business case – Vireloup Pty Ltd

October 23, 2014April 16, 2016

Unleash the analyst in you

I have recently made a big change in my life, leaving a CIO role to join a top notch consulting firm. My business card calls me a Strategic Analyst, I get half the pay and have twice the fun. So how different are the jobs of an analysts and a CIO?

I have come up with 4 areas that highlight the similarity:

The CIO as a strategist – The heart of any strategy is analysing current state, developing a vision of a future state and working out what is needed to get from one to the other. The future state is developed with the help of research, providing insight into trends in customer, marketplace, regulations and technology.The output from this enterprise analysis work may be a strategy and roadmap or a business case, all of which need to be bread and butter for a CIO
The CIO as a builder – Much of the executive focus goes into the projects that IT are working on. While these typically represent only 30% of IT expenditure, projects are exciting and presage business change. While many see the skills of project managers and business analysts as the key to success, the CIO should be thinking at the program level. A well designed program focuses on how to integrate many initiatives to deliver an outcome that furthers the business strategy.Pulling good programs together needs enterprise analysis. CIOs need to be thinking about how all the moving parts of projects, programs and BAU knit together to deliver an outcome. The more components that are in motion, the greater the risk and the more strategic the analysis needs to be.
The CIO as an operator. IT systems are not much use if they are not working! CIO careers can easily come unstuck when outages and security breaches cause embarrassment to the businesses.
To operate IT systems well, the analysis effort needs to go into the IT processes up front. With a good service management framework in place, the CIO needs to ensure that operations are adequately resourced with skilled people committed to outcomes
The CIO as a leader. One key skill for CIOs is as a leader of their team and as a networker / leader of stakeholders. Leadership is open to analysis. There are management techniques that are known to succeed and some CIOs develop a formal relationship architecture.In the end, relationships are about people and your personality type has a big impact here. You don’t have to be extrovert to be a CIO, but you do need empathy and excellent communication skills.

For me, CIO as an operator was my Achilles heel. I could never see how fixing the CIO’s phone was more important than keeping a mine site running or ensuring the intensive care ward was operating. I can now focus on what I am really good at – enterprise analysis, strategic thinking, business case development and program formulation.

So how many of the areas above does your CIO tick off?

May 8, 2013April 16, 2016

Invest to succeed

As I have described many times in this blog, investing in IT solutions is notoriously risky. Just 1 in 5 projects succeeds and failures can bring down companies and governments. How then do enterprises manage this risk?

The answer is challenging to the project sponsors, who just want IT to get on with the job. With other areas of the business they assign accountability and expect the business unit heads to deliver on outcomes. With IT this approach is ineffective given the number of stakeholders and the limited ability to control events.

One example that springs to mind was when I introduced a recruitment and on-boarding system. The project was well run with a solid business case and good governance. Unfortunately the HR staff were too busy to contribute as a result of a high recruitment load from a major mining project. Rather than delivering a poor product, I slowed the project to allow them to engage. The final system was very successful, but the project ran over budget and over time.

To deliver on time, budget, scope and value, you need a strategic approach. The best way to do this is with a strategic wrapper, run by someone who can bridge the business / IT divide. They should by preference be independent from project delivery.

The wrapper has 4 components as per the diagram above:

1. Framing question. This is probably the most important step and is designed to test the business engagement. In an accelerated workshop format, the key senior stakeholders agree to the high level problem statement and commit to change. A great outcome is an email from the CEO to all staff “We are making this change for this reason and expect it to deliver this”.

2. Business case. A well written business case will surface any inconsistencies between the project and the organization’s strategy. It then sets out the options, scope, benefits, costs, risks and timeframe. Once this is agreed by all stakeholders, you can use the document as a bible for all future steps.

3. Project governance. The people delivering the project will put in a governance process. This needs to be made accessible to senior stakeholders and you need a highly experienced individual to ensure that you make the right calls on the difficult decisions.

4. Value delivery. This step is so often missed out on IT projects. Organizations commit to the investment, they should also commit to the return. An independent analysis of returns against the business is guaranteed to focus the efforts of business unit leaders.

The strategic approach will cost money – typically 10% of the cost of a project. The approach is likely to deliver many times this benefit from a focused project that does not spend money on unnecessary features; cost reductions and quality improvements from best practice processes; and more business value delivered at the end of the project.

Does your business approach IT investment this way?

March 28, 2013April 16, 2016

Is technology too expensive?

Successful business leaders ensure that the scarce resources available to them are best used. They focus on all aspects of spending and ask is it absolutely necessary? Is there a cheaper way of doing this? Can we squeeze out more for the same cost?

Given the challenges of the last few years, most of the low hanging fruit has already been harvested. The competitive pressure has not come off and CEOs are looking to balance an increased demand for services with a reduced ability to attract income. There are 3 main options to achieve this:

1. Transformational change. Radically changing the operating model through acquisition, amalgamation or strategic repositioning is an option. James Carlopio from the World Future Society suggests that these efforts fail 50-80% of the time.

2. Intermediation. This is where the relationships between suppliers and consumers is modified and may be as simple as consolidating suppliers to achieve discounts. This strategy can sometimes be affected with little of the risk associated with business change.

3. Incremental. Typically this involves turning the handle on business processes to make them more effective, reducing cost and improving quality. Technology is likely to be a core component and the biggest risks are around organizational change.

As a CIO I have been involved in a number of successful incremental change projects. One example was the introduction of a logistics management application in a large not for profit organization.

The new application had many technology challenges causing delays and frustration amongst the users. The business processes were standardized and simplified, which made some users feel disempowered. Fortunately there was a clear vision from senior management on what they wanted to achieve. The turning point came when a major disaster struck, requiring a highly complex logistics operation.

The simplified processes improved productivity of staff who were working 18 hours per day. The on line nature of the application meant that geographically dispersed stakeholders collaborated effectively. The biggest impact came from being able to analyse the supply chain and optimize ordering, reducing delivery time by a factor of 6 and costs by 80%.

Of course for every success story, there are litanies of disasters where IT investments have soaked up huge amounts of money. I have a few tips for making sure that you get value if you are investing scarce resources:

1. Create a business case. This clearly states the expectations behind business drivers, strategic outcomes, options, scope, benefits, costs, risks and timeframe. If the costs and risks outweigh the benefits, cancel the initiative early.

2. Assign accountability. You need to have individuals who are fully accountable for the business case and in particular the delivery of business benefits. The expectations should be clearly stated in the individual’s personal performance objectives

3. Excellence in delivery. Running IT projects is risky. The concensus from a number of surveys on IT projects is that just 1 in 5 are fully successful. A solid project methodology, experienced project managers and executive support focused on delivering the promised benefits will increase your chance of success

4. Connect initiatives. Running a series of disconnected IT initiatives will lead to lower agility and higher costs in the long run. Plan your IT like you would plan a city to make sure that your roads connect and you don’t build an abattoir in a residential area.

How confident are you about investing in organizational change?