Warehousing, the predominant focus is NOT technology. And yet, from where does the funding or focus from such initiatives typically come? This is a much larger issue — one related to obsolete organizational design practices. The reason IT is the most obvious choice for sponsorship is that it is the only organization not vertically challenged — it delivers (or should) only horizontal services to an enterprise — crossing all other departments. Indeed, IT is one of the few organizations that takes on the battle to find common threads across organizations to weave the horizontal lines of the tapestry that holds the business together.

And yet, the approaches needed for E2.0 initiatives are the antithesis of typical IT practices.

1. There are no rules; there are no requirements
   An optimal E2.0 initiative evolves organically (hold that thought for further clarification). E2.0 initiatives are the canary for Business 2.0 — if they die, the business will as well (either absorbed by the larger market or re-emerging anew after an identity meltdown).
2. The goal is not Binary Code
   This is the realm for Design Thinking, not Analytical Thinking (previously noted: end of piece). As Roger Martin alludes to in The Design of Business (starting pg 6) this is an era to shift away from the locked down binary code of repeatability (optimal for machinery) and become more comfortable with the ’squishy’ realm of the heuristic (optimal for capitalizing on human wetware). It doesn’t mean that we abandon the right side of the continuum — mystery…heuristic…algorithm…binary code — but that we shift to the left.
3. Controls are Nooses of Death
   This is the realm of ‘middles’: neither chaos or order, but a powerful, constantly changing space called complexity (think practice of ’science’ not ‘lots of pieces’). IT is still focused on increasing controls to improve results — increasing compliance, embracing defined practices of Project Management, etc. If you’re building a spaceship and lives are at stake, these practices are a must. If you’re running a company in today’s turbulent marketplace, everything that is locked down and fixed prevents the real human capital of the organization from adapting to constantly changing circumstances. There is never an ideal process or system and there will always be exceptions. IT cannot respond fast enough to these changes. That means the flexibility has to be built into the systems. This is not to suggest that controls are abandoned — it simply means that all of the existing controls have to be questioned and likely changed for greater human oversight throughout the organization (managed via a distributed social governance model, not a hierarchy).
4. It’s not about a Blog or a Wiki
   A true sign of a E2.0 initiative destined for failure is one that focuses on the technologies. Certainly there are a variety of technologies that enhance and help to enable E2.0, but even as technologies, they are absolutely ineffective when implemented with a typical IT approach: install them. Blogs, Wikis, Mashups, and other Social Computing mechanisms are elements of a flexible infrastructure. As a solution they have to be architected. This will prove problematic for most IT groups for the same reason that SOA has failed — IT hires ‘drafters’ not ‘architects’. In company after company, the majority of people I’ve met who hold ‘architect’ titles know nothing about real design: they can draft solutions, but not architect them (the problem starts with the job descriptions — check out some postings).

So what IS Enterprise 2.0 focused on? People: tapping the human potential, helping to change the way business gets done by optimizing it not to the systems but to the people. Not shaping the people (via training and documentation) to the systems and the business, but changing the systems and the business to optimize the potential of the people.

Enterprise 2.0 is a mindset, framed by the orders of nature: enabling endless possibilities, organizing simple things in simple ways.

Enterprise 2.0 is about facilitating orderly chaos:

• Minimizing Structure, Optimizing Connections
• Tapping Existing Kinetic Energy
• Celebrating Flaw-Finding and Fixing
• Supporting Rapid Change

How do you get there?

• Truly Utilize Resources
  It’s not a destination — it’s a journey. You’re already on the path: embrace where you stand. First assess whether or not existing resources have access to one another: the people element. Finding people has to be the first priority. Determine the typical scenarios for problem solving and recognize that departments or hierarchies do not hold the answers to business problems/issues: people do. Warning: classic ‘expertise locator’ technologies will likely not be the right answer here.
• Shorten Distances
  Simplify all aspects of ‘doing’ business. Repeatedly ask: What can we stop doing? Leverage what’s working (from the perspective of all individuals impacted, not just those with ‘management’ responsibility to execute) — bypass the rest. From an IT perspective, being successful here the concept of software as we know it goes away. The desktop becomes a collection of functions that can be assembled into sequential processes, but are not locked into place. Existing applications can be tapped, bypassing inefficient UIs and raising the most relevant activities and functions to the ‘top’ (omnipresence). Even two years ago Dion Hinchcliffe introduced the concept of situational software.

