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Contents vii
Section II IT Governance 87
Chapter 7 Creating IT Shared Services 88
IT Shared Services: An Overview 89
IT Shared Services: Pros and Cons 92
IT Shared Services: Key Organizational Success Factors 93
Identifying Candidate Services 94
An Integrated Model of IT Shared Services 95
Recommmendations for Creating Effective IT
Shared Services 96
Conclusion 99 • References 99
Chapter 8 A Management Framework for
IT Sourcing 100
A Maturity Model for IT Functions 101
IT Sourcing Options: Theory Versus Practice 105
The “Real” Decision Criteria 109
Decision Criterion #1: Flexibility 109
Decision Criterion #2: Control 109
Decision Criterion #3: Knowledge Enhancement 110
Decision Criterion #4: Business Exigency 110
A Decision Framework for Sourcing IT Functions 111
Identify Your Core IT Functions 111
Create a “Function Sourcing” Profile 111
Evolve Full-Time IT Personnel 113
Encourage Exploration of the Whole Range
of Sourcing Options 114
Combine Sourcing Options Strategically 114
A Management Framework for Successful
Sourcing 115
Develop a Sourcing Strategy 115
Develop a Risk Mitigation Strategy 115
Develop a Governance Strategy 116
Understand the Cost Structures 116
Chapter 9 The IT Budgeting Process 118
Key Concepts in IT Budgeting 119
The Importance of Budgets 121
The IT Planning and Budget Process 123

viii Contents
Corporate Processes 123
IT Processes 125
Assess Actual IT Spending 126
IT Budgeting Practices That Deliver Value 127
Chapter 10 Managing IT- Based Risk 130
A Holistic View of IT-Based Risk 131
Holistic Risk Management: A Portrait 134
Developing a Risk Management Framework 135
Improving Risk Management Capabilities 138
Appendix A A Selection of Risk Classification
Schemes 141
Chapter 11 Information Management: The Nexus
of Business and IT 142
Information Management: How Does It Fit? 143
A Framework For IM 145
Stage One: Develop an IM Policy 145
Stage Two: Articulate the Operational
Components 145
Stage Three: Establish Information Stewardship 146
Stage Four: Build Information Standards 147
Issues In IM 148
Culture and Behavior 148
Information Risk Management 149
Information Value 150
Privacy 150
Knowledge Management 151
The Knowing–Doing Gap 151
Getting Started in IM 151
Appendix A Elements of IM Operations 155
Mini Cases
Building Shared Services at RR Communications 156
Enterprise Architecture at Nationstate Insurance 160
IT Investment at North American Financial 165

Contents ix
Section III IT-Enabled Innovation 169
Chapter 12 Innovation with IT 170
The Need for Innovation: An Historical
Perspective 171
The Need for Innovation Now 171
Understanding Innovation 172
The Value of Innovation 174
Innovation Essentials: Motivation, Support,
and Direction 175
Challenges for IT leaders 177
Facilitating Innovation 179
Chapter 13 Big Data and Social Computing 182
The Social Media/Big Data Opportunity 183
Delivering Business Value with Big Data 185
Innovating with Big Data 189
Pulling in Two Different Directions: The Challenge
for IT Managers 190
First Steps for IT Leaders 192
Chapter 14 Improving the Customer Experience:
An IT Perspective 195
Customer Experience and Business value 196
Many Dimensions of Customer Experience 197
The Role of Technology in Customer Experience 199
Customer Experience Essentials for IT 200
First Steps to Improving Customer Experience 203
Chapter 15 Building Business Intelligence 206
Understanding Business Intelligence 207
The Need for Business Intelligence 208
The Challenge of Business Intelligence 209
The Role of IT in Business Intelligence 211
Improving Business Intelligence 213

x Contents
Chapter 16 Enabling Collaboration with IT 218
Why Collaborate? 219
Characteristics of Collaboration 222
Components of Successful Collaboration 225
The Role of IT in Collaboration 227
First Steps for Facilitating Effective Collaboration 229
Mini Cases
Innovation at International Foods 234
Consumerization of Technology at IFG 239
CRM at Minitrex 243
Customer Service at Datatronics 246
Section IV
IT Portfolio Development and Management 251
Chapter 17 Application Portfolio Management 252
The Applications Quagmire 253
The Benefits of a Portfolio Perspective 254
Making APM Happen 256
Capability 1: Strategy and Governance 258
Capability 2: Inventory Management 262
Capability 3: Reporting and Rationalization 263
Key Lessons Learned 264
Appendix A Application Information 266
Chapter 18 Managing IT Demand 270
Understanding IT Demand 271
The Economics of Demand Management 273
Three Tools for Demand management 273
Key Organizational Enablers for Effective Demand
Management 274
Strategic Initiative Management 275
Application Portfolio Management 276
Enterprise Architecture 276
Business–IT Partnership 277
Governance and Transparency 279

Contents xi
Chapter 19 Creating and Evolving a Technology
Roadmap 283
What is a Technology Roadmap? 284
The Benefits of a Technology Roadmap 285
External Benefits (Effectiveness) 285
Internal Benefits (Efficiency) 286
Elements of the Technology Roadmap 286
Activity #1: Guiding Principles 287
Activity #2: Assess Current Technology 288
Activity #3: Analyze Gaps 289
Activity #4: Evaluate Technology
Landscape 290
Activity #5: Describe Future Technology 291
Activity #6: Outline Migration Strategy 292
Activity #7: Establish Governance 292
Practical Steps for Developing a Technology
Roadmap 294
Appendix A Principles to Guide a Migration
Strategy 296
Chapter 20 Enhancing Development
Productivity 297
The Problem with System Development 298
Trends in System Development 299
Obstacles to Improving System Development
Productivity 302
Improving System Development Productivity: What we
know that Works 304
Next Steps to Improving System Development
Productivity 306
Chapter 21 Information Delivery: IT’s Evolving Role 310
Information and IT: Why Now? 311
Delivering Value Through Information 312
Effective Information Delivery 316
New Information Skills 316
New Information Roles 317
New Information Practices 317

xii Contents
New Information Strategies 318
The Future of Information Delivery 319
Mini Cases
Project Management at MM 324
Working Smarter at Continental Furniture International 328
Managing Technology at Genex Fuels 333
Index 336

Preface
Today, with information technology (IT) driving constant business transformation,
overwhelming organizations with information, enabling 24/7 global operations, and
undermining traditional business models, the challenge for business leaders is not
simply to manage IT, it is to use IT to deliver business value. Whereas until fairly recently,
decisions about IT could be safely delegated to technology specialists after a business
strategy had been developed, IT is now so closely integrated with business that, as one
CIO explained to us, “We can no longer deliver business solutions in our company
without using technology so IT and business strategy must constantly interact with
each other.”
What’s New in This Third Edition?
• Six new chapters focusing on current critical issues in IT management, including
IT shared services; big data and social computing; business intelligence; manag-
ing IT demand; improving the customer experience; and enhancing development
productivity.
• Two significantly revised chapters: on delivering IT functions through different
resourcing options; and innovating with IT.
• Two new mini cases based on real companies and real IT management situations:
Working Smarter at Continental Furniture and Enterprise Architecture at Nationstate
Insurance.
• A revised structure based on reader feedback with six chapters and two mini cases
from the second edition being moved to the Web site.
All too often, in our efforts to prepare future executives to deal effectively with
the issues of IT strategy and management, we lead them into a foreign country where
they encounter a different language, different culture, and different customs. Acronyms
(e.g., SOA, FTP/IP, SDLC, ITIL, ERP), buzzwords (e.g., asymmetric encryption, proxy
servers, agile, enterprise service bus), and the widely adopted practice of abstraction
(e.g., Is a software monitor a person, place, or thing?) present formidable “barriers to
entry” to the technologically uninitiated, but more important, they obscure the impor-
tance of teaching students how to make business decisions about a key organizational
resource. By taking a critical issues perspective, IT Strategy: Issues and Practices treats IT
as a tool to be leveraged to save and/or make money or transform an organization—not
as a study by itself.
As in the first two editions of this book, this third edition combines the experi-
ences and insights of many senior IT managers from leading-edge organizations with
thorough academic research to bring important issues in IT management to life and
demonstrate how IT strategy is put into action in contemporary businesses. This new
edition has been designed around an enhanced set of critical real-world issues in IT
management today, such as innovating with IT, working with big data and social media,
xiii

