Bridging Business & IT

We were very fortunate today to have Barb Mastrianni, AVP and Senior Program Manager for the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, Inc.  Barb shares the lessons that Chubb has learned about what it takes to do Agile "right" and how they've gone from a somewhat shaky start to an exponential growth in successful project outcomes. The secret is all about determining where you want to go before you try to go there, and putting governance guardrails in place to be sure that everyone (the business, IT, PMO, analysts, etc) understands the route and the destination before you set off. The idea of doing a pre-charter assessment to understand the project and rigor Chubb wraps around that process is particularly worthwhile. This is a must listen for any organization looking for ways to improve their Agile  practices.

Guest LinkedIn Profile: Barb Mastrianni

These podcasts are dedicated to bridging the gap between business & IT. Each episode looks at different aspects of this relationship as we explore ways to help the two groups better communicate. We're passionate about this topic because it's a failure to communicate that causes 75% of all IT project failures and costs the US $1.8 Trillion every year—8% of US GDP!

If you don't want to become one of these statistics and want to learn about an easy way to avoid it, please visit our website and schedule a free consultation.

Alternatively, if there's some topic you'd like to hear more about, or you have an idea about how we might better serve our listeners, please shoot us an email at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you.

http://bridgingbusinessit.com

Our guest today is Jeffrey Sherow. Jeff has spent a long career at the intersection of  business and technology.  He started out with Andersen Consulting, rose through the ranks to become an Accenture partner, and stayed there for several years. Jeff has become extremely interested in the role of the product manager. The primary reason for this interest is his belief that the product manager needs to be someone who intimately understands the customer and what a business needs to do to delight their customers. In a perfect world the product manager is responsible for delivering value to customers and has P&L responsibility.

Unfortunately, that perfect world rarely exists. Jeff shares our concerns that in many companies those on the business side have abrogated their responsibility to drive customer value through the intelligent deployment of technology. Too often business people view 'IT projects' as the IT department's problem and have lost sight of the fact that these are never IT projects. They are business projects that just happen to be enabled by technology.

Guest LinkedIn Profile: Jeffrey Sherow

These podcasts are dedicated to bridging the gap between business & IT. Each episode looks at different aspects of this relationship as we explore ways to help the two groups better communicate. We're passionate about this topic because it's a failure to communicate that causes 75% of all IT project failures and costs the US $1.8 Trillion every year—8% of US GDP!

If you don't want to become one of these statistics and want to learn about an easy way to avoid it, please visit our website and schedule a free consultation.

Alternatively, if there's some topic you'd like to hear more about, or you have an idea about how we might better serve our listeners, please shoot us an email at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you.

http://bridgingbusinessit.com

Today we’re talking to Joyce Hunter, former CIO of the USDA and currently CEO of Vulcan Enterprises. Joyce brings a long and storied career full of insights from both the public and private sectors, from both sides of the fence—she’s been both customer and vendor. We discuss the similarities between the public and private sector, talk about some terrible project failures and some great successes, and explore the key reasons behind each.

Guest LinkedIn Profile: Joyce Hunter

These podcasts are dedicated to bridging the gap between business & IT. Each episode looks at different aspects of this relationship as we explore ways to help the two groups better communicate. We're passionate about this topic because it's a failure to communicate that causes 75% of all IT project failures and costs the US $1.8 Trillion every year—8% of US GDP!

If you don't want to become one of these statistics and want to learn about an easy way to avoid it, please visit our website and schedule a free consultation.

Alternatively, if there's some topic you'd like to hear more about, or you have an idea about how we might better serve our listeners, please shoot us an email at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you.

http://bridgingbusinessit.com

This episode is with Dan Kelly, founder and CEO of The Negotiator Guru. Dan is the person we have to thank for our podcast as he was the one who originally invited Dave to be on his, “The State of the CIO”. The feedback from that show was so good it convinced us to launch our own. As the title implies we’ll be talking about (among other things) the tricks of the trade when negotiating large enterprise software licenses. Dan shares some very frank observations about the predatory behavior of some vendors, the general lack of awareness and preparation among many business buyers, and the fairly simple steps most buyers can take to make better purchasing decisions and save a lot of money along the way. It’s a lively conversation to put it mildly. We think you’ll enjoy it. And don’t forget to check out the “State of the CIO” podcast.

Guest LinkedIn Profile: Dan Kelly

These podcasts are dedicated to bridging the gap between business & IT. Each episode looks at different aspects of this relationship as we explore ways to help the two groups better communicate. We're passionate about this topic because it's a failure to communicate that causes 75% of all IT project failures and costs the US $1.8 Trillion every year—8% of US GDP!

If you don't want to become one of these statistics and want to learn about an easy way to avoid it, please visit our website and schedule a free consultation.

Alternatively, if there's some topic you'd like to hear more about, or you have an idea about how we might better serve our listeners, please shoot us an email at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you.

http://bridgingbusinessit.com

Roger Moore (no, not 007) is our guest today. Roger currently teaches Analytics at the University of Chicago where he’s also an alum of their MBA program. Over his 30-plus year career he’s been with a number of major consulting groups such as BCG, Gartner, Booze and PWC. He’s currently running his own Data and Analytics firm. This conversation is foundational. Roger helps us unpack the critical components and structures of a good data, analytics and reporting organization / strategy. Unfortunately, due to the enormous expanse of this topic, we weren’t able to get into detailed discussions on the mechanics of the process. Fortunately, Roger’s already agreed to come back for deeper dives in the near future. Stay tuned.

Guest LinkedIn Profile: Roger Moore

These podcasts are dedicated to bridging the gap between business & IT. Each episode looks at different aspects of this relationship as we explore ways to help the two groups better communicate. We're passionate about this topic because it's a failure to communicate that causes 75% of all IT project failures and costs the US $1.8 Trillion every year—8% of US GDP!