• Embrace Organic
  Organic is not chaotic. A palm frond is distinct from a maple leaf. Nature has order, but that order is under rapid cycles of repeated construction and destruction. The question becomes one of determining what structure is necessary to support a specific, unique pattern (purpose), yet does not prevent the ability to adapt to constantly changing conditions — not only to survive, but flourish.
• Shift Focus
  Particularly for IT, the focus shifts from code (developers) to UI (designers). Coders are trained to make things binary; good designers are comfortable with the ’squishiness’ of heuristics. That doesn’t mean developers go away; it means that there should be a 1-to1 ratio of developers and designers. They’re two totally different kinds of mindsets — and while there are unique individuals who can do both, it’s rare that 1) you can find them or 2) you know what to look for and adequately assess. Besides, there’s an important phase of working through the natural ‘dissonance’ that will occur between these two mindsets. This can be lost when resolved in the mind of a single person (or it will just increase work-induced-schizophrenia, ala. stress). The fallacy of paired programming is not in the number, but in the resources and their focus. Pairs should be made up of two different perspectives.
• Shift Thinking
  Design Thinking requires a different approach: it focuses on trying out multiple possibilities (fail fast) to test an algoritm — a problem statement. Don’t think problem=flaw, but problem=mathematical equation. Different algorithms solve different problems. Many solutions fail because they either 1) started with the wrong question (the solution is the answer to the question) or 2) did not adapt to change the question (the problem statement) as more was learned along the way. Our current definition and funding of projects is a key contributor to this fatal flaw.
• Shift Culture
  A company that has been optimized for ‘machine’ design (command and control), will have a culture that reinforces such behaviors. Such a culture will undermine E2.0 potential. It will seek to eliminate the efforts as a ‘foreign body’. A different culture is not a prerequisite, it’s a corequisite. It should evolve as enabled by the other changes. Such cultures have to move from ‘rules’ to ‘guidelines’; from ‘fixed processes’ to ‘governance models’; from binary to heuristic (obvious exceptions will be for those industries and/or business artifacts subject to legislation).

A primary challenge is that we’re so used to operating in ‘binary’ that we attempt to turn everything into linear processes. This is not a linear solution space (in reality, neither is business — we’ve only artificially forced it to be so). Most of these things are codependent — they rely on small changes from the other dimensions to accommodate their own change. This is ‘informed change’ not ‘command and control change’. How is this possible? Social computing — facilitating conversations and exchange of business artifacts that are: transparent, persistent and accessible.

Now we can start the technology discussion…

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The Return On Investment in Interaction (ROII) – Using Twitter for Purposeful Contextual Social Search in Social Medical Networks

May 25, 2009 at 8:17 pm · Filed under FASTforward'09, Interaction, Measurement, Network Effect, Social Computing, Social Networking, Trust, Trusted Space, Twitter

The Return on Investment (ROI) with respect to the use of social computing is a hot topic these days, as more and more organizations and business sectors are realizing social media and social computing are here to stay.  Indeed, I just finished co-authoring (with Jay Cross) an article for CLO Magazine laying the groundwork for a new approach to making decisions about investing in social computing capability and dynamics in business environments.  I’ll share an abbreviated version here in the next several days.

A number of other practitioners and theorists who pay attention to networks and their dynamics (such as FASTForward’s Jevon Macdonald and Joe McKendrick, Dion Hinchcliffe, Valdis Krebs, Matthew Hodgson, Patti Anklam, Jessica Lipnack, and others) have covered the same or similar ground.  It is becoming more apparent that the returns from network activities are found in intangibles that do not fit well into the industrial era concept of Return on Investment (an accounting concept used to make investment decisions in stable, time-defined, typically single-purpose use cases).  New assumptions and methods for assessing what to do are needed.

So, I’d like to use the reporting in a ZDNet article that caught my eye titled “A Real ROI From Twitter ?  The Start of Social Medical Networks“  to discuss several of the key issues about whether or not to use social computing to achieve purposeful goals and objectives..

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There may not be a big enough return on tweeting yet to report it to your CFO. But it won’t be long before there’s a clear, return on tweeting to report it to your doctor.

