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March 2011 - Posts

Idea Management: Feeding the Innovation Machine

Published: March 31 2011, 05:01 PM | 1 Comment(s)
by James Ramsay

You must have heard it a million times, that innovation "is the lifeblood of a company" or it's a "top 3 strategic priority".  For me, like most people I expect, this is pretty much a given.  My rule of thumb is if I'm talking to someone who doesn't see the importance of innovation I'm probably in the wrong discussion!

Over the years I've worked with many companies looking into the issues and challenges they face in managing their innovation processes.  Without fail, irrespective of the particular company's level of innovation prowess, I have found:

  • A determination to improve the return from their innovation investment
  • The desire to learn from the world's leading innovative companies
  • An increasing dependence on IT to deliver innovation process transformation

There is something of a "machine-like" quality to how the most innovative companies manage their innovation processes.  I use the "machine" analogy because of their seemingly incessant ability to repeatedly and consistently deliver the right innovations at the right time.  This not only applies to product development, but right across the enterprise including functions such as IT, Finance and HR looking to improve the accessibility and value of the services they deliver back to the business.

Sticking with the machine analogy, I'd like to focus on the "raw materials" of the innovation process - Ideas.  Increasingly I am getting involved with initiatives around improving idea generation and management processes.  For any company, especially those working in highly competitive markets, having the ability to capture more ideas, scope them effectively, and accurately identify the best new ideas to transition is crucial.

Recently I was asked during a deep-dive workshop, "What do you consider to be the important steps in improving the management of ideas?"  Good question I thought.  Below are a selection of the points I outlined:

  • Create a culture that encourages ideas:  You need people to submit ideas - fact, but people will only continue to submit ideas if they see value in participating i.e. it is seen as important to the business, the mechanism for capturing ideas is easy, and they are regularly updated on the progress of their ideas they have submitted.
  • Look externally, as well as internally for new ideas:  Increasingly organizations recognize that good ideas don't just come from within.  Capturing the voice of your customers and leveraging partners' expertise are key ways of improving your business.  Check out what the likes of Dell (http://www.ideastorm.com/) and Starbucks (http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/) are doing.
  • Link idea generation to business strategy:  Often the struggle is not so much with the number of ideas being captured in the idea funnel, but getting the right type of ideas submitted.  Idea generation activities and campaigns can be most productive if focused on target areas (e.g. business priorities, markets) in line with business strategy.
  • Portfolio management disciplines should be inherent to the process: Valuable time, money and resource effort is wasted if the wrong ideas are pursued.  Adopting a portfolio management approach can significantly improve idea screening by enabling the objective comparison of all ideas in the funnel, helping to ensure only the best ideas are progressed. 

For further information on how CA Technologies can help to optimize your innovation and idea management processes please visit:

http://www.ca.com/~/media/Files/ProductBriefs/Idea_Vision_PS_final.pdf and  http://www.ca.com/us/project-portfolio-management.aspx

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By: James Ramsay
James Ramsay is a Principal Consultant for CA Technologies, working across EMEA, specializing in Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) solutions and their role in driving innovation across an enterprise. James has over 20 years experience of IT driven business innovation, starting from his role as...
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"Whatever you want": Why the "Consumerization" of IT Services necessitates CIOs becoming Business Service Portfolio Managers

Published: March 23 2011, 09:42 AM | 3 Comment(s)
by James Ramsay

Having applied Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" to how CIOs are tackling the paradigm shift to Virtualization and Cloud technologies.  I am m now turning the amp right up to 11, to examine the impact that the "consumerization" of IT services, through the application of new technology drivers such as Cloud, Mobility and Business Social Networking, will have on business IT users.  All summed up perfectly by legendary British rockers Status Quo:

 "Whatever you want, Whatever you like, Whatever you say, You pay your money, You take your choice, Whatever you need, Whatever you use..."

The key message for CIOs coming out of the CA Technologies "Cloud Connected CIO" seminar series strongly echoed this theme: Start to transform your IT organizations now or at best face becoming marginalized or at worst be seen as an irrelevance.

Seminar delegates openly questioned the need to use internal IT, when they can get whatever they want faster and cheaper from Managed Service Providers (MSPs), all governed by service level agreements that gives them the ultimate power of switching MSP if not entirely satisfied with the service provided.

Undoubtedly Cloud computing is a major "consumerization" driver, enabling businesses of all sizes to take advantage of end-customer oriented cloud services including SaaS/On-Demand applications such as Salesforce.com, CA Clarity PPM On Demand or NetSuite. Consequently the business is no longer restricted to just the internal IT organization, and now has access to a much wider services marketplace.

 Indeed self-provisioning effectively means the business could bypass IT altogether should it desire. Even the traditional objections of "How secure is it really?" or "But integrations will be much harder, won't they?" have been addressed to a point that IT organizations will have a hard time using them as effective defence mechanisms.

