Six Process of Effective IT Management Control. Five Fundamentals of Information Resource Management.

Management has been described as the optimization of utilization of corporate resources through the planning, organizing, leading, and controlling of the members of any organization. It is a process of continuous improvement whereby the business itself is constantly adapting to its environment and management must change in like order.

The management process begins with an understanding of the organization’s business. Until this is achieved, any attempt to determine organizational need will be at best misleading and at worst disastrous. Once the overall objectives and environment of the business have been established, establishing the needs becomes a comparatively easy task. The organization’s needs may be determined by identifying and examining the key activities whose effective performance can make or break the organization. These key activities must themselves be monitored and therefore ambitious performance objectives must be established early in the planning process. For every performance objective there will be a range of threats which, if fulfilled, will either reduce the effectiveness or totally negate the objective. These must be assessed in a formal risk assessment to determine the appropriate corporate coping strategy. The coping or control strategies must be determined by management and the appropriate controls themselves selected. The actual controls must be implemented and monitored and there should exist controls to ensure this happens. Controls, once implemented, must be effective in performance and periodically management must evaluate and review performance with this in mind.

1. UNDERSTANDING THE ORGANIZATION’S BUSINESS
This is a combination of a theoretical approach utilizing literature searches on the organization and its functions on the business press, if possible, combined with a reading of annual reports in order to obtain the whole picture.
This theory will be combined with a more practical approach involving interviewing staff in order to both evaluate their understanding of the business as well as to confirm the auditor’s understanding. Site visits to observe the operation of specific business functions will also assist. Further information and confirmation may be derived by comparing the current understandings to those in effect during previous reviews.

2. ESTABLISHING THE NEEDS
Once the overall objectives and environment of the business have been established, the overall needs must be determined. A study of the organizational mission statement permits the general performance objectives to be derived. Management should have established strategic plans and objectives in order to ensure these are achieved. By interviewing executive management, employees, and perhaps even customers and suppliers, the business needs for the successful accomplishment of the objectives may be determined.

3. IDENTIFYING KEY ACTIVITIES
The major products and services provided to meet the business objectives need to be identified. Once again this will involve determining the level of management’s understanding of customer needs and sizes, the competition and their probable response patterns, as well as their understanding of which are their own key performance areas (KPAs). The KPAs are those activities that will make or break those activities.

4. ESTABLISH PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES
For each KPA, Performance Objectives must be established. This involves seeking core activity targets that are both achievable and stretching. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will be required to measure performance appropriately. The risks and threats that could lead to non/under-achievement must be assessed including both external and internal threats.

5. DECIDE THE CONTROL STRATEGIES
Once the full risk analysis is complete, management is in a position to decide what activities must be ensured, which risks must be managed, and which transferred. This, in turn, will dictate which risks can be cost-effectively prevented, which must be detected, and how a materialized risk can be corrected.
Business risks must be prioritized and trade-offs will be required because control measures are commonly contradictory, so that efficiency may trade-off against effectiveness.

6. IMPLEMENT AND MONITOR THE CONTROLS
For controls to be effective, they must be monitored and wishing them into existence will not accomplish the fact. Controls result from the planned and thoughtful intervention of management to achieve a specific end.
Monitoring may take several forms including self-assessment, the use of regular audits, and the introduction of continuous improvement programs. Controls must be frequently reviewed for ongoing relevance as well as for their effectiveness and must be modified and adapted where required.

INFORMATION RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Information Resource Management is based upon five fundamentals:
1.    Information Management. Information is valuable and must be managed as such. In many organizations, information does not appear on the balance sheet or asset register and is thus seen as something that, while important, is not really valuable.
2.    Technology Management. Technology Management addresses the whole aspect of the value of technology to the firm. This includes the impact and effect on other resources as well as the gaining of strategic advantage by judicious use of the appropriate technology.
3.    Distributed Management. Where systems are located can have a significant impact on systems effectiveness as well as internal control and thought must be given to the maintaining of an adequate system of managerial control.
4.    Functional Management. Like other functional areas, IS must be directed and controlled in order to ensure the effective, efficient, and economic use of what is, after all, an expensive resource.
5.    Strategic Management. IS holds the potential to gain and maintain major competitive advantage for the organization. Used appropriately, IS can raise the barriers of entry to competition, gain exclusivity for the information holder, and generally keep the organization ahead of the pack.

Six Process of Effective IT Management Control. Five Fundamentals of Information Resource Management.

CIO Roles for achieving Outstanding Corporate Success.

CIO Roles

Successful CIOs have a core set of skills and roles which allows them to succeed in an age of complexity and constantly shifting business requirements.

In the 1960s, information technology (IT) was a back-room, low-prestige operation. The "electronic data processing (EDP) manager" would typically not be on the same social, educational, or organizational level as, for example, the vice president (VP) of finance or the head of manufacturing. Roll forward to the 21st century and the CIO is now blessed with acceptance into the "senior leadership club" but challenged by responsibilities never imagined in the past.

Following are some of the roles the new CIO is expected to play:
 Providing technical strategy that seamlessly segues into the corporate business strategy — even in the absence of a well-defined business plan and implementation road map. As Sun Tzu said, "Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."

 Maintaining a computing and communications (people, data, phone, cell, etc.) infrastructure that is always available.

