I have good news, and I have bad news! The Good News... The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) 2011 edition and the ISO/IEC 20000 standard for IT Service Management formalized the existence of the Business Relationship Manager (BRM) role and corresponding Business Relationship Management process as a new best practice and international IT Service Management standard [...]
I received a question from a reader about the role of a Business Relationship Manager (BRM). I decided to bring the question and my response to this blog. His question, and the context for it was: When the BRM role was introduced at our organization, the Head of IT did not convey a clear vision [...]
I've posted before (many times!) about Business-IT Maturity, and the common "sticking points" that most IT organizations run into around the mid-point between low and high maturity. (See, for example, here, here, and here, or enter "Sticking Point" into the search box.) Walking Ever Faster Will Not Get You Running! If, arbitrarily, you pick 3 [...]
COBIT is described by its creators, ISACA, as a "Framework for IT Governance and Control." Celebrating it's 15-year anniversary, COBIT provides an excellent framework for helping bring IT under control. In ISACA's own words: COBIT is an IT governance framework and supporting toolset that allows managers to bridge the gap between control requirements, technical issues [...]
This picks up on Part 1 and Part 2 in this series on IT Organizational Clarity. In Part 1, I discussed the importance of IT Organizational Clarity, the symptoms when clarity is compromised, and the challenges of trying to address those symptoms rather than the root causes that lead to compromised clarity. Part 1 closed [...]
My previous post introduced the topic of IT Organizational Clarity, discussed common symptoms arising from a lack of Organizational Clarity, and suggested two dimensions through which clarity can be assessed and improved: Bounding scope by defining "IT Capabilities" at an appropriate level of granularity. (Units of analysis). Defining meaningful and assessable characteristics for IT Capabilities. [...]
I've posted quite frequently on this blog about the role of the Business-IT Relationship Manager. It's a key role - crucial, in fact, at mid-levels of Business-IT maturity. It's a role that typically does not work well at lower maturity, yet is essential to reaching higher maturity. It's also a role that is hard to [...]
Many years ago, when I was a partner with Ernst & Young, John Cross, the CIO of BP (a very highly regarded company at that time) approached me wanting to benchmark the way E&Y managed its engagements. My first reaction was incredulity. I knew we were good at engagement management - after all, it was [...]
I've posted recently about Program Management - mainly in response to a reader's question about how to group projects into programs. Her question, in turn, was in response to one of my most popular posts on the distinctions between Project, Program and Portfolio Management. IT Portfolio Management Matters! I'm delighted that my old post on [...]
I've posted before about Shadow IT, but I want to revisit the subject - I think it's a big issue that needs some more air. I've been reminded of this lately as I work with a client with a neglected IT capability. A new CIO has been brought in (the first sign that a hitherto [...]