ICT and Getting Things Done

While reading again Julian Browne, I wanted to add his thoughts to my blog notes.

(Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/Filmwork)

Julian Browne is unknown to me in real life. But he has his place in my digital panorama. There is one writing that I enjoyed to read:

=> The Business Alignment Fallacy

We exchanged our views also via email about the second article. One of the problem that I see in many areas and not only in ICT is that it can be complicated to decide about an orientation when the higher executive is not primary linked to the ICT world in this case. Julian expresses this here:

“Does that make it hard to write an IT Strategy? You bet your bum it does. Trying to extract the core essence and themes of your business model is a sensitive process and as soon as you start eschewing business alignment, it’s automatically a lot harder. Nobody wants those expensive nerds taking over, but you have to seize the initiative, be proactive and step above the business plan.

When you start to hit your sweet spot though, it’s surprisingly easy to sell that type of strategy back to the business. Your capabilities can stimulate their ideas. Suddenly IT looks like a platform for opportunity and not just cost. Rather than conversations being about how hard it is to do what they want the door is open to do what they didn’t know they could have, which might even be easier.”

My question was really: “How do you get to that level? You need an executive ready to listen and hear what it can take to bring the whole setup to that level!”. His answer was simple if I recall well his email: “There is too much theorizing that separates the business people and the ICT people. And this creates the mistaken idea that the fix is into the alignment“.

Basically, getting things done rather than explaining how ICT will align to a business that is itself always adapting as well to its new realities. This puts ICT in a sort of chronic passive approach. Julian mentioned also an analogy that was given to him about someone requesting a service to a specialist: How does this usually work?

1- The request is made
2- The specialist shares his knowledge and understanding in an easy to understand way
3- He exposes the stakes of the different choices
4- He makes a strong case for the alternatives that were not obvious but which are good
5- He lets the requester (customer) decide what the best way forward is

There is no such “alignment”.
The specialist pretty much leads the way while the requester is in a complete position to decide the way forward.
In fact, there is no other way than to be aligned to the business? Or am I missing something?
The question is: “Has ICT the right organisation (technical and human) to adapt quickly to the business and to perhaps suggest solution that were not thought of in the first place?”.
If this is the case, I bet that the business will start to see new technologies as an asset and not only like a cost! But like the strategy, there is nothing easy!

Macintosh - It will be soon 30 years ago!

A very good way to feel the time passing by… is to dig Youtube.
Look at Steve Job introducing the Macintosh in the below video, it was in 1984!

Jobs says “All the images that you are going to see on a large screen will be generated by what is in THAT bag!”
The video has not exactly aged well!
But that moment was the start of a fabulous re-start of Apple. A stock price that went from ~$2.82.- in 1984 to more than ~$660.- in September 2012.

It is also the complete world economy change path that you can follow through that Apple epic (beyond the above video). From the time where Apple designed and manufactured its products in USA to an era where only the design is USA-made… and where there is no way that manufacturing could go back to North America.

How do I organize my company? Daniel Freitag on agility!

1993 is the first Freitag bag.

A story of 2 men, making their first bags. How did it grow? What challenges did the company had to face? A modest SME of 150 employees with a world wide brand recognition, not that common!

Daniel talks about agility or how the Freitag company implemented it in a REAL manner at each level and layers of their processes. He prefers the German translation of agility which is: “Resultat Optimierungs Modells”. SCRUM seems to have had its say, even for what looks like a very mechanistic type of company.

And the will that is showed to not only decree that “we are agile”… but actually operate it, implement it. To translate it into a sort of common ADN. The point that even their white board are agile and portable… like the post-it is, perhaps amusing, but also demonstrate quite a determination.

Since 20 years, Freitag sells bag… almost the same ones. How do you keep being agile? A mind-set.

Finally, I love the “beyond budgeting” issue and his sentence: “You spend one month to put everything on paper, and after a week, you start mixing the budget lines”. How do you re-conciliate the need for the budget snapshot to remain the same and the real dynamic of the company or project daily life?”. Have a look: Beyond Budgeting.
A budget cannot stay still, like everything else!

“Don’t plan… Speculate! You won’t be as disappointed!” & “Don’t tell me things, show me things” are some take aways that are full of sense.

New Business Model Approach!

It is a hit in a sense of high volume selling.
I saw this presentation live at Lift. Great moment and convincing.
The model appears to be missing the external environment analysis, but it is very handy.

The book was crowed-written. It is available here.

Another tool can be the IpOp Model by Mr. Raphael Cohen => Winning-Opportunities .

Leadership - The Values First!

It seems that all comes down to “Why”, “How”, “What”?

From the center of the inner circle to the outer circle.
- “I do this because I believe…” (This is the why…)
- “I am doing this is a very sensible and rationale way…” (This is the how…)
- “We will have the most adapted channel to update the wording…” (This is the what…)

“People don’t buy what you do, people buy why you do it!”

It is quite interesting to watch that again (4 years after the recording), Simon Sinek speaks mostly about Apple. Is Apple loosing the why today? As a matter of fact, slowly, the Apple press is changing to a none blind sort of approach, which is pretty refreshing.

Otherwise, I do not buy the link Mr. Sinek makes with the brain. At least he would not agree with Mr. Ouiller that defends the fact that the brain has no such defined areas of functionality…

Woman and Man Brains - The difference, simply explained!

“It all start to make sense!”
A must, fun and awkward. Awkward? Yes… how can this sounds somewhat right? And during the MBA class, I remember ladies “They do see us as hysteric!”… Omg! We will still have good conversations!

The truth is: I LOVE MY NOTHING BOX!