Citi Shows How NOT To Run An IT Department

The news is always filled with IT departments that are winning awards for being innovative, reducing costs, or saving the day. That’s why a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about how the Citi group’s IT department is blowing it was so interesting… The article was titled “Computer Glitch Slows Citi” (if you worked … Read more

We’re In A Recession, What’s An IT Department To Do?

Remember what happened to the IT industry back in 2001? When the dot.com bubble burst, pretty much the sky started falling and IT spending hit the proverbial brick wall. If you’ve been reading the newspapers or watching TV lately, then you’ve probably noticed that the global economic downturn sure looks like what we saw back … Read more

What Is The #1 IT Skill That A CIO Needs To Have?

Today’s CIOs are expected to have many more sets of skills than those that they followed did. One can only suspect that the CIOs of tomorrow will be faced with even higher expectations. Cloud computing, outsourcing, insourcing, business alignment, top line growth, bottom line growth – which one is the most important to know the … Read more

What Toyota Can Teach IT About Dealing With Change

It may seem odd to to be talking about growth during this time of economic downturn, but once this cycle is done you had better have a good plan for learning to deal with growth. IT has always been about change, but that doesn’t mean that IT leaders are any better than anyone else in … Read more

How Toyota Can Teach IT To Keep Things Fresh

Despite all the talk about innovation these days, we know how things really are. It’s way too easy for us to set up IT processes and procedures that we use to run our IT shops and then over time they become part of a larger “That’s The Way We Do Things Here” culture. The problem … Read more

What Can Toyota Teach IT About How To Be Successful?

You would think that building cars and running an IT department wouldn’t have a lot in common and in fact were two completely different activities. However, there are more similarities than are obvious on a first glance. Toyota currently makes some the best products available, they do it at the lowest costs, and they have … Read more