xiv Preface
enhancing customer experience, and designing for business intelligence and introduces
students to the challenges of making IT decisions that will have significant impacts on
how businesses function and deliver value to stakeholders.
IT Strategy: Issues and Practices focuses on how IT is changing and will continue to
change organizations as we now know them. However, rather than learning concepts
“free of context,” students are introduced to the complex decisions facing real organi-
zations by means of a number of mini cases. These provide an opportunity to apply
the models/theories/frameworks presented and help students integrate and assimilate
this material. By the end of the book, students will have the confidence and ability to
tackle the tough issues regarding IT management and strategy and a clear understand-
ing of their importance in delivering business value.
Key Features of This Book
• A focus on IT management issues as opposed to technology issues
• Critical IT issues explored within their organizational contexts
• Readily applicable models and frameworks for implementing IT strategies
• Mini cases to animate issues and focus classroom discussions on real-world deci-
sions, enabling problem-based learning
• Proven strategies and best practices from leading-edge organizations
• Useful and practical advice and guidelines for delivering value with IT
• Extensive teaching notes for all mini cases
A Different Approach to Teaching IT Strategy
The real world of IT is one of issues—critical issues—such as the following:
• How do we know if we are getting value from our IT investment?
• How can we innovate with IT?
• What specific IT functions should we seek from external providers?
• How do we build an IT leadership team that is a trusted partner with the business?
• How do we enhance IT capabilities?
• What is IT’s role in creating an intelligent business?
• How can we best take advantage of new technologies, such as big data and social
media, in our business?
• How can we manage IT risk?
However, the majority of management information systems (MIS) textbooks are orga-
nized by system category (e.g., supply chain, customer relationship
management, enterprise
resource planning), by system component (e.g., hardware, software,
networks), by system
function (e.g., marketing, financial, human resources), by
system type (e.g., transactional,
decisional, strategic), or by a combination of these. Unfortunately, such an organization
does not promote an understanding of IT management in practice.
IT Strategy: Issues and Practices tackles the real-world challenges of IT manage-
ment. First, it explores a set of the most important issues facing IT managers today, and
second, it provides a series of mini cases that present these critical IT issues within the
context of real organizations. By focusing the text as well as the mini cases on today’s
critical issues, the book naturally reinforces problem-based learning.

Preface xv
IT Strategy: Issues and Practices includes thirteen mini cases—each based on a real
company presented anonymously.1
Mini cases are not simply abbreviated versions of
standard, full-length business cases. They differ in two significant ways:
1. A horizontal perspective. Unlike standard cases that develop a single issue within
an organizational setting (i.e., a “vertical” slice of organizational life), mini cases
take a “horizontal” slice through a number of coexistent issues. Rather than looking
for a solution to a specific problem, as in a standard case, students analyzing a mini
case must first identify and prioritize the issues embedded within the case. This mim-
ics real life in organizations where the challenge lies in “knowing where to start” as
opposed to “solving a predefined problem.”
2. Highly relevant information. Mini cases are densely written. Unlike standard
cases, which intermix irrelevant information, in a mini case, each sentence exists for
a reason and reflects relevant information. As a result, students must analyze each
case very carefully so as not to miss critical aspects of the situation.
Teaching with mini cases is, thus, very different than teaching with standard cases.
With mini cases, students must determine what is really going on within the organiza-
tion. What first appears as a straightforward “technology” problem may in fact be a
political problem or one of five other “technology” problems. Detective work is, there-
fore, required. The problem identification and prioritization skills needed are essential
skills for future managers to learn for the simple reason that it is not possible for organi-
zations to tackle all of their problems concurrently. Mini cases help teach these skills to
students and can balance the problem-solving skills learned in other classes. Best of all,
detective work is fun and promotes lively classroom discussion.
Toassistinstructors,extensiveteachingnotesareavailableforallminicases.Developed
by the authors and based on “tried and true” in-class experience, these notes include case
summaries, identify the key issues within each case, present ancillary
information about the
company/industry represented in the case, and offer guidelines for organizing the class-
room discussion. Because of the structure of these mini cases and their embedded issues, it
is common for teaching notes to exceed the length of the actual mini case!
This book is most appropriate for MIS courses where the goal is to understand how
IT delivers organizational value. These courses are frequently labeled “IT Strategy” or
“IT Management” and are offered within undergraduate as well as MBA programs. For
undergraduate juniors and seniors in business and commerce programs, this is usually
the “capstone” MIS course. For MBA students, this course may be the compulsory core
course in MIS, or it may be an elective course.
Each chapter and mini case in this book has been thoroughly tested in a variety
of undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs at Queen’s School of Business.2
1
We are unable to identify these leading-edge companies by agreements established as part of our overall
research program (described later).
2
Queen’s School of Business is one of the world’s premier business schools, with a faculty team renowned
for its business experience and academic credentials. The School has earned international recognition for
its innovative approaches to team-based and experiential learning. In addition to its highly acclaimed MBA
programs, Queen’s School of Business is also home to Canada’s most prestigious undergraduate business
program and several outstanding graduate programs. As well, the School is one of the world’s largest and
most respected providers of executive education.

xvi Preface
These materials have proven highly successful within all programs because we adapt
how the material is presented according to the level of the students. Whereas under-
graduate students “learn” about critical business issues from the book and mini cases
for the first time, graduate students are able to “relate” to these same critical issues
based on their previous business experience. As a result, graduate students are able to
introduce personal experiences into the discussion of these critical IT issues.
Organization of This Book
One of the advantages of an issues-focused structure is that chapters can be approached
in any order because they do not build on one another. Chapter order is immaterial; that
is, one does not need to read the first three chapters to understand the fourth. This pro-
vides an instructor with maximum flexibility to organize a course as he or she sees fit.
Thus, within different courses/programs, the order of topics can be changed to focus on
different IT concepts.
Furthermore, because each mini case includes multiple issues, they, too, can be
used to serve different purposes. For example, the mini case “Building Shared Services
at RR Communications” can be used to focus on issues of governance, organizational
structure, and/or change management just as easily as shared services. The result is a
rich set of instructional materials that lends itself well to a variety of pedagogical appli-
cations, particularly problem-based learning, and that clearly illustrates the reality of IT
strategy in action.
The book is organized into four sections, each emphasizing a key component of
developing and delivering effective IT strategy:
• Section I: Delivering Value with IT is designed to examine the complex ways that
IT and business value are related. Over the past twenty years, researchers and prac-
titioners have come to understand that “business value” can mean many
different
things when applied to IT. Chapter 1 (Developing and Delivering on the IT Value
Proposition) explores these concepts in depth. Unlike the simplistic value propo-
sitions often used when implementing IT in organizations, this
chapter
presents
“value” as a multilayered business construct that must be effectively
managed at
several levels if technology is to achieve the benefits expected. Chapter 2 (Developing
IT Strategy for Business Value) examines the dynamic
interrelationship between
business and IT strategy and looks at the processes and critical
success
factors
used by organizations to ensure that both are well aligned. Chapter 3 (Linking IT
to Business Metrics) discusses new ways of measuring IT’s
effectiveness that pro-
mote closer business–IT alignment and help drive greater business value. Chapter
4 (Building a Strong Relationship with the Business) examines the nature of the
business–IT relationship and the characteristics of an effective relationship that
delivers real value to the enterprise. Chapter 5 (Communicating with Business
Managers) explores the business and interpersonal competencies that IT staff will
need in order to do their jobs effectively over the next five to seven years and what
companies should be doing to develop them. Finally, Chapter 6 (Building Better IT
Leaders from the Bottom Up) tackles the increasing need for improved leadership
skills in all IT staff and examines the expectations of the business for strategic and
innovative guidance from IT.