[ Snip ... ]

At the Autism One Conference in Chicago, a Web-based program for collecting data on individual cases of the brain development disorder will be unveiled. It’s called ChARMTracker and is designed, at the start, to help ease the burdens of each parent trying to keep track of the drugs, nutritional supplements, physical therapies and dietary tacks being taken to treat their sons or daughters. They will also use it to keep track of any observations about their behaviors that might seem pertinent and how their children are performing academically, as a result of the constantly changing constellation of combinations that are being applied to the still-mystic condition.

[ Snip ... ]

Horn has, for instance, collected 60 two-inch thick binders of observations, medical and supplement records about Sophie, over the last 11 years. Those records would be available to Sophie’s doctors and health care aides, in an instant, if ChARMtracker had been around from the start. They would also be part of a growing mound of evidence on how drugs, supplements, therapies and diet affected autistic individuals, as they grew and evolved.

[ Snip .. ]

Pramila has founded another company, MedicalMine Inc., which will take what she has developed and try to extend the approach to other chronic physical conditions and forms of disease management.

If all goes well, parents and patients will not just be collecting and sharing data through sites like this on the Web. They’ll be communicating with doctors and providing real-time evidence of results, through tweets and other instant messaging technologies. In some cases, sensors will provide constant streams of data that will be put into the record and analyzed, for individuals and the group, as a whole.

These social medical networks could wind up being “the most fundamental IT app” that a family or its friends need, when desperately seeking answers about afflictions suffered by anyone they care about.

For that, every data element – and every tweet – will count.

And, over the long haul, produce a calculable return.

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So, to begin measuring increases in effectiveness and value in a networked social computing environment, please consider the concept of Return on Investment in Interaction (ROII), which we have derived from the principles of Metcalfe’s Law of Networks (as have many of the others cited above).  Why, you may ask, do the above excerpts portend being able to identify and / or assess Return on Investment in Interaction ?

Identifying and Measuring ROII (Return on Investment in Interaction)

The focus in purposeful networked environments is to do what’s important and involve those who know what’s important, why it’s important and what they know (or know how to find out) about a problem or issue.

Let’s define some core assumptions about ROII :

• Continuous flows of information are the raw material of value creation and overall performance,
• Information flows are carried by links, alerts, RSS feeds, search engines, aggregation and filtering of content, etc.
• All leading social / collaboration platforms now feature social networking, search and computing capabilities,
• These platforms’ architectures facilitate purposeful cross-silo communications and exchange.

Social networking pioneer Valdis Krebs has outlined four generic metrics that are becoming widely accepted as leading to observable, tangible, measurable outputs:

• Increase in size of network  
• Increase in internal network connectivity 
• Increase in connection to valuable 3^rd parties   
• Increase in number of projects formed from all three factors above 

It’s important, we think, to note here that we are not proposing a definitive answer but rather the need to debate and clarify the issue(s). However, an attentive read of the ZDNet article referenced above clearly aligns with Krebs’ four principles:

1. Increase in size of network:  As The CHARMTracker database grows and the volume of families’ data it holds increases, it’s utility to doctors, other health care professionals and the families themselves increases.  And, as the article points out, if and when the data begins to be (appropriately) used by those networked around the health issues, the value of the interaction will increase in an (likely) exponential fashion.

2. Increase in internal network connectivity:  Again, as suggested by the paragraphs excerpted from the ZDNet article, as more and more participants are networked into the CHARMTracker information and begin to use the dynamics of social networks to seek for and circulate pertinent and useful information, each time a piece of information is useful to someone there’s a tangible return on the intangible capacity offered by the flows of information and knowledge.

3. Increase in connection to valuable 3rd parties:  As more information fills the CHARMTracker database, and more doctors, health care professional and families use it, the apparent value will become clear to others with expertise or value to provide to the social medical network that will have grown up around autism issues.  Expect to see both volunteer and for-profit services to be added to the growing ecosystem of knowledge and attention.  

This expected outcome reminds me of the core argument of Shoshan Zuboff’s book “The Support Economy – Why Corporation Are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism”, wherein she argues that the complexity surrounding many issues in today’s society are such that all sorts of people (consumers, families, professionals, and so on) will need “support” that can be designed, built and delivered via the digital interlinked infrastructure we know as the Web.

4. Increase in number of projects formed from all three factors above:  It’s pretty easy to imagine that as the CHARMTRacker database and its use(s) take root, there will be other clever and useful projects that grow out of the experience and the learning it affords.  Doc Searls, of Cluetrain Manifesto and VRM (Vendor Relations Management) fame once sagely noted that one of the critical outcomes of operating in purposeful social networks was the “scaffolding” (building in layer upon layer) of useful knowledge. 

