Why Cloud Computing is Good for Your Financials

by Harwell on August 17, 2010 · 2 comments

in Management,Projects,Strategy

Here’s the way most people justify automation of a manual process: they replace a high variable labor cost with a relatively fixed system cost.  I’ll illustrate using graphs, then show how cloud computing fits into the picture.

Before: A Manual Labor-Intensive Process
Before any automation, the financials for a manual process look like this:

A manual process offers the business easy control over incremental cost: more volume, more people; less volume, less people.

With a manual process, there’s usually a direct relationship between volume and cost.  If your volume goes up [more…]

Tagged as: Change, Cloud Computing, cost, Effectiveness, Outsourcing, Productivity, Projects, Strategy, vendor

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A Model of Job Performance

by Harwell on August 10, 2010 · 0 comments

in Management

Back in 1979 I put together a model of job performance to help with some process improvements we were doing at Digital Equipment Corporation.  Here’s the model:

I ran across the model when was going through some old papers, and I thought you’d like to see it.  Here’s the explanation of the model that accompanied the diagram: [more…]

Tagged as: Careers, Change, Effectiveness, Expectations, human nature, Management, Motivation, Recruiting, training

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Why We’re in this BP Gulf Oil Mess, and What We Should Do About It

July 26, 2010

I’ve talked a lot about human nature in my articles. I believe that human nature is the biggest challenge to most successful management, and especially the biggest challenge for IT managers. Information technology is all very logical. Software does exactly what you tell it to do. Computers — for the most part — behave the [...]

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IT Governance is Like Pushing a Rope

July 13, 2010

IT governance has been getting a lot of attention lately in the press. Frankly, it bothers me, since I think that a focus on IT governance is misguided. Four years ago I wrote an article about the difference between management and leadership. In the article I said that: “… management is like pushing a rope; [...]

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Join Me August 23rd in Kansas City, Missouri

July 12, 2010

I’ll be giving the keynote at the 2010 Boomer Technology Circle Summit on August 23rd in Kansas City.  If you’re in the accounting industry, then join me for a two-hour session on “How to Demystify I.T. For Your CEO.”  For more information, go to http://www.boomer.com/?page=btcsummit

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Which Do You Have? A Job, a Profession, a Career, or a Passion?

June 28, 2010

A Job A job is an exchange of work for money: for every hour you work, you get an hour of pay. Although you might derive some satisfaction from doing the job, and you might enjoy the people you work with, the reason you do the job is for the money.  If you win the [...]

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Should You Use a Business/IT Liaison Person? No!

June 23, 2010

The question about the pros and cons of using a business/IT liaison person came up at a meeting I attended last week. I’ve got to admit some bias on this issue. Long ago I tried using a business/IT liaison person for one of my software development groups, and I wasn’t happy with the result. The [...]

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The Difference between Success and Happiness

June 1, 2010

A lot of people tend to confuse these two words. We work hard, focus on our goals, and figure that happiness will come once we achieve success. Don’t fall for this deception. Happiness Happiness is a feeling. It can be triggered by external factors — a friend, a lover, a place, an event, a food [...]

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How to Deal with Complainers — 2 Approaches

April 27, 2010

People who complain fall into two categories: those who complain because they want help in resolving a problem, and those who complain because they want sympathy. Often the complainers themselves don’t understand why they’re complaining, so it’s up to you to figure it out for yourself. The Complainer as Problem Solver The first category of [...]

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How to Deal with Complaints — 7 Steps

April 22, 2010

How do you deal with someone who complains — whether it’s a customer of your company, a customer of your department, or even an employee or family member? How do you turn the complainer into a supporter? Here are some steps to take: 1. Listen If you’re going to make the complaint go away, then [...]

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How to Create Misleading Statistics in 6 Easy Steps

March 25, 2010

Want to deceive people?  Here’s how the professionals do it: 1. Do a survey and use a biased sample population People focus on the survey result and seldom pay attention to information about your sample population.  So feel free to bias your result by surveying people you know will answer the way you want. Want [...]