Preface xvii
In the mini cases associated with this section, the concepts of delivering
value with IT are explored in a number of different ways. We see business and
IT
executives at Hefty Hardware grappling with conflicting priorities and per-
spectives and how best to work together to achieve the company’s strategy. In
“Investing in TUFS,” CIO Martin Drysdale watches as all of the work his IT depart-
ment has put into a major new system fails to deliver value. And the “IT Planning
at ModMeters” mini case follows CIO Brian Smith’s efforts to create a strategic
IT plan that will align with business strategy, keep IT running, and not increase
IT’s budget.
• Section II: IT Governance explores key concepts in how the IT organization is
structured and managed to effectively deliver IT products and services to the orga-
nization. Chapter 7 (IT Shared Services) discusses how IT shared services should be
selected, organized, managed, and governed to achieve improved organizational
performance. Chapter 8 (A Management Framework for IT Sourcing) examines
how organizations are choosing to source and deliver different types of IT functions
and presents a framework to guide sourcing decisions. Chapter 9 (The IT Budgeting
Process) describes the “evil twin” of IT strategy, discussing how budgeting mecha-
nisms can significantly undermine effective business strategies and suggesting
practices for addressing this problem while maintaining traditional fiscal account-
ability. Chapter 10 (Managing IT-based Risk) describes how many IT organizations
have been given the responsibility of not only managing risk in their own activities
(i.e., project development, operations, and delivering business strategy) but also
of managing IT-based risk in all company activities (e.g., mobile computing, file
sharing, and online access to information and software) and the need for a holistic
framework to understand and deal with risk effectively. Chapter 11 (Information
Management: The Nexus of Business and IT) describes how new organizational
needs for more useful and integrated information are driving the development of
business-oriented functions within IT that focus specifically on information and
knowledge, as opposed to applications and data.
The mini cases in this section examine the difficulties of managing com-
plex IT issues when they intersect substantially with important business issues.
In “Building Shared Services at RR Communications,” we see an IT organiza-
tion in transition from a traditional divisional structure and governance model
to a more centralized enterprise model, and the long-term challenges experi-
enced by CIO Vince Patton in changing both business and IT practices, includ-
ing information management and delivery, to support this new approach. In
“Enterprise Architecture at Nationstate Insurance,” CIO Jane Denton endeavors
to make IT more flexible and agile, while incorporating new and emerging tech-
nologies into its strategy. In “IT Investment at North American Financial,” we
show the opportunities and challenges involved in prioritizing and resourcing
enterprisewide IT projects and monitoring that anticipated benefits are being
achieved.
• Section III: IT-Enabled Innovation discusses some of the ways technology is
being used to transform organizations. Chapter 12 (Innovation with IT) examines
the nature and importance of innovation with IT and describes a typical inno-
vation life cycle. Chapter 13 (Big Data and Social Computing) discusses how IT
leaders are incorporating big data and social media concepts and technologies

xviii Preface
to successfully deliver business value in new ways. Chapter 14 (Improving the
Customer Experience: An IT Perspective) explores the IT function’s role in creating
and improving an organization’s customer experiences and the role of technology
in helping companies to understand and learn from their customers’ experiences.
Chapter 15 (Building Business Intelligence) looks at the nature of business intelli-
gence and its relationship to data, information, and knowledge and how IT can be
used to build a more intelligent organization. Chapter 16 (Enabling Collaboration
with IT) identifies the principal forms of collaboration used in organizations, the
primary business drivers involved in them, how their business value is measured,
and the roles of IT and the business in enabling collaboration.
The mini cases in this section focus on the key challenges companies face in
innovating with IT. “Innovation at International Foods” contrasts the need for pro-
cess and control in corporate IT with the strong push to innovate with technology
and the difficulties that ensue from the clash of style and culture. “Consumerization
of Technology at IFG” looks at issues such as “bring your own device” (BYOD) to
the workplace. In “CRM at Minitrex,” we see some of the internal technological and
political conflicts that result from a strategic decision to become more customercen-
tric. Finally, “Customer Service at Datatronics” explores the importance of present-
ing unified, customer-facing IT to customers.
• Section IV: IT Portfolio Development and Management looks at how the IT
function must transform itself to be able to deliver business value effectively in
the future. Chapter 17 (Application Portfolio Management) describes the ongoing
management process of categorizing, assessing, and rationalizing the IT application
portfolio. Chapter 18 (Managing IT Demand) looks at the often neglected issue of
demand management (as opposed to supply management), explores the root causes
of the demand for IT services, and identifies a number of tools and enablers to
facilitate more effective demand management. Chapter 19 (Creating and Evolving
a Technology Roadmap) examines the challenges IT managers face in implement-
ing new infrastructure, technology standards, and types of technology in their real-
world business and technical environments, which is composed of a huge variety of
hardware, software, applications, and other technologies, some of which date back
more than thirty years. Chapter 20 (Enhancing Development Productivity) explores
how system development practices are changing and how managers can create
an environment to promote improved development productivity. And Chapter 21
(Information Delivery: IT’s Evolving Role) examines the fresh challenges IT faces in
managing the exponential growth of data and digital assets; privacy and account-
ability concerns; and new demands for access to information on an anywhere, any-
time basis.
The mini cases associated with this section describe many of these themes
embedded within real organizational contexts. “Project Management at MM” mini
case shows how a top-priority, strategic project can take a wrong turn when proj-
ect management skills are ineffective. “Working Smarter at Continental Furniture”
mini case follows an initiative to improve the company’s analytics so it can reduce
its environmental impact. And in the mini case “Managing Technology at Genex
Fuels,” we see CIO Nick Devlin trying to implement enterprisewide technology for
competitive advantage in an organization that has been limping along with obscure
and outdated systems.

