Earlier this week I had the opportunity to sit down and enjoy coffee with a colleague dealing with a daunting business process re-engineering task.  She’s working with a client that has not leveraged technology well in their current business processes.  Management recently hired a new CIO who has been hard at work getting approval and buy-in at the management level to automate many processes, but she’s finding great resistance actually implementing the improvements at every level.

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A couple weeks ago I finished on a renovation project at the Ki Society with my step father, John.  John is a recently-retired trades-person.  It’s interesting to listen to him talk about the difference in trades-work between the professionals today, and those from a generation ago.

John strongly believes in quality.  He does things right.  He uses the right tools and processes to ensure everything is done to a high level of workmanship and that things are built to last.  There’s a deep level of pride and importance attached to that which is impossible to discount.

Something has changed with the current generation – the focus is on doing the job right now instead of doing it right. There’s less pride in workmanship, and it shows in so many ways. (more…)

To all Vancouver-based technology managers and leaders!

There’s a new peer and networking group developing on LinkedIn.  The Vancouver Technology Leaders group is being assembled as a peer group for technology leaders. Apart from the standard discussions and the like, the plan is to have the group run lunches or networking events every few months.

Through my career I’ve always found challenges finding peers and mentors to discuss the non-technical aspects of my job with.  Hopefully this group will develop and become such a place for other technology leaders in Vancouver.

Come join us!

Knowing my love for great leadership fables, one of my clients recently passed me a copy of Lencioni’s The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive.

As with his other books, this one is full of great insights and provides a great real-world example of how to achieve results.  To some extent, I found this one a little less tangible than the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, but hopefully that will clear up for me as I digest.

Most executives recognize that finding the right people, with the right alignment of values, culture and purpose, is key to the success of an organization.  Many companies take the time to come up with “missions statements” and “corporate values” and “goals”.  Sadly, not as many take the process to completion and live by these defining statements and attributes.  I’ve been part of a few teams that start to go the right direction, then fail in other areas, especially communications (over-communicate clarity).

This book provides a simple framework that any leader can quickly grasp and implement. I’m a big fan of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  As expected, this book meshes well into that framework in many areas, especially in the first discipline (Build and Maintain a Cohesive Leadership Team).

Like his other books, this is another must-read for any business leader.

Recently I was reading an interesting article called Outsourcing: 10 Crippling Mistakes IT Departments Make and found myself scratching my head. At first, I was unsure why – all 10 things they point out are definitely key issues that can seriously harm or cripple your outsourcing plans.  All of their mistakes have a very common theme, that’s see all too often:  Companies don’t treat outsourcing like getting married.

When outsourcing, you’re building a long-term relationship with a company that will be looking after computer systems (or some subset of them), protecting your data, or helping your users.  When rereading the article with the mindset of getting married (or creating a partnership) instead of buying a commodity from a vendor, most people say to themselves, “Of course you wouldn’t do ‘Penny Wise, Pound Foolish’.”

For small to mid-sized businesses thinking about outsourcing, the requirements and “crippling mistakes” are quite different.  Most SMBs don’t have strong IT metrics (there’s some basics that everyone should have) or focus heavily on incentive-based contracts. Instead, there’s a need to focus on the basics.   (more…)