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ComputerWorld Interview with Harwell on IT Centralization

March 9, 2010

ComputerWorld has published an article by Mary Brandel that includes the results of an interview I did with Mary last fall.  The article is entitled “IT centralization is back in fashion.”  You can see the article here.

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There are Only Two Reasons for Strategy

January 20, 2010
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A lot of people think that the creation of business strategy is a mysterious process — something that’s secretly practiced behind closed doors in the boardroom. There’s a lot of mysticism around strategy setting, and so we avoid it for fear that we’ll do it wrong. But there’s no magic in strategy — just as [...]

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The Bad Economy is an Excuse for Layoffs, But They Should Have Happened Earlier

December 31, 2009

I’ll let you in on a secret: Most companies have used the bad economy as an excuse for laying off people who the company wanted to get rid of anyway. Now I’m not saying that these companies haven’t had financial issues — most companies have experienced a loss of revenue as a result of a [...]

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What Penguins Know about ERP Success

December 21, 2009
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Have you ever watched a nature documentary showing penguins entering the Antarctic ocean? They gather at the edge of the water, hesitating until more penguins arrive. They look at each other as if saying, “Do you want to go first?” or “Are we ready yet?” Then finally the hesitation will end and a large number [...]

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How to Deal with a Bad Boss — 3 Approaches

December 2, 2009

You’ve got a bad boss. Maybe it was a surprise — he seemed nice during the interview. Or maybe it was a gift from higher-up in the organization — she was brought in to replace your previous boss. Whatever the reason, now you’re stuck with a bad boss, and you have to do something. There [...]

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6 Things I’d Like to Tell Your Boss about IT

November 25, 2009

I wrote a book on this subject but it focused on the management and leadership aspects of IT — not the technical stuff. Now I’m looking at doing a two-day class on IT for business executives. I’ll include the stuff from my book, but I’m trying to identify the technical topics that I should also [...]

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Getting Ready to Move using Push and Pull

November 18, 2009

My wife and I have decided to move. We originally picked our home location because it was equidistant between my work and my wife’s work. But I work from home now and my wife is retiring, so there’s no longer a good reason to stay here. Instead, we’re going to be looking for a house [...]

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The 7 Biggest Challenges of a Manager

November 11, 2009

I’ve previously written about why you might want to be a manager and the 13 skills needed by a manager. This article explains the seven biggest challenges faced by a manager. 1. Achieving a Stretch Goal The organization you’re managing is responsible for something — whether it’s performing a business process, supporting some other organization, [...]

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8 Reasons Businesses Can’t Connect Business Strategy and IT Strategy

November 4, 2009

Last week I met with a client to discuss a presentation I’m going to do for his company. The client company has a good process in place for business strategy, and they have the beginnings of an IT strategy. But they’re having difficulty connecting the business strategy and the IT strategy, and they want me [...]

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Have You “Pulled Your Goalie” in IT?

October 28, 2009

I lived in Boston during the height of the Bobby Orr days, and I got caught up in the enthusiasm that Boston felt for their Bruins. I had never seen ice hockey before I moved to Boston, and I learned the game by watching the Bruins win the Stanley Cup. One of the intriguing tactics [...]

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We’re All Biased — Learn from It

October 21, 2009

Last week I posted an article about whether younger “digital natives” or older “digital immigrants” are better at IT. In responses I saw on Reddit or that I received directly, I noticed a pattern: 1. A lot of people were disappointed (to put it mildly) that I didn’t draw a conclusion in favor of one [...]

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Who’s Better at IT? Younger Digital Natives or Older Digital Immigrants?

October 14, 2009

I was asked this question at a recent speaking engagement in Utah, and I’ve thought about it a bit more since then. “Digital natives” are people who grew up using digital technology; they used computers as children and so they never lived in a non-computer world. “Digital immigrants” grew up in a world that didn’t [...]

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Speaking Thursday, October 8th in Salt Lake City, Utah

October 5, 2009

I’ll be speaking Thursday, October 8, 2009  at a lunch meeting of the Society for Information Management (SIM) in Salt Lake City, Utah.  The topic is “How to Demystify IT for your CEO,” and I’ll be going over a lot of the material from my book.  If you’re in Salt Lake City and you want [...]