Preface xix
Supplementary Materials
Online Instructor Resource Center
The following supplements are available online to adopting instructors:
• PowerPoint Lecture Notes
• Image Library (text art)
• Extensive Teaching Notes for all Mini cases
• Additional chapters including Developing IT Professionalism; IT Sourcing; Master
DataManagement;DevelopingITCapabilities;TheIdentityManagementChallenge;
Social Computing; Managing Perceptions of IT; IT in the New World of Corporate
Governance Reforms; Enhancing Customer Experiences with Technology; Creating
Digital Dashboards; and Managing Electronic Communications.
• Additional mini cases, including IT Leadership at MaxTrade; Creating a Process-Driven
Organization at Ag-Credit; Information Management at Homestyle Hotels; Knowledge
Management at Acme Consulting; Desktop Provisioning at CanCredit; and Leveraging
IT Vendors at SleepSmart.
For detailed descriptions of all of the supplements just listed, please visit http://
www.pearsonhighered.com/mckeen.
CourseSmart eTextbooks Online
CourseSmart is an exciting new choice for students looking to save money. As an alter-
native to purchasing the print textbook, students can purchase an electronic version of
the same content and save up to 50 percent off the suggested list price of the print text.
With a CourseSmart etextbook, students can search the text, make notes online, print
out reading assignments that incorporate lecture notes, and bookmark important pas-
sages for later review. www.coursesmart.com.
The Genesis of This Book
Since 1990 we have been meeting quarterly with a group of senior IT managers from
a number of leading-edge organizations (e.g., Eli Lilly, BMO, Honda, HP, CIBC, IBM,
Sears, Bell Canada, MacDonalds, and Sun Life) to identify and discuss critical IT manage-
ment issues. This focus group represents a wide variety of industry sectors (e.g., retail,

manufacturing, pharmaceutical, banking, telecommunications, insurance, media, food
processing, government, and automotive). Originally, it was established to meet the com-
panies’ needs for well-balanced, thoughtful, yet practical information on emerging IT
management topics, about which little or no research was available. However, we soon
recognized the value of this premise for our own research in the rapidly evolving field
of IT management. As a result, it quickly became a full-scale research program in which
we were able to use the focus group as an “early warning system” to document new IT
management issues, develop case studies around them, and explore more collaborative
approaches to identifying trends, challenges, and effective practices in each topic area.3
3
This now includes best practice case studies, field research in organizations, multidisciplinary qualitative
and quantitative research projects, and participation in numerous CIO research consortia.

xx Preface
As we shared our materials with our business students, we realized that this issues-
based approach resonated strongly with them, and we began to incorporate more of our
research into the classroom. This book is the result of our many years’ work with senior
IT managers, in organizations, and with students in the classroom.
Each issue in this book has been selected collaboratively by the focus group after
debate and discussion. As facilitators, our job has been to keep the group’s focus on IT
management issues, not technology per se. In preparation for each meeting, focus group
members researched the topic within their own organization, often involving a number
of members of their senior IT management team as well as subject matter experts in
the process. To guide them, we provided a series of questions about the issue, although
members are always free to explore it as they see fit. This approach provided both struc-
ture for the ensuing discussion and flexibility for those members whose
organizations
are approaching the issue in a different fashion.
The focus group then met in a full-day session, where the members discussed all
aspects of the issue. Many also shared corporate documents with the group. We facilitated
the discussion, in particular pushing the group to achieve a common understanding of
the dimensions of the issue and seeking examples, best practices, and guidelines for deal-
ing with the challenges involved. Following each session, we wrote a report based on the
discussion, incorporating relevant academic and practitioner materials where these were
available. (Because some topics are “bleeding edge,” there is often little traditional IT
research available on them.)
Each report has three parts:
1. A description of the issue and the challenges it presents for both business and IT
managers
2. Models and concepts derived from the literature to position the issue within a con-
textual framework
3. Near-term strategies (i.e., those that can be implemented immediately) that have
proven successful within organizations for dealing with the specific issue
Each chapter in this book focuses on one of these critical IT issues. We have learned
over the years that the issues themselves vary little across industries and organizations,
even in enterprises with unique IT strategies. However, each organization tackles the
same issue somewhat differently. It is this diversity that provides the richness of insight
in these chapters. Our collaborative research approach is based on our belief that when
dealing with complex and leading-edge issues, “everyone has part of the solution.”
Every focus group, therefore, provides us an opportunity to explore a topic from a

variety of perspectives and to integrate different experiences (both successful and oth-
erwise) so that collectively, a thorough understanding of each issue can be developed
and strategies for how it can be managed most successfully can be identified.

About the Authors
James D. McKeen is Professor Emeritus at the Queen’s School of Business. He has been
working in the IT field for many years as a practitioner, researcher, and consultant. In
2011, he was named the “IT Educator of the Year” by ComputerWorld Canada. Jim has
taught at universities in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the United States.
His research is widely published in a number of leading journals and he is the coau-
thor (with Heather Smith) of five books on IT management. Their most recent book—IT
Strategy: Issues and Practices (2nd ed.)—was the best-selling business book in Canada
(Globe and Mail, April 2012).
Heather A. Smith has been named the most-published researcher on IT management
issues in two successive studies (2006, 2009). A senior research associate with Queen’s
University School of Business, she is the author of five books, the most recent being IT
Strategy: Issues and Practices (Pearson Prentice Hall, 2012). She is also a senior research
associate with the American Society for Information Management’s Advanced Practices
Council. Aformer senior IT manager, she is codirector of the IT Management Forum and
the CIO Brief, which facilitate interorganizational learning among senior IT executives.
In addition, she consults and collaborates with organizations worldwide.
xxi

Acknowledgments
The work contained in this book is based on numerous meetings with many senior IT
managers. We would like to acknowledge our indebtedness to the following individuals
who willingly shared their insights based on their experiences “earned the hard way”:
Michael Balenzano, Sergei Beliaev, Matthias Benfey, Nastaran Bisheban, Peter
Borden, Eduardo Cadena, Dale Castle, Marc Collins, Diane Cope, Dan Di Salvo,
Ken Dschankilic, Michael East, Nada Farah, Mark Gillard, Gary Goldsmith, Ian
Graham, Keiko Gutierrez, Maureen Hall, Bruce Harding, Theresa Harrington,
Tom Hopson, Heather Hutchison, Jim Irich, Zeeshan Khan, Joanne Lafreniere,
Konstantine Liris, Lisa MacKay, Mark O’Gorman, Amin Panjwani, Troy Pariag,
Brian Patton, Marius Podaru, Helen Restivo, Pat Sadler, A. F. Salam, Ashish
Saxena, Joanne Scher, Stewart Scott, Andy Secord, Marie Shafi, Helen Shih, Trudy
Sykes, Bruce Thompson, Raju Uppalapati, Len Van Greuning, Laurie Schatzberg,
Ted Vincent, and Bond Wetherbe.
We would also like to recognize the contribution of Queen’s School of Business
to this work. The school has facilitated and supported our vision of better integrat-
ing academic research and practice and has helped make our collaborative approach
to the study of IT management and strategy an effective model for interorganizational
learning.
James D. McKeen
Kingston, Ontario
Heather A. Smith
School of Business
June 2014
xxii

S ect ion I
Delivering Value with IT
Chapter 1 Developing and Delivering on the IT Value Proposition
Chapter 2 Developing IT Strategy for Business Value
Chapter 3 Linking IT to Business Metrics
Chapter 4 Building a Strong Relationship with the Business
Chapter 5 Communicating with Business Managers
Chapter 6 Building Better IT Leaders from the Bottom Up
Mini Cases
■ Delivering Business Value with IT at Hefty Hardware
■ Investing in TUFS
■ IT Planning at ModMeters

