Increasing effectiveness of technology management
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The document discusses the evolving challenges of technology management in complex organizations, emphasizing the importance of direct reporting relationships between senior technology officers and executive teams. It outlines four critical tools for effective management: a decision matrix, a communication matrix, a master technology calendar, and a structured IT change management process. The author shares insights from his 35 years of experience, highlighting the necessity of aligning technology efforts with business objectives to ensure long-term success.
Increasing effectiveness of technology management
- 1. Increasing Effectiveness of Technology Management in Complex Organizations While the world of technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace, the fundamentals of solving technology problems and how technology is effective within an organization have changed very little over time. Certainly the process begins with a sound understanding of the company’s organizational structure. Where do solid-line versus dotted line reporting relationships exist? What you will surely find is that, whatever the reason, fewer CIOs report directly to the CEO than in the past which can make IT effectiveness more challenging. The more direct reporting relationship the senior technology officer has to the top, the better. Consider for example the implications for the business lines, as well as for the core business, if that senior technology officer does not have a clear understanding of what the needs are or how the business works. When it comes to issues involving technology management, the #1 senior technology officer – regardless of the precise title – simply must have a seat at the table with the entire executive team, without exception. As a baseline necessity, this helps to ensure the creation of technology solutions that benefit the overall business. This article considers situations beyond merely purchasing new computers or installing a new telecomm system or designing a new website. Rather, it addresses examples of the complexities of technology management that revolutionize complex organizations, plus the elements that must be in place to help ensure successful technology management strategies, especially in times of business flux such as merger and acquisition activities or turnarounds. Following 35 years serving as a CIO for several large banking institutions, I have identified four specific, critical tools that are essential for effectively managing technology changes. Frankly these are not difficult to execute; they just take some advance thought and planning, plus the discipline to get them done. During times of substantial change in technology management, complex organizations must: 1) Design a Decision Matrix During my career, the failure to design a de- cision matrix, as well as to designate effective decision-makers – before beginning any decision process – were the biggest threat to any technology management effort. This is a must to ensure that crisp, clear and final decisions are made. groups that need to know about the change. This may comprise technology teams, management, the investment community, employees, board of directors, or international partners... and possibly many others. The horizontal line includes: •Who is responsible for the communication A proper decision matrix should include: • Timing of all communication • Who makes the decision • Format of communication (face to face, elec tronic, printed documents, etc.) • Who provides input • ho implements the decision to get the job W done • specific timeline with dates when deciA sions need to be made At First Union, one major sticking point during a merger was a decision about which branches were to be closed. The valuable lesson learned for me was not determining who made the ultimate decision; we were a North Carolina bank that bought a South Carolina bank, so it was very clear the decision makers were the acquired company CEO and the corporate head of retail. Rather, the lesson was about setting expectations and deciding who gets to have input. That decision needs to be clearly defined by name up front and communicated to all stakeholders so they know whom they need to influence. This helps produce a more informed decision with buyin at all levels. Most importantly, without a matrix such as this, crisp and final decisions are not made. Another vital decision-making lesson to share comes from my days at Bank One. When CEO Jamie Dimon recruited me, he had been there for seven months. At the time I was in discussions with him and he was debating over which deposit system to choose between two major banks that had just merged. When he finally picked one over the other, he asked if I thought he had made the right choice. My point to him was that the most important thing he did was simply making the decision. People can act on a decision, but they can’t act on a non-decision. That sort of limbo can be destructive, stagnating and toxic. 2) Develop a Communication Matrix A second critical tool is a communication matrix, which serves to answer the basic questions of who needs to know what – and when – and how it should be communicated. The vertical line of the matrix includes a comprehensive list of all the individuals and It takes several iterations to make sure you do this right. Scenarios change and conflicts arise, so you learn as you go. Most failures occur when you don’t make time to properly communicate to all those who will be impacted, and to think through exactly whom you want to tell individually in advance of the major announcement. A thoughtful and thorough communications matrix prevents issues that can arise from not communicating effectively. If there is a single takeaway from the communication matrix effort, it is that you should always tell key people about significant developments in advance of group communication. 3) Create a Master Technology Calendar Surprisingly, I was 55 years old before I fully realized the importance of this simple tool. Even the most rudimentary master calendar helps with the management of the myriad activities involved with running an intricate technology operation, especially when acquisitions are occurring almost nonstop. During such a time at J.P. Morgan there were periods during which we chose to monitor more than 200 technology projects – and the timing of each – involving integration issues, credit card conversions, regulatory matters, infrastructure issues, and much, much more. Using a comprehensive master calendar, we tracked more than 200 technology projects in the company. Every two weeks, the most critical 27 were reviewed in detail by top management. It was a tedious process, to be sure, but the master calendar and review sessions kept the ever-changing organization on track and ensured that if there were changes the impact on the remainder of the calendar was understood.