If you don't want to become one of these statistics and want to learn about an easy way to avoid it, please visit our website and schedule a free consultation.

Alternatively, if there's some topic you'd like to hear more about, or you have an idea about how we might better serve our listeners, please shoot us an email at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you.

http://bridgingbusinessit.com

Our guest in this episode is Jomo Starke, Director of Innovation at Canton & Company. Jomo’s 30-plus year tech career started with developing video games—which he almost sold to Atari before they realized he was twelve. From his early days as a 17 year old wunderkind analyst to his years in project management, sales and biz dev, Jomo shares his insights into what makes tech enabled business projects successful and the simple, yet critical oversights that so often cause them to fail.

Guest LinkedIn Profile: Jomo Starke

These podcasts are dedicated to bridging the gap between business & IT. Each episode looks at different aspects of this relationship as we explore ways to help the two groups better communicate. We're passionate about this topic because it's a failure to communicate that causes 75% of all IT project failures and costs the US $1.8 Trillion every year—8% of US GDP!

If you don't want to become one of these statistics and want to learn about an easy way to avoid it, please visit our website and schedule a free consultation.

Alternatively, if there's some topic you'd like to hear more about, or you have an idea about how we might better serve our listeners, please shoot us an email at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you.

http://bridgingbusinessit.com

We’re joined today by Ray Weale, currently COO of IDMerit and formerly Director of Digital Innovation at Nestle. Ray helped lead the global unification of literally thousands of Nestles processes and systems on to 34 standard processes on SAP—realizing staggering benefits along the way. Our conversation starts with Ray’s background and carries into how Nestle accomplished this remarkable global integration and unification. 

Personal note:  I must confess to feeling a bit sycophant-ish as we fawned over Ray’s story. However, I think anyone who’s been around a large transformation effort knows the challenges of pulling it off successfully. In this case, after learning from their first failed attempt, both Nestles and SAP should be commended for this incredible achievement. This is a story well worth hearing and an excellent example of what an organization can accomplish once they realize they’re not running an IT project—they’re running a business project that just happens to be enabled by technology—Dave

Guest LinkedIn Profile: Ray Weale

These podcasts are dedicated to bridging the gap between business & IT. Each episode looks at different aspects of this relationship as we explore ways to help the two groups better communicate. We're passionate about this topic because it's a failure to communicate that causes 75% of all IT project failures and costs the US $1.8 Trillion every year—8% of US GDP!

If you don't want to become one of these statistics and want to learn about an easy way to avoid it, please visit our website and schedule a free consultation.

Alternatively, if there's some topic you'd like to hear more about, or you have an idea about how we might better serve our listeners, please shoot us an email at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you.

http://bridgingbusinessit.com

In the last episode we talked about how a CIO (or IT leader) needs to prepare their business counterparts for their roles and responsibilities in an upcoming tech-enabled business project. In this episode we talk about IT department leadership, expectations and accountability. We share five “ground rules” that tech leaders need to share with their teams to position them for project success and to provide better service to their business counterparts. We are again joined by our CIO guest, John Fisher.

Guest LinkedIn Profile: John Fisher

These podcasts are dedicated to bridging the gap between business & IT. Each episode looks at different aspects of this relationship as we explore ways to help the two groups better communicate. We're passionate about this topic because it's a failure to communicate that causes 75% of all IT project failures and costs the US $1.8 Trillion every year—8% of US GDP!

If you don't want to become one of these statistics and want to learn about an easy way to avoid it, please visit our website and schedule a free consultation.

Alternatively, if there's some topic you'd like to hear more about, or you have an idea about how we might better serve our listeners, please shoot us an email at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you.

http://bridgingbusinessit.com

This episode shares five things that the tech team needs to share with business executives, project sponsor(s), process owners and subject matter experts to set their expectations and explain their obligations before a project kicks off. We’re joined on this episode by an old friend and colleague, John Fisher, who has held multiple CIO positions over his 35+ year career and currently teaches at DePaul University.

Guest LinkedIn Profile: John Fisher

These podcasts are dedicated to bridging the gap between business & IT. Each episode looks at different aspects of this relationship as we explore ways to help the two groups better communicate. We're passionate about this topic because it's a failure to communicate that causes 75% of all IT project failures and costs the US $1.8 Trillion every year—8% of US GDP!

If you don't want to become one of these statistics and want to learn about an easy way to avoid it, please visit our website and schedule a free consultation.

Alternatively, if there's some topic you'd like to hear more about, or you have an idea about how we might better serve our listeners, please shoot us an email at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you.

http://bridgingbusinessit.com

Part 2 of this episode builds on the foundation of part 1 and is dedicated to examining the details within each of the four stages and twelve steps of the Business Execution Lifecycle (“BEL”).

Suggested readings:

• “The Checklist Manifesto” by Atul Gawande
• “Thinking Fast & Slow” by Daniel Kahneman
• “Incognito” by David Eagleman
• “The paradox of human expertise: why experts get it wrong” by Itiel E. Dror
• “The Coming Software Apocalypse” by James Somers in the Atlantic
• “The Lost Language of Execution” by David P. Burrill at www.bridgingbusinessit.com/solutions

These podcasts are dedicated to bridging the gap between business & IT. Each episode looks at different aspects of this relationship as we explore ways to help the two groups better communicate. We're passionate about this topic because it's a failure to communicate that causes 75% of all IT project failures and costs the US $1.8 Trillion every year—8% of US GDP!

If you don't want to become one of these statistics and want to learn about an easy way to avoid it, please visit our website and schedule a free consultation.

Alternatively, if there's some topic you'd like to hear more about, or you have an idea about how we might better serve our listeners, please shoot us an email at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you.

http://bridgingbusinessit.com