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10 Ways to Find the Truth

September 30, 2009

In my previous post I talked about the problem of determining the truth in current events (and in other areas) when we’re faced with conflicting views from thousands of media and Internet sources. In this post I’ll offer some advice for dealing with the problem: 1. Become more conscious of the assumptions that you’ve been [...]

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What Ever Happened to the “Truth?”

September 23, 2009

I grew up in the 1950′s and 1960′s when there were just three TV channels, two local daily newspapers, a few local radio stations, and no cable or satellite TV. There were no personal computers — let alone the Internet — and so our news sources were pretty limited. We each picked our standard of [...]

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In with the New — Out with the Old. A Conservation Approach to IT

September 16, 2009

Many years ago my sister Mary taught me a valuable lesson. At the time she and her husband lived in a very small apartment. But each time I visited her I was amazed by how neat everything was. There were no overflowing bookshelves, no overstuffed closets and pantries, and none of the usual clutter of [...]

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What is Cloud Computing? And Why Should You Care?

September 9, 2009

Note: This article is intended for a business audience.  For a technical explanation of cloud computing, see the sidebar below the business article. To the non-technical among us, “cloud computing” may sound like something vague and amorphous. After all, it’s a cloud, right? So that means it’s something that’s insubstantial, floating in the sky. If [...]

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12 More Ways to Spot IT Lies and Omissions in Due Diligence

September 2, 2009

I talked about Due Diligence in a previous article, and gave you 13 ways to spot lies and deception.  Here’s an additional list that’s specific to Information Technology, although you can probably see parallels in other types of due diligence: 12 More Ways to Spot IT Lies and Omissions The current solution doesn’t scale up [...]

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13 Ways to Spot Lies and Omissions in Due Diligence

August 26, 2009

We all do due diligence.  Some of us do it in mergers and acquisitions (M&A).  Some of us do it when we’re getting ready to make a major purchase like a house or a car, or when we’re getting ready to sign a contract for major home repair.  Due diligence is the research you do [...]

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IT Marriage Counseling

August 19, 2009

I’ve been comparing the IT/Business relationship to a marriage for a while now. In Chapter 12 of my book, I said: Secret 28: The Information Technology organization is your partner in creating and managing systems and data, with shared responsibilities. That partnership can be like a marriage, with both marriage partners working together to make [...]

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Irreconcilable Differences and Runaway Projects

August 12, 2009

A runaway project is like a married couple on the brink of divorce.  There are two opposing points of view, both sides are usually angry, each side blames the other, legal action is imminent, and a lot of time and money is being wasted. So why do projects go into a runaway mode? It’s usually [...]

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The World’s Economic Problems are Like 2 Cross-Wired Thermostats

August 5, 2009

Many years ago I did some work at a newly built manufacturing plant in Phoenix. The new plant was having trouble with its air conditioning system  — the administrative offices were too cold and the manufacturing shop floor was too hot. While I was there it was discovered that a mistake had been made during [...]

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4 Reasons We Disagree, and What to Do About It

July 29, 2009

You’re trying to get a new project approved, and you’re having trouble. Or you’re trying to get an employee to do things your way, and the employee keeps fighting you. Both these situations are disagreements, and the process to deal with them is similar. Why Do We Disagree? Let’s start with individual disagreements. When two [...]

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18 Things I Believe about Business — a Manifesto

July 22, 2009

I Believe … The best businesses are honest with their customers and their employees. The best companies have a win-win relationship with their customers and with their employees. Management is about focusing the work of the employees by assigning tasks which best align the company’s interests with the employees’ interests. Executive management is about focusing [...]

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New Tagline — IT’s all about the Business

July 21, 2009

I’ve changed the tagline in my blog header. It used to be “Insight for Current and Future IT Leaders.” Now it’s “Insight for Current and Future Business Leaders.” I took out the word “IT” and replaced it with the word “business.” Here’s why: For over six years I’ve been writing about lessons I’ve learned from [...]

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First-Time Manager Stories of Failure and Success

July 15, 2009

I’ve promoted scores of people into first-time manager positions. Some did well and some didn’t. Here are a few of their stories, with names changed and a few relevant facts altered to protect the individuals involved. Fred This was early in my career, and I didn’t have any experience in promoting people into management. But [...]