 Having knowledge and foresight enough to develop an architecture that, after implementation, enables the business to provide many new services, reduce costs, and streamline operations with existing infrastructure and systems. In other words, you can avoid the scenario where the chief executive officer (CEO) says "I want to do X" and your response is usually "Great, we'll need to install Y to make it happen and it will cost $Z."

 Ensuring that the IT portfolio fund is utilized and managed properly. Dollars go toward high-value return-on-investment (ROI) projects that support the business strategy.

 Hiring the right people, having a tier one Rolodex, chock-a-block full of trusted contractors, and retaining high performers.

 Developing and maintaining a spot-on IT governance structure that does all the things governance is supposed to do — ensure alignment with business goals, ensure proper controls (e.g., change management, security), provide communications up and down the management chain, monitor progress, and manage risk.

 Proactively develop strategic project ideas and suggestions for the business — "the art of the possible." This is the opposite of the order-taker perspective of your muscle car era predecessors.

 Working to seamlessly integrate acquisitions into the IT/business fabric of the organization, or inversely, help to divest subsidiaries without undue disruption.

 Keeping the lid on expenses. Not only do the high-profile new projects need to be managed, but the day-to-day operating expenses and budget must be scrutinized as well.

 Translate, communicate, and educate. To paraphrase former President George H.W Bush, you need to promote the "vision thing." Short-term thinking is the enemy of effective IT, and the CIO must constantly translate (from "geek speak" to English) and communicate (two way) with the business — here is the plan, here are the benefits, and here is what will happen if we take a short-term, expedient approach. Assume, for example, that your users have always used bicycles to get to work. You suggest an automobile. "Good idea," they say, "but we're used to handlebars and this steering wheel feels awkward; let's install handlebars in the automobiles." At that point, you and the user's management need to communicate so that the message to the users is clear — we are going to have a little short-term pain for some long-term benefit.

CIO Roles for achieving Outstanding Corporate Success.

10 Things CIO Should Tell Management about Technology. How to influence Management. IT Does Matter. Align Technology Investments to Business Strategy.

Ten Things IT Should Tell Management

The Wall Street Journal published “Ten Things Your IT Department Won’t Tell You” (July 30, 2007) that lists some things you might do to get around your chief information officer’s (CIO) policies and procedures, things like how to download forbidden software or get your e-mail from lots of places when your corporate messaging server doesn’t want to cooperate. I thought this was a silly article. It was like I was reading about how 12-year-olds plot to confuse their parents to get more access to video games. After complaining to some friends about the whole premise of the article, one of them challenged me to turn the message around. “So, big shot, what would you tell ‘management’ about technology?”

Here’s what I’d say:
1. “First of all—‘management’—technology is an asset that needs to be nurtured—like a brand or a customer service reputation. If you don’t invest in the asset, its value will fall—just like any asset. Just ask Dell or Mercedes what happens when service and quality—respectively—suffers.”

2. “And while we’re talking about all this, remember that although operational technology has definitely commoditized, there are still strategic technology investments we need to be very careful about making. It’s possible to make some major mistakes in the acquisition of all kinds of technology, so let’s get some serious discipline in the technology acquisition process—and, please, don’t listen too closely about killer apps at cocktail parties. Everyone knows that alcohol and technology don’t mix.”

3. “Don’t forget that technology is still complex, even though industry standards have helped improve integration and interoperability. Listen, while there are fewer moving parts, the way we deploy them still makes the technology world tough to manage—and our vendors don’t always help us.”

4. “Please stop making exceptions to the governance process. If you want to save money and keep us agile, then do not allow all the flowers to bloom; instead, publish the standards and then stick with them. Every time you let someone off the hook, you make our life more complicated—and expensive.”

5. “Make the company’s business strategy as transparent as possible (unless you really don’t like talking about your own strategy). The more the technocrats know about the business strategy, the more efficient they will be acquiring and deploying technology.”

6. “Please make us account for our technology investments. Please make us link them to the business strategy and the impact each investment has on operational or strategic success. In spite of what you may think, we like ROI (return on investment) thinking. Hold us—and everyone—to it.”

7. “Stop underestimating the impact the Web will have on business. I am really tired of our thinking that the Web is just another channel. The Web is not an evolutionary channel. It’s definitely a revolutionary one that changes dramatically every year. Please allow us to pay close attention to new Web technologies and Web-based business models. By the way, why aren’t we crowdsourcing our R&D (research and development)?”

8. “Listen to my whining about the lack of a discretionary budget. I need some money to try new things. I need to fail fast and fail cheap, but without a discretionary budget I can’t do either.”

9. “Please don’t acquire any companies until I’ve looked at their technology. Never assume that our technologies will ‘seamlessly integrate.’ Never assume that there are automatic technology gains that will result from a merger or acquisition. Nothing is farther from the truth.”

10. “Invest in the right people with the right skills at the right price. Reward major contributors and prune out the losers. There’s nothing else you can do to excite the troops more. They need to believe that hard work will be rewarded—and that lousy work will be punished.”

What would you say to “management” about technology? It might make sense to think about what you’d say if given the opportunity. You never know when you might be invited to rant. Such rants should become part of the IT “road show” that you dust off whenever you get even the slightest opportunity to sing your praises.

10 Things CIO Should Tell Management about Technology. How to influence Management. IT Does Matter. Align Technology Investments to Business Strategy.