Tag: bureaucracy

That’s why my friends CIOs need the best whishes for 2012.

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Riskprojects.PNGCIOs don’t need to read any comprehensive Chaos Manor report to know that project deliveries come always in late and are never or rarely in advance. It is like flights or train travels, things always happen in such way.  They undergo asymmetric events. If we try to get measures of it, we could find that when projects portfolio undergo 2 months delay in average on delivery planned time, there is no or few chance any project will be above 10 months delay, but real chance to have 30 above 2 months for hundred projects portfolio.

IT budgets always increase year after year. It is their fate since new projects increase IS functions and, consequently, yearly maintenance. To cope with this situation, CIOs have settled portfolio management process:they assess projects from several points of view -technical, business, risks, strategy…- and make priorities. It results in postponing low prority projects…

After a while, postponed projects pile up like sand and become high priority. So, IT budgets contain also low priority projects which have become high prority for budget year.

Finally, projects portfolio is viewed by Business units as postponing facility on behalf of IT Division. No matter Business units are main projects issuers who make IT budget growing. Moreover they use to complain for additional IT costs though they are not accountable for expected gains which projects business cases have set under their responsibility.

When a project is delayed, costs usually increase in proportion of the time. So current IT capital expenditure budget is also made of slipped projects pieces as current IT operations expenditure budget still contains projects slipped since they have already rolled out platforms.

As current IT budget is flood of slipped past projects, less and less room remains for new ones. Negotiations are hard. Pure IT projects are scrutinized and often postponed if they have not a strong costs saving business case. So are pieces around Business projects that not seem to be required to Business even though IT has stated they are highly desirable.

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Has your Business changed ? Try Enterprise Architecture then.

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  • Most of big french companies front-office are machines : internet services, interactive vocal responders. And when it is not automated, call center operators are difficult to reach, they have not the good level of knowledge to answer customers questions, and customers have still to pay through call  taxation. In other cases, delivery is done  by employees or subcontractors who are not deemed nor able to endorse company point of view.
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  • Trade off is on one hand rising the number of services offered to customers and on the other mitigating front end costs. Then, all operations are executed processes unless a grain of sand requires a human actor to fix a little unattended situtaion which may become pain in the neck for a customer. (cf comte bougainville conference)
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  • This situation is often encountered with telecom operators, railway operators and in some respect flight companies.
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Bureaucracy is not so good for modern business

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Even if bureaucracy brings values of rationality, good organisation and high control, some famous managers like Jack Welch declare themselves as foes of bureaucracy. Because, in most of cases, this system does not fit with modern business. In spite of that, a lot of companies stick on bureaucracy illusion, especially in France where business culture is very compatible with it.
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