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Quotes of the Month – July, 2009

July 13, 2009

“Better be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident security.” Edmund Burke (1729 – 1797), an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher “If I had to sum up in one word what makes a good manager, I’d say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but [...]

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The Meaning of “Scalable” Needs to Change

July 8, 2009

The word “scalable” has been used in IT for over forty years. IBM used the word when they first talked about their 360 series of mainframe computers in the 1960′s. Since that time scalability has been a consideration in every aspect of computing: mainframes, minis, personal computers, servers, networks, proprietary systems, open systems, even smartphones. [...]

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What’s the Opposite of ROI? — How to Compare Cost-Cutting Opportunities

July 1, 2009

A lot of companies routinely use ROI (Return on Investment) to compare multiple projects competing for limited investment resource. But what do these same companies use during a bad economy when they’re trying to figure out where to make cuts? How do you compare multiple opportunities for cost cutting? Recently I moderated a group discussion [...]

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How to Become a Manager — 13 Skills You’ll Need

June 24, 2009

In a recent article I wrote about why you might want to be a manager. If that’s what you want, here’s my list of the 13 skills you’ll need: 1. Communication There’s a lot of communication when you’re a manager. You have to communicate with each of your employees. You have to communicate “sideways” with [...]

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How to Justify Security Investment

June 18, 2009

In March of 2009 I was the speaker at a SIM Meeting in Dallas. In the Q&A at the end, a young security manager asked me a question. He said that he has succeeded in making his company’s infrastructure good enough that they have no problems with security breaches, data leaks, viruses, or any of [...]

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Why Do You Want to Be a Manager?

June 12, 2009

There are a lot of bad stereotypes associated with management — the TV show “The Office” illustrates many of the stereotypes on a weekly basis. But there are advantages to being in management, so I thought I would write a bit about management for those of you who are still in individual contributor roles. And [...]

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Quotes of the Month – June, 2009

June 9, 2009

“People buy the shovel, but they want the hole.” Unknown “It’s much easier to point out the perils of the gap than to contribute to building the bridge.” Chris Brogan on Twitter “Confidence plus conviction equals huge influence every time.” Alan Weiss “Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.” Truman [...]

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Words and Phrases I’m Sick Of

June 5, 2009

I see and hear these words and phrases all the time, but it has gotten to the point where they’ve lost their meaning for me — maybe for you as well. Let’s start with some oldies but goodies then work up to something more current. Synergy This used to be the consultant’s ultimate goal. Synergy [...]

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See People for Who They Are — Not for the Roles They Play

May 29, 2009

We all have a tendency to define ourselves by the roles we play. The first part of almost every new conversation between strangers is asking the question, “What do you do?” We then use the answer to that question to apply a stereotype to the person. If the person answers, “I’m a doctor,” then we [...]

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Organization Transplant Claims Another Victim

May 22, 2009

How a New CEO Affects the CIO A few weeks ago I ran into a CIO I hadn’t seen in a few months.  The last time I had seen him we talked about his job situation.  The CEO he worked for had just been replaced, and the CIO and the new CEO were butting heads. [...]

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Don’t Let the Notes Get in the Way of the Music

May 15, 2009

I went to my grandson’s piano recital last weekend.  He’s just seven (almost eight) and he’s really good for his age.  His part of the recital was only a few minutes, but the entire recital lasted two hours so we listened to a lot of other kids before and after my grandson. What struck me [...]

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The Quest for a Quest

May 4, 2009

I’m fond of fiction; I read a lot of books and watch a lot of movies. I think that a large part of the appeal of fiction comes from the single-minded focus of the principal characters in the plot. When the hero of the book or movie is trying to track down a secret or [...]

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Quotes of the Month – May, 2009

May 4, 2009

“The only lifelong, reliable motivations are those that come from within, and one of the strongest of those is the joy and pride that grow from knowing that you’ve just done something as well as you can do it.” Lloyd Dobyns and Clare Crawford-Mason, Thinking About Quality – “Innovation has nothing to do with how [...]

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