proactive

Toward more proactive performance monitoring

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:01:38 -0400

New holistic application performance management products offer companies the chance for more proactive performance monitoring. Application performance is critical to the bottom line. Application performance management vendors, like Hewlett-Packard, Digital Fuel Technologies, Integrien, Oblicore and OpTier offer predictive application performance with faster and more reliable monitoring. This new generation of APM products discover and map relationships between applications and underlying infrastructure automatically. APM products that understand the multiple components in your environment and automatically correlate and integrate with them have an immediate value. Truly holistic approaches to APM should locate and predict performance problems across all components of the application and supporting infrastructure, including system and network performance. They must diagnose the underlying problem and suggest or take corrective action before the problem reaches the user community. Anything short of this means wasted time and money.

Read more about application performance management:
- read the article at Network Computing

E-discovery and the CIO

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 20:01:39 -0400

Electronic discovery is a firm's obligation to produce all of the documents or information in its possession--including documents that exist only in electronic form--in the event of initiated or threatened litigation. It is important to recognize that in today's business climate, litigation is not always a last-resort. Increasingly, it is becoming an active strategy of the business and is being critically assessed, based on its potential to generate a positive return on investment. In-house counsel should play an important role in information access and management. Managing the content of information should not be ignored. Pay attention to the content of the information being protected. Failure to do so can expose the company to substantial litigation risk. A systematic campaign of education and compliance monitoring is a fundamental element of effective corporate policy around information management. Finally, litigation needs can present a fundamental departure from otherwise highly effective information strategies. Don't try to generate a one-size-fits-all strategy to accommodate the often unique demands presented by litigation. Give proactive consideration to potential litigation when developing information processes.

Learn more about e-discovery and the CIO:
- read the article at CIO Canada

ALSO:
- read this on dealing with e-discovery
- and this on heading lawsuits off at the pass

Looking for innovation within the IT department

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 20:01:36 -0400

Conventional wisdom says that innovation comes from the top, but that's not always the case. Innovative leadership can come from the middle of the organization, and proactive CIOs look for these future leaders to move up through the ranks over time. Attributes of innovate mid-level workers include passion, the ability to see potential, leadership, creativity, fearlessness of authority, experience, energy, and, most of all, a penchant for thinking outside of the box.

Learn more about what makes a mid-level employee an innovator:
- read the article at CIO Insight

ALSO:
- read this on listening to junior employees about innovation
- this on creating processes for innovation
- this on what innovation is all about
- this on the impact of the business model on innovation
- and this on spearheading innovation through IT

The business impact of IT investments

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 20:01:39 -0400

Determining whether your company is getting enough value from its IT investments is one of the most difficult things to measure. Making sure that you're measuring accurately means taking advantage of benefit realization--the proactive forecasting, management and measurement of the financial, operational and strategic benefits being realized. For effective benefit realization, start by building selectively, piloting with a particular business unit and setting initiatives. Next, secure business co-ownership by ensuring that senior leaders collaborate in choosing IT measurements and soliciting input from corporate finance. Regularly review and adjust performance measurements to prevent them from getting stale or obsolete. Demand business accountability for funding and delivering IT results. Be selective with benefit realization metrics, focusing on a few performance measures instead of a long list. And make sure you know what results really matter. Also, use metrics that are business-relevant and matter to stakeholders, and make sure to measure the benefits of the benefit realization process itself.

Read more about benefit realization:
- read the article at Optimize

Going above and beyond what's expected

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:01:39 -0400

Much has been written about a recent survey that indicated that CEOs are generally satisfied with the role that IT plays in the organization. But the study also noted that most CEOs don't expect IT leadership to be proactive in either driving business innovation or leading process improvement. Without full support from CEOs, CIOs are climbing straight uphill in trying to deliver what the business needs. To climb that hill, make sure that you're active, not passive, and try to go above and beyond what's expected of you. If you're resting on the laurels of the CEO's low expectations, step it up. If you're doing more than the CEO can see, market it. If the CEO and top executives don't understand IT, educate them.