That’s how circulating pertinent information and sharing useful knowledge works .. we don’t go backwards, we build on what’s useful and what works.  That’s how Return On Investment in Interaction will work and will deliver value to organization and groups who decide to use social networks, linked information and data, and social computing dynamics to accelerate their effectiveness towards achieving their purpose.

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MIT Sloan CIO Symposium Keynote Panel Part Four: Cloud Computing

May 25, 2009 at 4:04 pm · Filed under FASTforward'09

Here are my notes on the fourth of four panels I attended at the MIT CIO symposium. See MIT Sloan CIO Symposium: Part One: The Virtual Organization for the introduction to this series

Moderator: Mr. Brian Watson, Editor in Chief, CIO Insight. Brian said that the cloud is a hot topic but there seems to still be a lot of uncertainty. He asked the panel where we will be in the cloud in a year. What are biggest barriers?

Mr. Ron Markezich, Corporate VP, Microsoft Online. The cloud is a marketing term and we tend to distrust these terms but it will grow. There is a misconception that everything will move to the cloud but it will be a long period. It is an option to use but not the total solution. One barrier now is a comfort level. Another technology barrier are the legacy applications in place. Less of a barrier is network access. You do not have use a browser for everything on the Web, email is an example.

The term cloud is being over used by vendors because it is a hot topic. We need to define it within your organization so business leaders are not confused.

It is more than just saving money. If you only focus on cost reduction, you miss the innovation opportunity. He provided an example of a CEO being able to blog to employees to establish a closer connection on a global basis.

You want your cloud service provider to be in business for the long term and expanding their service offerings.

Mr. Ed Bugnion, VP, Cisco. He offered the quote, “the faster the computer, the longer it takes to log in” and said this applies now. The cloud provides  a transformation of data centers to a virtual environment, from fixed resources to a more fluid environment. The necessary building blocks are a presence of reliable infrastructure, the use of virtualization, and the need for scale to meet demand. IT people spend so much time keeping existing stuff running so it is appealing to move that chore for new stuff to someone else. 

Mr. Emil Sayegh, GM Mosso, Rackspace Cloud. Emil said in a year most CIOs will have looked at the cloud. There will also be the outsource issue and whether it is done in a cloud environment.  The world will be a combination of cloud and on-premise. Many applications are not written for the cloud so there are migration issues. Also government regulations do not allow cloud options for some applications. Emil encouraged CIOs to experiment with the cloud. They will see ways to save money.

Emil gave an example of effective use of the cloud. The week before the US Presidential election the major TV channels came to his firm to set up temporary infrastructure to support web sites for up surge during election.  The flexibility of the cloud and ability for short-term commitments are a big plus in this economy to convince CEOs.

The strongest value proposition is the ability to get started quickly. You can get a quick start and do not have to deal with legacy. Twitpic is an example. Twitpic used their services. They got the picture capture capability all around the world right away.

Mr. Bill Rogers, CIO and VP of Information Technology, Goss International. About a year ago Bill moved some non-mission critical applications to the cloud. It was easier to do and he saved money. It is a new business model for customers of IT and one that can be painful. He sees the cloud just for non-mission critical applications.

Some CIOs just need to step up and lead the way but they need a compelling business case. Energy costs savings can be one ROI driver. He is pleased that cloud providers only asked for 30 day notice of discontinuing. He also had a path to put data back on his servers if needed so Bill felt less risk and good flexibility. There needs to be a standard definition of the cloud.  Too many are floating around. 

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MIT Sloan CIO Symposium Part Three: Enterprise 2.0

May 25, 2009 at 4:00 pm · Filed under FASTforward'09

Here are my notes on the third of four panels I attended at the MIT CIO symposium. See MIT Sloan CIO Symposium: Part One: The Virtual Organization for the introduction to this series.

Moderator: Andrew McAfee, Visiting Associate Professor Center for Digital Business at MIT. He first asked why web 2.0, what qualifies the change to 2.0 from 1.0? Then he picked up on the human element and asked if people are different in web 2.0 and not just the technology. Andrew gave an example of HR person who used blog to roll out new policies. Employees were able to comment on the new ideas and see others’ comments. It greatly enhanced the process.

Andrew also asked, “What is negative about web 2.0 or it is all just happiness?”