- 2. 4) Establish a Process for IT Change Management, Timeline and Budget sight with proper processes, guidelines and parameters in place. Much of this process work can be done up front to ensure technology projects are done on time, on budget, and on scale through effective and efficient monitoring. This is an area that is almost always overlooked, at least initially, in the hype to implement whatever the latest technology happens to be. Establishing a process with some builtin flexibility will help. To the best of your abilities you must consider the costs of running all the technology changes against the use of the business resources at your disposal. When IT professional establish a process up front it also provides executive management the opportunity to give direction and establish parameters before the project begins. When a similar situation arose four years later at Bank One, we established a rule that in the aggregate, modifications could not affect more than 15% of the purchased code. Anyone wanting to modify the system required specific approval from the head of HR and IT. This solution eliminated the aforementioned issues and enabled us to be on time, and on budget. During the 1990s at First Union, the head of HR and I led an implementation of the latest version of PeopleSoft. In terms of change management this was a fairly big deal, but which was further complicated when we granted the line managers with too much leeway for program customizations at nearly every turn. Admittedly, from the start the process was ill defined. These costly modifications became so extreme that it was difficult to stay current with the PeopleSoft releases, which created a host of additional difficulties and delays. This was compounded by the fact that the company was making acquisitions every other month, and it became difficult to be effective with an inefficient HR system. The lesson: major technology projects like this require executive sponsorship and over- Conclusion The tips and examples included here are meant to provide illumination and insight for senior technology executives who find themselves in the position of leading thorny technology management projects within their complex organizations. To conclude, however, I have one last piece of advice concerning longevity in an IT career. The average tenure of CIOs used to be the shortest of any C-level executive – often just about two years – so it’s not unusual that I’m often asked how I survived 35 years as a technology executive. I can say with certainty what does not matter: personal ego, the best technology objective, having most power, nor having the biggest technology team. Rather, longevity and success come directly from possessing an understanding of all the things that go into running the agenda of the business, focusing your efforts exclusively on supporting those things, and then translating your performance metrics into customer terms. At J.P. Morgan, for instance, website availability was a crucial metric for our retail business since so many customers were just beginning to move to online banking at that time. Our website availability actually seemed quite impressive due to a robust network that ensured the system was available 99.98% of the time. Even so, in customer terms this availability metric meant that every month 250,000 customer attempts were unsuccessful. The point is that technology people usually think in technology terms, not in business terms. By flipping this seemingly positive technology metric to examine it from the business side of things, it actually becomes disappointing and downright unacceptable. So our objective became finding ways to reduce the number of customers impacted, instead of celebrating the rather meaningless 99.98% availability rate. By reducing the customer impact number – and tying that success directly to annual bonus payments – we helped inspire goodwill, facilitate business and management alignment on projects, and drive behavior by helping people work together because they were motivated toward a common goal. I can report that the head of retail felt extraordinarily good that we shared common goals – because his agenda of providing exceptional customer service was our agenda as well. There aren’t many better ways to define success, in my view. About the author Austin Adams joined Cook Associates in October 2012 as 35-year banking veteran – with experience in senior technology roles and as a former CIO – with exceptional expertise in financial services and information technology. Adams spent most of his career overseeing technology and operations during dramatic consolidation in the financial services industry. He retired in 2006 as Corporate Chief Information Officer of JPMorgan Chase, where he was responsible for technology and operations, as well as managing nearly 28,000 employees and a multi-billion dollar budget. About Cook Associates Founded in 1961, Cook Associates provides retained executive search and board advisory services to multinational corporations, midcap, privately held and family-owned businesses, as well as venture capital- and private equity-backed firms. Cook Associates is the InterSearch partner in the USA. www.cookassociates.com About InterSearch InterSearch Worldwide is a global organization of executive search firms consistently ranked amongst the largest retained executive search practices in the world. InterSearch is currently operating in more than 45 countries, staffed by local professionals selected for their experience and reputation in their own markets and their ability to operate internationally. For additional information, please visit www.intersearch.org