8 Things We Hate About I.T.

by Cramm, Susan

• ISBN13: 9781422131664
• ISBN10: 1422131661
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-03-29
• Publisher: Harvard Business School Pr

Summary

For most business managers, the relationship with IT can be summed up in a word: frustrating! Exploiting technology often requires sorting through convoluted processes, data, and systems only to, find requests mired in red tape and projects late and over budget. But here's something you probably don't know: those things you hate about IT? Your IT leaders hate them too. So stop complainingand start collaborating with the people who can help fix the problems.

Author Biography

Susan Cramm is the founder and president of Valuedance®. Susan Cramm is a recognized industry expert on information technology leadership. She has helped pioneer the field of IT leadership coaching through her passion and gifts for developing others, as well as her keen insights regarding IT leadership, which are derived from extensive research and years serving in executive level positions. She has worked with executives from a number of Fortune Global 200 clients, including Toyota, Sony, and Time Warner. Susan's experience makes a difference and her clients describe her as "insightful", "motivational", "practical", "tough", "committed", and "invaluable". She is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and, since 2000, has authored the monthly "Executive Coach" column for CIO magazine.

Cramm is the former CFO and executive vice president at Chevy's Mexican Restaurants. She joined Chevy's in 1994 to assist in the development of a nationwide Mexican "cantina style" restaurant concept and assumed responsibility for finance, business strategy, restaurant development, franchising and legal functions. Prior to Chevy's, Cramm worked with the Taco Bell Corporation and held the positions of CIO and vice president of the Information Technology Group and Senior Director for Financial and Strategic Planning.

Susan received her master's degree in management from Northwestern University, specializing in finance, marketing and quantitative methods and her BA from University California, San Diego, summa cum laude, specializing in management and computer science.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
You Need Service, and IT Needs Control	p. 15
You Need Results, and IT Needs Respect	p. 29
You Need to Focus on Tactics, and IT Needs Strategic Alignment	p. 43
You Need IT Funding, and IT Needs Returns	p. 63
You Need On-time Delivery, and IT Needs Quality	p. 85
You Need Customization, and IT Needs Standardization	p. 107
You Need Innovation, and IT Functions in Bureaucracy	p. 125
You Need Good IT, and IT Can Become Great	p. 141
A Primer on Fast-Cycle Development	p. 157
Emerging Technologies	p. 161
Key Responsibilities of the New Business-IT Partnership	p. 167
Notes	p. 171
Index	p. 181
About the Author	p. 193
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Supplemental Materials

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Excerpts

What To Expect In This Book
This book is organized by the “eight hates” outline above, with a chapter dedicated to each to examine and reconcile the frustrations. We will change the “ors” into “ands” by answering the following questions:
• Chapter 1: How can serve in a controlled manner?
• Chapter 2: How can we deliver results while enhancing the relationship?
• Chapter 3: How can we identify tactics that are grounded in strategy?
• Chapter 4: How can we make sure our expenses are investments?
• Chapter 5: How can deliver quickly, with quality?
• Chapter 6: How can we have customized standardization?
• Chapter 7: How can we innovate in spite of the bureaucracy?
• Chapter 8: How can transform from good to great IT?
In reading this book, business leaders may feel like I am letting IT off easy and making the whole IT-business relationship thing their problem to solve. I am. The only person you can change is you and, in the process of changing yourself, IT will be forced to change. Great relationships aren’t 50-50, they are 100-100 with each party doing whatever they can to meet the needs of the other. But rest assured, while I am nagging you, the business leader, I am also implicitly holding IT accountable for being a good partner. In the last chapter, I make the implicit, explicit by summarizing what you should expect from IT, and if you aren’t getting it, outlining how to serve yourself if IT is incapable of doing so.

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