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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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!

Traditionally, IT teams has been good at jumping on requests, especially for emergency problems, and working on them immediately. Unfortunately, they haven’t always been so strong at communicating what’s happening.

There are several areas we can improve on communications (especially in email) within the team and externally.  Clear and complete e-mail communications are key to providing a high level of customer service and ensuring issues are fully dealt with in an appropriate timeline.

I’m not going to go into the standards of email etiquette here – you all know to be professional, clear and concise in your email.  Instead, let’s focus on when we communicate and what we include in those communications. (more…)

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.

I’m working with an IT team to help each of them develop their professional development plans.  For most of the team, it’s really easy.  Help desk, server admins and network guys have clear technical course work and simple-to-acheive certifications to collect along the way.  It’s a path with many rewards and almost-instant gratification along the way. 

Plus, for more technical people, learning about new technology is fun!  Even better when the company pays for it.

It becomes somewhat more challenging when you start to look at the new IT Manager who leads the group.  In the past, he’s been focused on Cisco certification and his ITIL base certification.  Great – but as he’s having to get more hands-off technology, it’s time to move away from Cisco.  (more…)