Then he asked, “What about the issue of increased egalitarianism in Web 2.0? Is this all good? Did we have hierarchies for a good reason or no reason?

Finally Andrew asked how the consumer web will impact the enterprise in 3 to 5 years? How will the openness of web 2.0 play out in enterprise?

Anne Convey, VP of Marketing and Product Strategy Clickfox. Clickfox allows you to capture customer data on behavior and model it.

Anne said the Web 2.0 label is well deserved. The question is how it will mature? The human factor is huge. If companies do not understand Web 2.0, they will be left behind.

People have to act differently in web 2.0. At Clickfox, they use Agile development. Users can now get uses to provide input to development. There is also more self-governance.

Web 2.0 is good for business. Now more people can speak and share ideas. There is also bad news. There is a greater need to filter the large amount of information and opinions. There are now a growing industry of tools to manage the information overload of web 2.0.

The biggest risk for enterprise 2.0 is managing the behavior of people to not reveal the wrong stuff.

Clickfox monitors and measures the impact of social media on the awareness of their company. They also measure the use of social tools in product development. Anne implied results are both positive.

Anne believes the openness of Web 2.0 will play out in the enterprise. She feels Web 2.0 and enterprise 2.0 is blurring the boundaries between these two approaches.

One new thing about enterprise 2.0: users define use of tools more rather than being told what to do with them.

Mr. Sid Probstein, CTO Attivio – Attrivio provided unified search across structured and unstructured data

In response to the question – why web 2.0? Sid said it changed the model of the relationship between a company and its customers and its partners. It extends data to recommend what is interesting about data. There is now more collaboration between companies and partners.

Sid said that we do not know all the issues so we do not know bad ones yet. The transparency can have down side if wrong stuff gets exposed. Sid believes the openness of Web 2.0 will play out in enterprise.

Sid mentioned that he led IT in three startups. Each one spent less money on development than the prior one. He implied it was because of more efficient work processes. Sid said that wikis spread like wild fire inside enterprise. I agree as wikis work better inside the firewall with trusted groups. Expert location through analysis of social media behavior is another key application.

In answer to what is the biggest risk for enterprise 20 is managing the behavior of people to not reveal the wrong stuff. Companies need to educate employees on what is appropriate – e.g., never blog about a customer.

Mr. Raheel Retiwalla, CTO Monitor Analytics and Clearway Technology Partners His firm enables collaboration and dissemination of insights through Sharepoint. Raheel gave examples of Web 2.0 success. A small company used an extranet portal for nine months to get presence information on partners and provide better service. This was a success and it is now offering this service to other customers. The barrier between the outside world and the enterprise is fading.

Raheel believes the openness of Web 2.0 will play out in enterprise. He also that as social tools get on mobile devices, they will lower the digital divide. Andrew added that there is strong use of mobile devices in Africa.

Raheel said that their company allows users to rate content received through Sharepoint. Then people can understand the prospective of their fellow employees about information.

Mr. Geoffrey Oblak, General Partner Ascent Venture Partners. Their VC firm supports enterprise 2.0. Geoff said that Web 2.0 is justified but poorly understood. Currently, the Web 2.0 consumer market leads and the enterprise market follows. There is now are fewer boundaries between personal space and workspace. Their eleven person firm uses Sharepoint and wikis to track company data, especially contact information. It provides a richer source and greater connection.

Geoffrey said that some of their firms are moving IT development out of lab and doing more with users. He said that in Web 1.0 transformation there were greater security risks. These same risks can occur in Web 2.0 but perhaps in different forms.

When asked how the consumer web will impact the enterprise in 3 to 5 years.  He said the openness of web 2.0 will play out in enterprise. However, we need to be prepared for a backlash.  Already some companies are blocking social media sites. However, over time most organizations will learn to embrace Web 2.0.

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MIT Sloan CIO Symposium: Part Two: CIO Leadership and the Bottom Line

May 21, 2009 at 6:04 pm · Filed under FASTforward'09

Here are my notes on the second of four panels I attended at the MIT CIO symposium. See MIT Sloan CIO Symposium: Part One: The Virtual Organization for the introduction to this series. As I said in the introduction, I found this event interesting to hear what people in these roles are thinking rather than as a source for new ideas. However, this is not a criticism. 