2
C h a p t e r
1 Developing and Delivering
on the IT Value Proposition1
1
This chapter is based on the authors’ previously published article, Smith, H. A., and J. D. McKeen.
“Developing and Delivering on the IT Value Proposition.” Communications of the Association for Information
Systems 11 (April 2003): 438–50. Reproduced by permission of the Association for Information Systems.
I
t’s déjà vu all over again. For at least twenty years, business leaders have been

trying to figure out exactly how and where IT can be of value in their organizations.
And IT managers have been trying to learn how to deliver this value. When IT was
used mainly as a productivity improvement tool in small areas of a business, this was
a
relatively straightforward process. Value was measured by reduced head counts—
usually in clerical areas—and/or the ability to process more transactions per person.
However, as systems grew in scope and complexity, unfortunately so did the risks. Very
few companies escaped this period without making at least a few disastrous invest-
ments in systems that didn’t work or didn’t deliver the bottom-line benefits executives
thought they would. Naturally, fingers were pointed at IT.
With the advent of the strategic use of IT in business, it became even more difficult
to isolate and deliver on the IT value proposition. It was often hard to tell if an invest-
ment had paid off. Who could say how many competitors had been deterred or how
many customers had been attracted by a particular IT initiative? Many companies can
tell horror stories of how they have been left with a substantial investment in new forms
of technology with little to show for it. Although over the years there have been many
improvements in where and how IT investments are made and good controls have been
established to limit time and cost overruns, we are still not able to accurately articulate
and deliver on a value proposition for IT when it comes to anything other than simple
productivity improvements or cost savings.
Problems in delivering IT value can lie with how a value proposition is conceived
or in what is done to actually implement an idea—that is, selecting the right project and
doing the project right (Cooper et al. 2000; McKeen and Smith 2003; Peslak 2012). In
addition, although most firms attempt to calculate the expected payback of an IT invest-
ment before making it, few actually follow up to ensure that value has been achieved or
to question what needs to be done to make sure that value will be delivered.

Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content

“That is indeed a curious story,” observed the Jolly Doctor, when
the Red Nosed Gentleman, being done with James of the Beads, was
returning to his burgundy; “and did it really happen?”
“Of a verity, did it,” returned the Red Nosed Gentleman. “I was
Rand.”
Conversation fluttered from one topic to another for a brief space,
but dealt mainly with those divers superstitions that folk affect.
When signs and omens were worn out, the Jolly Doctor turned upon
the Old Cattleman as though to remind that ancient practitioner of
cows how it would be now his right to uplift us with a reminiscence.
“No, I don’t need to be told it none,” said the Old Cattleman. “On
the principle of freeze-out, it’s shore got down to me. Seein’ how this
yere snow reminds me a heap of Christmas, I’ll onload on you-all
how we’re aroused an’ brought to a realisin’ sense of that season of
gifts once upon a time in Wolfville.”

T
CHAPTER VI.—THAT WOLFVILLE
CHRISTMAS.
his yere can’t be called a story; which it can’t even be
described none as a sketch. Accordin’ to the critics, who, bein’
plumb onable to write one themse’fs, nacherally knows what a
story ought to be, no story’s a story onless she’s built up like one of
these one-sided hills. Reelation must climb painfully from base to
peak, on the slope side, with interest on a up-grade, say, of one foot
in ten; an’ then when you-all arrives safely at the summit, the same
bein’ the climax, you’re to pitch headlong over the precipice on the
sheer an’ other side, an’ in the space of not more’n a brace of
sentences, land, bing! bang! smash!—all broke up at the bottom.
That, by what you-all might call “Our best literary lights,” would be a
story, an’ since what I’m about to onfold don’t own no sech brands
nor y’ear-marks, it can’t come onder that head.
This partic’lar o’casion is when little Enright Peets Tutt—said
blessed infant, as I sets forth former, bein’ the conj’int production of
Dave Tutt an’ his esteemable wife, Tucson Jennie—is comin’ eight
years old next spring round-up. Little Enright Peets is growin’ strong
an’ husky now, an’ is the pride of the Wolfville heart. He’s shed his
milk teeth an’ is sproutin’ a second mouthful, white an’ clean as a
coyote’s. Also, his cur’osity is deeveloped powerful an’ he’s in the
habit of pervadin’ about from the Red Light to the New York Store,
askin’ questions; an’ he is as familiar in the local landscape as either
the Tucson stage or Old Monte, the drunkard who drives it.
One afternoon, about first drink time, little Enright Peets comes
waddlin’ up to Old Man Enright on them short reedic’lous black-b’ar
laigs of his, an’ says:

“Say, gran’dad Enright, don’t you-all cim-marons never have no
Christmas in this camp? Which if you does, all I got to say is I don’t
notice no Christmas none since I’ve been yere, an’ that’s whatever!”
“Will you-all listen to this preecocious child!” observes Enright to
Doc Peets, with whom he’s in talk. “Wherever now do you reckon,
Doc, he hears tell of Christmas?”
“How about it, Uncle Doc?” asks little Enright Peets, turnin’ his
eyes up to Peets when he notices Enright don’t reply.

At this Enright an’ Peets makes a disparin’ gesture an’ wheels into
the Red Light for a drink, leavin’ pore little Enright Peets standin’ in
the street.
“That baby puts us to shame, Doc,” says Enright, as he signs up to
Black Jack, the barkeep, for the Valley Tan; “he shows us in one
word how we neglects his eddication. The idee of that child never
havin’ had no Christmas! It’s more of a stain on this commoonity
than not hangin’ Navajo Joe that time.”
“That’s whatever!” assents Peets, reachin’ for the nose-paint in his
turn. “‘Out of the mouths of babes an’ sucklin’s,’ as the good book
says.” This infantile bluff of little Enright Peets goes a long way to
stir up the sensibilities of the public. As for Enright, he don’t scroople
to take Dave Tutt to task.
“The thought that you, Dave,” says Enright, “you, a gent I
yeretofore regyards as distinguished for every paternal virchoo,
would go romancin’ along, lettin’ that boy grow up in darkness of
Christmas, an’ it one of the first festivals of the Christian world! As a
play, I says freely, that sech neglect is plumb too many for me!”
“She’s shore a shame,” adds Dan Boggs, who’s also shocked a
heap, and stands in with Enright to crawl Dave’s hump, “she’s shore
a shame, never to provide no Christmas for that offspring of yours,
an’ leave him to go knockin’ about in his ignorance like a blind dog in
a meat shop. That’s what I states; she’s a shame!”
“Now gents,” reemonstrates Dave, “don’t press the limit in these
yere reecrim’nations, don’t crowd me too hard. I asks you, whatever
could I do? If you-all enthoosiasts will look this yere Christmas
proposition ca’mly in the face, you’ll begin to notice that sech
cel’brations ain’t feasible in Arizona. Christmas in its very beginnin’ is
based on snow. Who’s the reg’lar round-up boss for Christmas? Ain’t
he a disrepootable Dutchman named Santa Claus? Don’t he show up
wrapped in furs, an’ with reindeer an’ sleigh an’ hock deep in a
snowstorm? Answer me that? Also show me where’s your snow an’