This consumer driven power shift fascinates me, as does its impact on the role of the CIO.  There are a number of parallels with the situation of the CIO I'd like to draw:

  • In the Consumer Goods sector, the consumer has long been king, demanding ever more choice at more affordable prices, consequently retailers and brand owners must continually strive to innovate around products and services in order to compete.
  • Similarly, internal IT is now in a competition to be the partner of choice for the business.  CIOs will need to run IT as a competitive business, ensuring the right services are delivered to enable business success (whether those services are internally provided or outsourced), and provide greater transparency on the value being delivered.
  • In my role at CA Technologies I work with organizations looking to optimize their product portfolios, ensuring they have the right mix of products to deliver long term sustained financial performance. This involves them being able to make the right investment decisions, striking the right balance between innovations that are technology driven and those that are a result of a "market pull".
  • Likewise, CIOs need to make informed portfolio decisions on which services to keep in-house and which to outsource.  They also need to be able to balance technology driven transformation initiatives, e.g. cloud computing and virtualization, that facilitate reduced costs and cycle times with business driven requirements such as social media and mobility.

Fundamentally, there is not only the need to transform the role of CIO into becoming more of a business service portfolio manager, but also the need for IT to transform itself to become a Managed Service Provider that sources services internally and externally.  Central to success is giving the CIO access to accurate and up to date business service and investment level information, and ensuring they have an holistic view of the entire service portfolio, including new service ideas and requests, current service development initiatives, provisioned service catalogue performance and retired service history.

Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) is the key to bringing visibility and governance to this transformation process, in order to reduce costs and cycle times, and optimize the return on investment through aligning the service portfolio with business strategy and balancing resources and business risk.

Using a PPM solution, CIOs can collate current and future strategic goals and benchmark performance on an ongoing basis in real-time, therefore delivering the levels of accountability and traceability demanded by the business.

Whatever way you look at it, the Cloud and the other technology drivers are certainly changing the status quo and mandating the need to innovate around IT services.  PPM provides the platform for CIOs to deliver. For further inspiration visit: http://www.ca.com/us/project-portfolio-management.aspx

 

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By: James Ramsay
James Ramsay is a Principal Consultant for CA Technologies, working across EMEA, specializing in Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) solutions and their role in driving innovation across an enterprise. James has over 20 years experience of IT driven business innovation, starting from his role as...
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Successful IT Transformation: You’d better get a plan!

Published: March 14 2011, 12:59 PM | no comments
by James Ramsay

In 1963, when Bob Dylan wrote the immortal lines...."Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone for the times they are a-changin'"  ... I very much doubt that he envisaged someone nearly 50 years later applying those words to how CIOs are tackling the paradigm shift to Virtualization and Cloud technologies!  

An increasing number of CIOs recognise the need to  adopt Virtualization and Cloud Computing, because the competition and presssure to deliver enhanced business performance is stronger than ever before. The tendency is to come at this from a technical perspective, kicking off pilot initiatives to see how the deployment of Cloud based technologies can solve specific business issues.  It's a start, but is this approach really going to deliver the step change in business value creation CIOs are looking for?

The real challenge facing CIOs is to determine how to utilise these tools and new technologies to deliver maximum benefit to support the business.  IT transformation does not happen overnight - it is not a one-off journey that you start and then 3 or 5 years later you arrive at your chosen destination.  To be successful, IT transformation needs to be a cyclical iterative process which starts with a clear definition of strategy and goals, and has an inherent flexibility to easily adapt to the business environment around it. For example, with application transformation a typical organization may have hundreds or thousands of applications - only some of which will be suitable for cloud transformation.

One European manufacturer I visited recently had over 2000 applications in product development alone!Deciding which applications to keep in their data centres and which to move to the cloud will be fundamental to the success of the overall transformation of IT.  Making the wrong decisions not only risks security, service quality and user satisfaction, but can also have  a profound effect on a company's public image and ultimately its profits and market share.With such high levels of risk involved, CIOs must establish a rigorous systematic approach to managing the IT transformation, enabling them to make faster, more informed and accurate decisions about what to transform and when, and where to assign their resources.  That is why organizations are increasingly adopting Project and Portfolio Management best practices and solutions to help govern the planning and execution of a variety of initiatives - from short-term system upgrades to long-term data centre consolidation programmes. 

Using a PPM solution, CIOs can collate current and future strategic goals - whether it involves target server consolidation; adoption of cloud software services; number of data centres; headcount figures; projected cost savings; planned employee reductions; benchmark performance on an ongoing basis in real-time

With the right PPM processes and solution, organisations can centrally manage the entire transformation at every key stage, including: 

  • Defining the strategy and goals both in business and IT terms
  • Mapping the current and target IT state post-transformation
  • Establishing a transition plan and identifying the resources and costs involved
  • Managing the execution of transformation projects
  • Monitoring and reviewing progress both at a project and programme level.

Fundamentally, how CIOs manage the planning and execution of their IT transformation will have a direct impact on its success and value delivered to the business.  A PPM-based approach will not only provide the insight and control needed to drive complex transformation programmes, but will aslo crucially provide the flexibility to adjust plans as market or business conditions dictate.  For further inspiration I invite you to attend ‘The Cloud Connected CIO-Are You Ready to Transform Your Organisation?' European seminar series started this week in Europe. For more information visit http://ow.ly/4ea8q and click on the video below for an update from CA technologies Nadeem Malik who attended today's seminar in London on HMS Belfast.

After all as Bob said " the times they are a-changin'." 

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By: James Ramsay
James Ramsay is a Principal Consultant for CA Technologies, working across EMEA, specializing in Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) solutions and their role in driving innovation across an enterprise. James has over 20 years experience of IT driven business innovation, starting from his role as...
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