Learn more about shattering the stigmas associated with IT:
- read the article at ComputerWorld

ALSO:
- read this on why CEOs should shoulder some of the blame
- this article on CEOs' disillusionment with CIOs
- and this on forging a good CEO-CIO connection

Directing a virtual workforce

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 20:01:38 -0400

Telecommuting isn't going away; if anything, it is expected to increase significantly over the next several years. That means CIOs must find good strategies to deal with telecommuting employees by developing policies, good support and security, and making sure IT managers are equipped to handle the situation. Communication often is the biggest problem, because most communication between people tends to be nonverbal. Telecommuters can easily lose touch with the feel of the organization and its institutional knowledge. To combat this, the leader of a virtual team must make extra efforts to ensure that communication among team members is of good quality. That means asking the right questions and refining your listening skills. Managers also must be proactive in keeping the virtual team members involved in matters relating to the organization.

Learn more about managing telecommuters:
- read the article at ITWorld

ALSO:
- read this on protecting data from insecure home networks

Getting to the next level

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:01:39 -0400

Reaching the top rung isn't easy, but it's doable. Promote yourself by getting people's attention and demonstrating the benefits of your projects and plans to the business. Move out of your comfort zone by taking charge of a project in another areas of the company, or transferring temporarily to another division. Improve your visibility by sitting on the board of the company. Become more decisive and be confident. Think strategy, not support, by focusing on the business benefits of IT and improving communication between IT and other departments. Sharpen up your office politics by observing the "power map" of office relations and embrace networking. Also, be proactive, talk about benefits rather than IT, and recruit business-minded people.

Learn more about going for the top spot:
- read the article at ComputerWeekly

ALSO:
- read this about clawing your way to the top
- and this on climbing the corporate ladder
- and this on climbing the executive ladder

CSI: IT security

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 19:01:38 -0500

Sometimes figuring out where security breaches are occurring or who is perpetrating them requires good, old-fashioned detective work. Technology can help, but there are times when intuition, doggedness and research constitute the necessary extra mile. IT managers who have the ability to be proactive in uncovering illegal activity and assembling the necessary evidence are in great demand. These forensic capabilities are hard to come by: they take not only a thorough knowledge of the most effective tools on the market today, but a good dose of ingenuity. Sometimes, it can pay to hire a third-party specialist with these skills, but more and more, CIOs want someone in-house.

Learn more about finding a good forensic technologist:
- read the article at TechTarget

CIOs must be willing to "pull the plug"

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 19:01:39 -0500

To be truly effective, CIOs must be proactive and business-savvy. That means refusing to make IT decisions in a vacuum, instead making them a part of an IT-business alignment process. Failure to do so can cost companies a tremendous amount of time and customer capital. The most effective CIOs and CTOs combine technical knowledge with a thorough knowledge of the business, are proactive rather than reactive, believe fully in collaboration, and present realistic solutions involving thorough business cases. What's more, they must be willing to "pull the plug" if a technology project isn't yielding the expected benefits.

Learn more about what it takes to be an effective CIO:
- read the article at the Wisconsin Technology Network

ALSO: read this article about what it takes to be an effective CIO

Forging a good CIO-CEO connection

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 19:01:39 -0500

It's only recently that CEOs and CIOs have started communicating much at all. But as companies strive to integrate technology into the core of their business models, that's changing. Today, CIOs are in fairly good standing with CEOs; data shows that 60 percent of top executives are satisfied with the performance of their CIOs. This is evidence that CEOs aren't looking to the CIO to be a proactive leader in innovation and process; instead, those goals should be realized and executed corporate-wide. While the CIO brings technology to the table, business executives must spend political capital to change process and cooperation. It's all about collaboration.

Read more about getting the CIO and CEO to see eye to eye:
- read the article at News.com