where’s your sleigh an’ where’s your reindeer an’ where’s your
Dutchman in Wolfville? You-all better go about Jixin’ up your camp
an’ your climate so as to make one of these Christmases possible
before ever you come buttin’ in, cavilin’ an’ criticisin’ ag’in me as a
parent.”
“Which jest the same, Dave,” contends Dan, who takes the
eepisode mighty sour, “it looks like you-all could have made some
sort o’ play.”
About this time, as addin’ itse’f to the gen’ral jolt given the
Wolfville nerve by them Christmas questions put aforesaid by little
Enright Peets, news comes floatin’ over from Red Dog of a awful
spree that low-flung outfit enjoys. It’s a Six Shooter Weddin’; so
deenominated because Pete Bland, the outlaw for whom the party is
made, an’ his wife, The Duchess, has been married six years an’
ain’t done nothin’ but fight. Wherefore, on the sixth anniversary of
their nuptials, Red Dog resolves on a Six Shooter Weddin’; an’
tharupon descends on those two wedded warriors, Pete an’ The
Duchess, in a body, packin’ fiddles, nose-paint, an’ the complete
regalia of a frantic shindig. An’ you hear me, gents, them Red Dog
tarrapins shore throws themse’fs loose! You-all could hear their
happy howls in Wolfville.
As a reason for the outburst, an’ one consistent with its name, the
guests endows Pete an’ The Duchess each with belts an’ a brace of
guns.
“To the end,” says the Red Dog cha’rman when he makes the
presentation speech, “that, as between Pete an’ The Duchess, we as
a commoonity promotes a even break, and clothes both parties in
interest with equal powers to preserve the peace.”
As I observes, it’s the story of these proud doin’s on the locoed
part of our rival, that ondoubted goes some distance to decide us
Wolves of Wolfville on pullin’ off a Christmas warjig for little Enright

Peets. We ain’t goin’ to be outdone none in this business of being
fervid.
It’s mebby a month prior to Christmas when we resolves on this
yere racket, an’ so we has ample time to prepare. Almost every
afternoon an’ evenin’ over our Valley Tan, we discusses an’ does our
wisest to evolve a programme. It’s then we begins to grasp the
wisdom of Dave’s observations touchin’ how onfeasible it is to go
talkin’ of Christmas in southern Arizona.
“Nacherally,” remarks Enright, as we sits about the Red Light,
turnin’ the game in our minds, “nacherally, we ups an’ gives little
Enright Peets presents. Which brings us within ropin’ distance of the
inquiry, ‘Whatever will we give him?’”
“We-all can’t give him fish-lines, an’ sech,” says Doc Peets, takin’
up Enright’s argument, “for thar ain’t no fish. Skates is likewise
barred, thar bein’ no ice; an’ sleds an’ mittens an’ worsted
comforters an’ fur caps fails us for causes sim’lar. Little Enright Peets
is too young to smoke; Tucson Jennie won’t let him drink licker; thar,
with one word, is them two important sources closed ag’in us.
Gents, Pm inclined to string my bets with Dave; I offers two for one
as we sets yere, that this framin’ up a Christmas play in Arizona as a
problem ain’t no slouch.”
“Thar’s picture books,” says Faro Nell.
“Shore!” assents Cherokee Hall, where he’s planted back of his
faro box.
“An’ painted blocks!”
“Good!” says Cherokee.
“An’ candy!”
“Nell’s right!” an’ Cherokee coincides plumb through, “Books,
blocks, an’ candy, is what I calls startin’ on velvet.”

“Whatever’s the matter,” says Dan Boggs, who’s been rackin’ his
intellects a heap, “of givin’ little Enright Peets a faro layout, or
mebby now, a roolette wheel? Some of them wheels is mighty gaudy
furniture!”
“Dan,” says Enright, an’ his tones is severe; “Dan, be you-all aimin’
to corrupt this child?” Dan subsides a whole lot after this yere
reproof.
“I don’t reckon now,” observes Jack Moore, an’ his manner is as
one ropin’ for information; “I don’t reckon now a nice, wholesome
Colt’s-44, ivory butt, stamped leather belts, an’ all that, would be a
proper thing to put in play. Of course, a 8-inch gun is some heavy as
a plaything for a infant only seven; but he’d grow to it, gents, he’d
grow to it.”
“Don’t alloode to sech a thing, Jack,” says Dan, with a shudder;
“don’t alloode to it. Little Enright Peets would up an’ blow his
yoothful light out; an’ then Tucson Jennie would camp on our trails
forevermore as the deestroyers of her child. The mere idee gives me
the fantods!” An’ Dan, who’s a nervous party, shudders ag’in.
“Gents,” says Texas Thompson, “I ain’t cut in on this talk for two
reasons: one is I ain’t had nothin’ to say; an’ ag’in, it was Christmas
Day when my Laredo wife—who I once or twice adverts to as gettin’
a divorce—ups an’ quits me for good. For which causes it has been
my habit to pass up all mention an’ mem’ry of this sacred season in
a sperit of silent pra’r. But time has so far modified my feelin’s that,
considerin’ the present purposes of the camp, I’m willin’ to be heard.
Thar’s nothin’ that should be looked to more jealously than this ye re
givin’ of presents. It’s grown so that as a roole the business of
makin’ presents degen’rates to this: Some sport who can’t afford to,
gives some sport something he don’t need. Thar’s no fear of the
first, since we gents can afford anything we likes. As to the second
prop’sition, we should skin our kyards some sharp. We-all ought to
lavish on little Enright Peets a present which, while safegyardin’ his
life an’ his morals, is calc’lated to teach him some useful

accomplishments. Books, blocks, an sweetmeats, as proposed by our
fac’natin’ townswoman, Miss Faro Nell”—Nell tosses Texas a kiss—“is
in admir’ble p’int as coverin’ a question of amooze-ments. For the
rest, an’ as makin’ for the deevel-opment of what will be best in the
character of little Enright Peets, I moves you we-all turns in an’ buys
that baby the best bronco—saddle, bridle, rope an’ spurs, complete
—that the southwest affords.”
Texas, who’s done stood up to make this yere oration, camps
down ag’in in the midst of a storm of applause. The su’gestion has
immediate adoption.
We-all gives a cold thousand for the little boss. We gets him of the
sharp who—it bein’ in the old day before railroads—is slammin’
through the mails from Chihuahua to El Paso, three hundred miles in
three nights. This bronco—he’s a deep bay, shadin’ off into black like
one of them overripe violins, an’ with nostrils like red expandin’
hollyhocks—can go a hundred miles between dark an’ dark, an’ do it
three days in a week. Which lie’s shore a wonder, is that little hoss;
an’ the saddle an’ upholstery that goes with him, Spanish leather an’
gold, is fit for his company.
As Dan leads him up in front of the Red Light Christmas Eve for us
to look at, he says:
“Gents, if he ain’t a swallow-bird on four legs, then I never sees
no sech fowl; an’ the only drawback is that, considerin’ the season,
we can’t hang him on no tree.”
An’ y ere, now, is where we-all gets scared up. It spoils the
symmetry of this story to chunk it in this a-way; but I can’t he’p
myse’f, for this story, like that tale of James of the Beads, is troo.
Jest as we-all is about to prounce down with our gifts on Dave’s
wickeyup like a mink on a settin’ hen—Dan bein’ all framed an’
frazzled up in cow-tails an’ buffalo horns like a Injun medicine man,
thinkin’ to make the deal as Santa Claus—Tucson Jennie comes