CIO Keynote Panel: CIO Leadership and the Bottom Line

Moderator: Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson, Director Center for Digital Business at MIT. Erik first asked the panel how their bottom line was measured. Then he asked them to reflect on how the attribution of their efforts toward broader company performance is determined. Next, he asked about use of the cloud. The panel went around but I grouped their comments over the period under their name.

Mr. Bob Greenberg, General Manager Information Technology Optimization IBM. He was a CIO before. At IBM the CIO role usually is for two years and then you are rotated to other business roles. Bob said the CIO provides great experience for other business roles. Bob spoke about the metrics in IBM that he needs to pay attention to. His group provides support across IBM and he has been there for 30 years. Software and services have become their largest groups raising over hardware. Now the metrics, first there are the traditional cost and revenue ones. There is also a broader range such as time to get someone skilled. 

Bob said that attribution was not that difficult. There is project plan for all activities with milestones costs and benefits. Bob said that the cloud will make sense in certain places such as test and development. It also makes sense to have a virtual desktop to reduce cost of changing physical desktops.

RADM Elizabeth Hight, Rear Admiral, Vice Director Defense Information Systems Agency. There are 7 million users plus mission partners – other countries and NGOs so scale is a big issue. Her group provides services to all of the DoD and provides the data backbone. The metrics for her group are different than the private sector. They are rated on mission assurance, can the people they support do the job. The specifics of this changes constantly, sometimes hourly. The bottom line is whether the user can get the data when needed.

Elizabeth discussed their use of cloud computing to provide data exchange with unanticipated partners on short notice in places such as Pakistan where users (e.g., Doctors without Borders) can go into the DoD intranet and provide credit card for an ID to get data and other IT services. They provide mobile wifi and other means of access in remote areas. As a cloud provider she looks to virtualization a lot to save time and money. However, there is a cultural issue here, more than the technology. Elizabeth said there are many “rock cutters” who need to see physical things but they are overcoming this resistance. She thinks their security is better in the cloud because they have tighter configuration control.

When asked for examples of when IT makes a difference in combat, Elizabeth mention unmanned aerial surveillance planes that are piloted remotely by pilots who are not even located where the vehicle is housed. The data is provided to many different groups with different focuses and this gives a big advantage to make decisions quickly.

Mr. Stephen F. Schuckenbrock, President, Large Enterprise Dell Inc. His group supports all customers with 500 or more employees except the government. Prior to running this group he was CIO for Dell. Stephen thinks that being a CIO is a great job and you get to see all aspects of the business. It is great experience for other business roles. His main measurement issues are whether his group impacts the financial bottom line and generates cash. This is what he is measured on. He feels that CIO has to be able to say no to projects that will not help the bottom line. IT should not simply be an order taker who is measured on timeliness and whether it is on budget. They need to be doing the right effort also.

He looks at the cloud on a case-by-case basis. It makes sense in some places such as CRM. They use Agile to decrease development times. He is also a big proponent of virtualization and feels this holds a key to optimizing the cloud. They shut down 10,000 physical servers a few years ago. This helps innovation by reducing infrastructure barriers. There is demand for more IT than can be provided and virtualization helps extend capabilities.

When asked about spam, he said that 97% of external emails are spam. They filter most but some slip through. There is no complete solution. There is an ongoing battle here. He does expect spammers to wear out eventually because of low success rates.

Ms. Jo Hoppe, CIO PAREXEL International Corporation. PAREXEL does outsourced clinical trials for pharma and heavily relies on technology. These trials can go over 30 countries with many players. The average successful clinical drug takes over 800 million dollars in investment to get to market. Many never make it. So time and efficiency is critical.

Jo said there are three ways to think about IT metrics. First there are traditional financial and service delivery targets. Second there are more strategic goals for the organization. You should measure everyone on these to make sure everyone is headed in same direction. Third, there is business and IT alignment. In other words, what did IT contribute to success of the business?

They use portfolio management in IT to make sure they have anappropriate mix of projects to meet goals. IT partners with business on this so strategy and priorities are driven by the business end. The measure are also worked through with business.

Jo said the cloud makes sense for highly commoditized applications and also areas like disaster recovery that is used only rarely. They are heavily regulated and have many security and privacy issues that preclude the cloud. They often need to have closed systems.

They use Agile development with BPM software to change the way they work with business users. Now they can do rapid turn around with business users for ongoing feedback. Agile development is critical to the IT – business alignment. Now projects take less than 3 months. If it takes longer that means they did not break it into manageable segments. 

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