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Michael Gentle has over 25 years of experience in IT departments, consulting companies and software vendors in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. He brings a refreshingly new angle to an old problem - and directly challenges both IT professionals and business executives to think differently about how to achieve IT success.
www.michaelgentle.com
Introduction | p. ix |
Acknowledgements | p. xiii |
Abbreviations | p. xvii |
Blinded by Specs | p. 1 |
In Search of Excellence the Fundamentals | p. 3 |
The more things change, the more they stay the same | p. 3 |
A worldwide phenomenon | p. 4 |
How the traditional IT model started | p. 5 |
The construction industry trap | p. 6 |
The free lunch trap | p. 7 |
Houses of ill repute | p. 8 |
A business problem rather than an IT problem | p. 10 |
IT and original sin | p. 12 |
No sacred cows | p. 12 |
IT 101 - The Basics for Non-Specialists | p. 15 |
The process breakdown for traditional IT activities | p. 15 |
The process breakdown for business (i.e. non-IT) activities | p. 16 |
The fundamental difference between IT and non-IT activities | p. 18 |
'That's not my problem!' - process ownership and behaviour | p. 19 |
The Flaws of the Traditional Model | p. 21 |
The unintended consequences of the waterfall method | p. 21 |
In search of a pizza parlour manager | p. 22 |
Who provides process expertise - client or vendor? | p. 22 |
When standard client-vendor relationships are possible | p. 24 |
When standard client-vendor relationships pose problems | p. 25 |
Is a standard client-vendor relationship possible for IT? | p. 26 |
The 'Statement of Requirements' (SoR) trap | p. 26 |
A poor to non-existent pricing model | p. 28 |
Should IT be run like a business (i.e. an ESP)? | p. 30 |
The limits of outsourcing | p. 31 |
Current IT organizational trends | p. 32 |
The ultimate litmus test to determine one's business model | p. 33 |
What model would be appropriate for IT? | p. 34 |
Building a New Business Model for IT | p. 35 |
Managing Demand | p. 37 |
Managing demand - traditional model | p. 37 |
Managing demand - new model | p. 39 |
Capturing demand and identifying opportunities | p. 41 |
Prioritizing and approving demand | p. 43 |
Planning approved demand | p. 49 |
Linking demand to resource capability | p. 49 |
Approving demand based on portfolios | p. 50 |
The missing component in Project Portfolio Management | p. 53 |
Business cases are in the eye of the beholder | p. 54 |
Building the IT plan and budget | p. 55 |
Demand from a customer perspective | p. 56 |
Shaking off the chains of the construction industry | p. 56 |
Funding approved demand | p. 58 |
Roles and responsibilities | p. 59 |
Managing Supply | p. 61 |
Managing supply - traditional model | p. 61 |
Managing supply - new model | p. 63 |
Iterative development in practice | p. 65 |
Why prototyping has never become mainstream | p. 74 |
Is prototyping the answer to everything? | p. 78 |
Project critical success factors | p. 79 |
Maintenance - letting go of the M-word | p. 79 |
Delivery and implementation | p. 81 |
Service and support | p. 81 |
Monitoring Costs and Benefits | p. 83 |
Monitoring costs and benefits for traditional IT activities | p. 83 |
Monitoring costs and benefits for business (non-IT) activities | p. 84 |
Monitoring costs and benefits - new model | p. 85 |
Ownership and accountability for costs and benefits | p. 86 |
Cost-benefit analysis during the life of a project | p. 87 |
It is normal for costs and benefits to change! | p. 88 |
Portfolio performance monitoring | p. 88 |
Cost-benefit analysis after project delivery | p. 89 |
Financials | p. 91 |
The main categories of IT costs | p. 91 |
Ownership of IT costs for the regulation of supply and demand | p. 92 |
Who has the final say for IT investments? | p. 92 |
Allocations vs cross-charging | p. 93 |
Capturing costs for allocations and cross-charging | p. 94 |
Benefits as part of the P&L and annual planning | p. 95 |
Ongoing cost-benefit analysis for applications | p. 96 |
Reducing application lifetime costs | p. 100 |
The limits of financial ROI when applied to IT | p. 102 |
The New Model in Practice | p. 105 |
Players, Roles and Responsibilities | p. 107 |
Players, roles and responsibilities - the business | p. 107 |
Players, roles and responsibilities - IT | p. 111 |
The new business-IT relationship | p. 112 |
The changing role of the business analyst | p. 113 |
The changing role of the developer | p. 113 |
Towards the merging of the developer and analyst roles? | p. 114 |
The changing role of the project manager | p. 115 |
The changing role of the operations department | p. 116 |
What role for PMOs? | p. 117 |
The role of External Service Providers (ESPs) | p. 119 |
Getting Started | p. 121 |
The business challenge | p. 121 |
The IT challenge | p. 122 |
Where to start | p. 123 |
How to start - from checklist to action plan | p. 124 |
From the status quo to first results | p. 128 |
From first results to asset management | p. 133 |
The role of best-practice methodologies | p. 136 |
How consulting companies can help | p. 138 |
How tools can help | p. 139 |
The costs of moving to the new model | p. 140 |
In closing - addressing the three fundamental questions | p. 142 |
Further reading | p. 143 |
Case Study | p. 145 |
The company | p. 145 |
The business problem | p. 146 |
The project context | p. 146 |
Building an IT-business partnership | p. 147 |
Kicking off the project | p. 148 |
Feasibility study and defining a solution | p. 149 |
Building the business case | p. 150 |
Project approach | p. 151 |
Product evaluation - buy or build decision | p. 151 |
Building a prototype | p. 152 |
Results | p. 154 |
Timescales | p. 155 |
Three months later | p. 155 |
One year later | p. 156 |
Two years later | p. 156 |
Main lessons learnt (on the plus side) | p. 156 |
Main lessons learnt (on the minus side) | p. 157 |
Comments with respect to the new model | p. 157 |
Reader feedback | p. 158 |
Index | p. 159 |
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