surgin’ up, wild an’ frantic, an’ allows little Enright Peets is lost.
Dave, she says, is chargin’ about, tryin’ to round him up.
“Which I knows he’s done been chewed up by wolves,” says
Tucson Jennie, wringin’ her hands an’ throwin’ her apron over her
head. “He’d shore showed up for supper if he’s alive.”
It’s obvious that before that Christmas can proceed, we-all has got
to recover the beneficiary. Thar’s a gen’ral saddlin’ up, an’ in no time
Wolf-ville’s population is spraddlin’ about the surroundin’ scenery.
It comes right though, an’ it’s Dan who makes the turn. Dan
discovers little Enright Peets camped down in the lee of a mesquite
bush, seven miles out on his way to the Floridas mountains. He puts
it up he’s goin’ over to the hills to have a big talk an’ make medicine
with Moh-Kwa, the wise medicine b’ar that Sioux Sam yere has been
reelatin’ to him about.
No, that child ain’t scared none; he’s takin’ it cool an’ contented,
with twenty coyotes settin’ about, blinkin’ an’ silent on their tails, an’
lookin’ like they’re sort o’ thinkin’ little Enright Peets over an’ tryin’ to
figger out his system. Them little wolves don’t onderstand what
brings that infant out alone on the plains, that a-way; an’ they’re
cogitatin’ about it when Dan disperses ’em to the four winds.
That’s all thar is to the yarn. Little Enright Peets is packed into
camp an’ planted in the midst of them books an’ blocks an’ candies
which Faro Nell su’gests; also, he’s made happy with the little hoss.
Dan, in his medicine mask an’ paint, does a skelp dance, an’ is the
soul of the hour.
Little Enright Peets’ joy is as wide as the territory. Despite
reemonstrance, he insists on get-tin’ into that gold-embossed saddle
an’ givin’ his little hoss a whirl ‘round the camp. Dan rides along to
head off stampedes.
On the return, little Enright Peets comes down the street like an
arrow an’ pulls up short. As Dave searches him out of the saddle, he

says:
“Paw, that cayouse could beat four kings an’ a ace.”
That’s reward enough; Wolfville is never more pleased than the
night it opens up to little Enright Peets the beauties which lies hid in
Christmas. An’ the feelin’ that we-all has done this, sort o’ glorifies
an’ gilds the profound deebauch that en-soos. Tucson Jennie lays it
down that it’s shore the star Christmas, since it’s the one when her
lost is found an’ the Fates in the guise of Dan presents her with her
boy ag’in. I knows of myse’f, gents, that Jennie is shore moved, for
she omits utter to lay for Dave with reproaches when, givin’ way to a
gen’rous impulse, he issues forth with the rest of the band, an’
relaxes into a picnic that savors of old days.
“My friends,” observed the Jolly Doctor, as we were taking our
candles preparatory for bed, the hour having turned towards the
late, “I shall think on this as an occasion of good company. And to-
morrow evening—for this storm will continue to hold us prisoners—
you will find unless better offer, I shall recognize my debt to you by
attempting a Christmas story myself. I cannot stir your interest as
has our friend of camps and trails with his Wolfville chapter, but I
shall do what lies in me.”
“You will tell us of some Christmas,” hazarded the Sour
Gentleman, “that came beneath your notice as a professional man.”
“Oh, no; not that,” returned the Jolly Doctor. “This is rather a story
of health and robust strength than any sick-bed tale. It is of gloves
and fighting men who never saw a doctor. I shall call it ‘The Pitt
Street Stringency.’”
It was eight of the clock on the second evening when we gathered
about the fire-place. The snow was still falling and roads were
reported blocked beyond any thought of passage. We were
snowbound; folk who should know declared that if a road were
broken for our getting out within a week, it was the best we might
look for.

No one seemed stricken of grief at this prison prospect. As we
came about the cheery blaze, every face was easy and content. The
Jolly Doctor joined the Red Nosed Gentleman in his burgundy, while
the Sour Gentleman and the Old Cattleman qualified for the occasion
with a copious account of whiskey, which the aged man of cows
called “Nose-paint.” Sioux Sam and I were the only “abstainers”—I
had ceased and he had never commenced—but as if to make up, we
smoked a double number of cigars.
The Jolly Doctor began with the explanation that the incidents he
would relate had fallen beneath his notice when as a student he
walked the New York hospitals; then, glass in hand, he told us the
tale of The Pitt Street Stringency.

A
CHAPTER VII.—THE PITT STREET
STRINGENCY.
nother would-be sooicide, eh! Here, Kid,” to a sharp gamin
who does errands and odd commissions for the house; “take
this mut in where dey kills ’em.”
The speaker is a loud young man, clad in garments of violence.
The derby tilted over eye, the black cigar jutting ceilingward at an
agle of sixty degrees, the figured shirt whereof a dominating dye is
angry red, the high collar and flash tie, with its cheap stone, all
declare the Bowery. As if to prove the proposition announced of his
costume, the young man is perched on a stool, the official ticket-
seller of a Bowery theatre.
Mike Menares, whom the Bowery person alludes to as the “mut,”
is a square-shouldered boy of eighteen; handsome he is as Apollo,
yet with a slow, good-humored guilelessness of face. He has come
on business bent. That mighty pugilist, the Dublin Terror, is nightly
on the stage, offering two hundred dollars to any amateur among
boxers who shall remain before him four Queensberry rounds. Mike
Menares, he of the candidly innocent countenance, desires to proffer
himself as a sacrifice.
“Youse is just in time, sport,” remarks the brisk gamin to whom
Mike has been committed, as he pilots the guileless one to the stage
door. “It’s nine o’clock now, an’ d’ Terror goes on to do his bag-
t’umpin’ turn at ten. After that comes d’ knockin’ out, see! But say! if
youse was tired of livin’, why didn’t you jump in d’ East river? I’d try
d’ river an’d’ morgue before I’d come here to be murdered be d’
Terror.”

Mike makes no retort to this, lacking lightness of temper. His
gamin conductor throws open the stage door and signals Mike to
enter.
“Tell d’ butcher here’s another calf for him,” vouchsafes the gamin
to the stage-hands inside the door.
Let us go back four hours to a three-room tenement in Pitt Street.
There are two rooms and a little kennel of a kitchen. The furnishings
are rough and cheap and clean. The lady of the tenement, as the
floors declare, is a miracle of soap and water. And the lady is little
Mollie Lacy, aged eleven years.
The family of the Pitt Street tenement is made up of three. There
is Mike Menares, our hero; little Mollie; and, lastly, her brother Davy,
aged nine. Little Davy is lame. He fell on the tenement stairs four
years before and injured his hip. The hospital doctors took up the
work where the tenement stairs left off, and Davy came from his
sick-bed doomed to a crutch for life.
Mike Menares is half-brother of the younger ones. Nineteen years
before, Mike’s mother, Irish, with straw-colored hair and blue eyes,
wedded one Menares, a Spanish Jew. This fortunate Menares was a
well-looking, tall man; with hair black and stiffening in a natural
pompadour. He kept a tobacco stall underneath a stair in Park Row,
and was accounted rich by the awfully poor about him. He died,
however, within the year following Mike’s birth; and thus there was
an end to the rather thoroughbred dark Spanish Jew.
Mike’s mother essayed matrimony a second time. She selected as
a partner in this experiment a shiftless, idle, easy creature named
David Lacy, who would have been a plasterer had not his indolence
defeated his craft. Little Mollie, and Davy of the clattering crutch,
occurred as a kind of penalty of the nuptials.
Three years and a half before we encounter this mixed household,
Lacy, the worthless, sailed away on a China ship without notice or

