The IT Governance Evangelist

I've been an official "IT Governance Evangelist" for just over a year. During this time, I have spoken on IT Governance in 49 cities. I know this because my family tacked pins in a corkboard map to track my travels. While I have experienced different accents, customs, landmarks, architecture, geography and weather, what strikes me most after a year of near-nonstop travel are the things that are the same. Two come quickly to mind.

The first is the sincere and unending desire of the people I meet to improve the performance of their IT organizations. They attend my presentations in the hope that IT Governance, and more specifically Project and Portfolio Management and PMOs, can make things better. They are there because they care and want to do more for their enterprises. I truly enjoy that each of my visits has this in common.

The second is not so warm and fuzzy and I don't enjoy it at all. It is the common list of problems and issues each person I meet lives with day in and day out. I know this because of a slide I include in most of my presentations entitled "Sound Familiar?" It includes the following bullets:

• We don't have enough resources to get the work done.
• We don't prioritize our projects, or every project is a #1 priority, or our priorities are constantly changing with no explanation.
• In our organization, there is no real portfolio management.
• Everyone is doing end runs around the approval process.
• Funding tends to be very political. 
• We get funding to build duplicate systems for different business units and the end result is an ever-growing set of unsupportable redundant applications.
• We can't kill a project and if we do it always seems to show up again.
• We never have any objective measurements to overcome the politics in decision-making.

I have used this same slide for the past year to "connect" with the audience. I am saddened to say that it is very effective. The room laughs, snickers and shakes their heads in knowing unison. By the time I finish elaborating on each statement there is that sense of fraternity that results from misery loving company. The group is then ready and eager to hear how IT Governance, Project and Portfolio Management, PMOs and the automation to support them can address these issues.

I have already updated my presentations for 2008. I have made some content and formatting changes, but my "Sound Familiar?" slide has remained unaltered. I will continue to use it to connect with the people I am trying to help.

I very much look forward to the day when I present the list and people shake their heads, not in recognition, but in question. The advent of effective IT Governance, associated Project and Portfolio Management processes, and effective PMOs will bring that day. Instead of having the list of problems in common, the thing they will all share is the question, "What the heck is this guy talking about?"

That trip will be marked by a special pin on the map.