Staying the Course as a CIO – How to Overcome the Trials and Challenges of IT Leadership

<p>INTRODUCTION xi</p>
<p>CHAPTER 1 Dislocated Stakeholders 1</p>
<p>Wooden Poles with Holder 2</p>
<p>Because They re Worth It? 4</p>
<p>The Joys of Middle Management 10</p>
<p>Layers and Spans 11</p>
<p>Middle Managers and the Linkage between IT and the Business 13</p>
<p>The View from the Top of the Tree 16</p>
<p>Bored Boards 18</p>
<p>The Relationship Conundrum 19</p>
<p>The Henry VIII Method 20</p>
<p>The Customer/Supplier Model 20</p>
<p>Teamwork! 23</p>
<p>Could I Have Something Impossible Please? 26</p>
<p>The Dead?]Hero Zone 26</p>
<p>Magicians, Circuses and Keeping Something in the Tank 28</p>
<p>CHAPTER 2 Pathogenic Projects 31</p>
<p>IT Projects are Harder than Climbing Everest 33</p>
<p>Not Everyone Gets to be a Pharaoh 36</p>
<p>Don t Start Anything You Can t Finish 38</p>
<p>Peaches Are not the Only Fruit 39</p>
<p>Ungrouping Group?]Think 40</p>
<p>Mugging by PowerPoint 42</p>
<p>Back to the Himalayas 43</p>
<p>Stalinist Project Management 44</p>
<p>Undo?]able Projects 44</p>
<p>Stalin s Special Question 45</p>
<p>Being Nostradamus 49</p>
<p>My Piece of String is Skewed 51</p>
<p>Things Can Go Badly Wrong, but They Rarely Go Badly Right 52</p>
<p>Inoculating against Skew Percentile Therapy 54</p>
<p>What Happens in Projects Stays in Projects 56</p>
<p>The Gates of Wrath 58</p>
<p>Looking Up from the Pit 62</p>
<p>CHAPTER 3 Seriously Shaky Software 63</p>
<p>Software Just Doesn t Wo.. 65</p>
<p>Being Immune to Tangerines 70</p>
<p>The Unfortunate Side?]Effect of Moore s Law 72</p>
<p>It Will be Fixed in the Next Release 74</p>
<p>Upgrade or You Will be Banished Naked to a World of Loneliness and Isolation 75</p>
<p>Belchware not Bloatware 77</p>
<p>Patched, Leaking and Lost in a Maze 79</p>
<p>The Wobbly Stack 81</p>
<p>Stabilising Shakiness 84</p>
<p>Safe Software 85</p>
<p>The Safe Software Game 86</p>
<p>Booking a Landing Slot at Heathrow 88</p>
<p>Don t Try to Improve a Da Vinci, Unless You Are a Rembrandt 89</p>
<p>Bespoke Only When You re Bespoken to 92</p>
<p>CHAPTER 4 Obsessive Outsourcing Compulsion 95</p>
<p>Outsourcing an Empire 97</p>
<p>Strains of Outsourcing Compulsion 101</p>
<p>Madness with Metrics 102</p>
<p>Giving the Fox the Keys to the Chicken Coop 103</p>
<p>The Nineteenth Hole Contract 105</p>
<p>Dedicated Followers of Fashion 106</p>
<p>Finance is not about Engineering Anything 108</p>
<p>Contract Accounting and Runaway Trains 110</p>
<p>Faster than a Speeding Bullet 113</p>
<p>The Capability Argument 113</p>
<p>The Economic Argument 114</p>
<p>Better Out than In? 115</p>
<p>Protecting the Crown Jewels 117</p>
<p>Everyone Needs to Win 121</p>
<p>In Summary 124</p>
<p>CHAPTER 5 Chronic Consultancy Syndrome 125</p>
<p>Consultants The Hummingbirds of the IT Jungle 126</p>
<p>Survival of the Sharpest 128</p>
<p>Spotting Hummingbirds in the Wild 129</p>
<p>An Expensive Dose of Aviary Assistance 130</p>
<p>Predator or Prey? 131</p>
<p>What Consulting Isn t ? 132</p>
<p>It Was Their Fault! 133</p>
<p>The Magic of a Name 134</p>
<p>The Consultant s Crutch 135</p>
<p>But What Consulting Perhaps Should Be? 135</p>
<p>Forests, Trees and Spectacles 137</p>
<p>You Are not Alone on Planet Earth 139</p>
<p>Nothing New Under the Sun 141</p>
<p>Hummingbirds Flap Harder than Cash Cows 142</p>
<p>How Hummingbirds Turn into Cuckoos 143</p>
<p>Answer 1 The Cuckoo Consultancy End?]Game Solution 147</p>
<p>Answer 2 The Thin?]Edge?]Wedge?]End?]Game Cash Cow 147</p>
<p>And Finally 148</p>
<p>CHAPTER 6 STRATEGY SCHIZOPHRENIA 151</p>
<p>A Beginner s Guide to World Domination 152</p>
<p>Types of Strategy 154</p>
<p>The Better Tomorrow 154</p>
<p>The Grand Plan 158</p>
<p>Strategy Schizophrenia Balancing the Unbalanceable 161</p>
<p>Summary 164</p>
<p>CHAPTER 7 BLEEDING BUDGETS 167</p>
<p>A Beginner s Guide to Building a Roulette Table 168</p>
<p>How Much Are You Going to Spend? 168</p>
<p>How Much Goodness? 170</p>
<p>Which Investments? 174</p>
<p>But What about Tomorrow? 177</p>
<p>Putting Today and Tomorrow s Investments Together 180</p>
<p>Putting the Final Touches to the Roulette Table 181</p>
<p>Placing the Chips 182</p>
<p>Our Transformation Journey 184</p>
<p>Other Funding Profile Examples 186</p>
<p>Funding Choice 1 The Support Organisation 186</p>
<p>Funding Choice 2 The Go for it Organisation 187</p>
<p>Summary 188</p>
<p>CHAPTER 8 Epilogue What Might Overcome You? 191</p>
<p>It s Always the Same Culprits, Except When it Isn t 191</p>
<p>Failure and Folklore 194</p>
<p>IT Leadership Morbidity Tables 195</p>
<p>First Tier Dislocated Stakeholders 195</p>
<p>Second Tier Money and Strategy 197</p>
<p>Third Tier Projects and Software 198</p>
<p>Fourth Tier Outsourcing 199</p>
<p>Fifth Tier Consultancy 199</p>
<p>The Unknown Unknowns 200</p>
<p>ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 203</p>
<p>BIBLIOGRAPHY 207</p>
<p>INDEX 211</p>