farewell. Some say he was “shanghaied,” and some that he went of
free will. Mrs. Lacy adopted the former of the two theories.
“David Lacy, too idle to work ashore, assuredly would not go to
sea where work and fare are tenfold harder.”
Thus argued Mrs. Lacy. Still, a solution of Lacy’s reasons for
becoming a mariner late in life is not here important. He sailed and
he never returned; and as Mrs. Lacy perished of pneumonia the
following winter, they both may be permitted to quit this chronicle to
be meddled with by us no further.
Mike Menares had witnessed fifteen years when his mother died.
As suggested, he is a singularly handsome boy, and of an
appearance likely to impress. From his Conemara mother, he
received a yellow head of hair. Underneath are a pair of jet black
brows, a hawkish nose, double rows of strong white teeth, and deep
soft black eyes, as honest as a hound’s, the plain bestowal of his
Jewish father.
Mike was driving a delivery wagon for the great grocers, Mark
Milford, when his mother died. This brought six dollars a week. After
the sad going of his mother, Mike found a second situation where he
might work evenings, and thereby add six further dollars to that
stipend from Mark Milford. This until the other day continued. On
twelve dollars a week, and with little Mollie—a notable housekeeper
—to manage for the Pitt Street tenement, the composite house of
Menares and Lacy fared well.
Mike’s evening labors require a description. One Sarsfield O’Punch,
an expert of boxing and an athlete of some eminence, maintains a
private gymnasium on Fifty-ninth street. This personage is known to
his patrons as “Professor O’Punch.” Mike, well-builded and lithe,
broad of shoulder, deep of lung, lean of flank, a sort of half-grown
Hercules, finds congenial employ as aid to Professor O’Punch. Mike’s
primal duty is to box with those amateurs of the game who seek
fistic enlightenment of his patron, and who have been carried by

that scientist into regions of half-wisdom concerning the bruising art
for which they moil. From eight o’clock until eleven, Mike’s destiny
sets him, one after the other, before a full score of these would-be
boxers, some small and some big, some good and some bad, some
weak and some strong, but all zealous to a perspiring degree. These
novices smite and spare not, and move with all their skill and
strength to pummel Mike. They have, be it said, but indifferent
success; for Mike, waxing expert among experts, side-steps and
blocks and stops and ducks and gets away; and his performances in
these defensive directions are the whisper of the school.
Now and then he softly puts a glove on some eager face, or over
some unguarded heart, or feather-like left-hooks some careless jaw,
to the end that the other understand a peril and fend against it. But
Mike, working lightly as a kitten, hurts no one; such being the
private commands of Professor O’Punch who knows that to pound a
pupil is to lose a pupil.
It is to be doubted if the easy-natured Mike is aware of his
wonderful strength of arm and body, or the cat-like quickness and
certainty of his blows. During these three years wherein he has been
underling to Professor O’Punch, Mike strikes but two hard blows.
One evening several of the followers of Professor O’Punch are
determining their prowess on a machine intended to register the
force of a blow. Following each other in a fashion of punching
procession, these aspiring gymnasts, putting their utmost into the
swings, strike with all steam. Four hundred to five hundred pounds
says the register; this is vaunted as a vastly good account.
Mike, with folded arms and stripped to ring costume—his official
robes—is looking on, a smile lighting his pleasant face. Mike is ever
interested and ever silent.
As the others smite, Mike beams with approval, but makes no
comment. At last one observes:
“Menares, how many pounds can you strike?”

“I don’t know,” replies Mike, in a surprised way, “I never tried.”
“Try now,” says the other; “I’ve a notion you could hit hard
enough if you cared to.”
The others second the speaker. Much and instant curiosity grows
up as to what Mike can do with his hands if he puts his soul into it.
There is not an amateur about but knows more of Mike than does
the latter of himself. They know him as one perfect of defensive
boxing; also, they recall the precise feather-like taps which Mike
confers on the best of their muster whenever he chooses; but none
has a least of knowledge of how bitterly hard Mike’s glove might be
sent home should ever his heart be given to the trial.
Being urged, Mike begins to rouse; he himself grows curious. It
has never come to him as a thought to make the experiment. The
“punching machine” has stood there as part of the paraphernalia of
the gymnasium. But to the fog-witted Mike, who comes to work for
so many dollars a week and who has not once considered himself in
the light of a boxer, whether excellent or the reverse, it held no
particular attraction. It could tell him no secrets he cares a stiver to
hear.
Now, Mike for a first time feels moved to a bit of self-
enlightenment. Poising himself for the effort, Mike, with the
quickness of light, sends in a right-hand smash that all but topples
the contrivance from its base. For the moment the muscles of his
back and leg knot and leap in ropelike ridges; and then they as
instantly sink away. The machine registers eight hundred and ninety-
one pounds.
The on-gazers draw a long breath. Then they turn their eyes on
Mike, whose regular outlines, with muscles retreated again into
curves and slopes and shimmering ripples, have no taint of the
bruiser, and whose handsome features, innocent of a faintest
ferocity, recall some beautiful statue rather than anything more
viciously hard.

Mike’s second earnest blow comes off in this sort. He is homeward
bound from gymnasium work one frosty midnight. Not a block from
his home, three evil folk of the night are standing beneath an
electric light. Mike, unsuspicious, passes them. Instantly, one
delivers a cut at Mike’s head with a sandbag. Mike, warned by the
shadow of uplifted arm, springs forward out of reach, wheels, and
then as the footpad blunders towards him, Mike’s left hand, clenched
and hammerlike, goes straight to his face. Bone and teeth are
broken with the shock of it; blood spurts, and the footpad comes
senseless to the pave. His ally, one of the other two, grasps at Mike’s
throat. His clutch slips on the stern muscles of the athlete’s neck as
if the neck were a column of brass. Mike seizes his assailant’s arm
with his right hand; there is a twist and a shriek; the second robber
rolls about with a dislocated fore-arm. The third, unharmed, flies
screeching with the fear of death upon him.
At full speed comes a policeman, warned of his duty by the howls
of anguish. He surveys the two on the ground; one still and quiet,
the other groaning and cursing with his twisted arm. The officer
sends in an ambulance call. Then he surveys with pleased intentness
the regular face of Mike, cool and unperturbed.
“An Irish Sheeny!” softly comments the officer to himself.
He is expert of faces, is the officer, and deduces Mike’s two-ply
origin from his yellow hair, dark eye and curved nose.
“You’re part Irish and part Jew,” observes the policeman.
“My mother was from Ireland,” answers Mike; “my father was a
Spanish Jew from Salamanca. I think that’s what they call it,
although I was not old enough when he died to remember much
about him.”
“Irish crossed on Jew!” comments the officer, still in a mood of
thoughtful admiration. “It’s the best prize-ring strain in the world!”
The officer is in his dim way a patron of sport.

Mike thanks the other; for, while by no means clearly
understanding, he feels that a compliment is meant. Then Mike goes
homeward to Mollie and little Davy.
It is the twenty-third of December—two days before Christmas—
when we are first made friends of Mike Menares. About a month
before, the little family of three fell upon bad days. Mike was
dismissed by the great grocers, and the six dollars weekly from that
quarter came to an end. Mike’s delivery wagon was run down and
crushed by a car; and, while Mike was not to blame, the grocers
have no time to discover a justice, and Mike was told to go.
For mere food and light and fire, Mike’s other six Saturday dollars
from Professor O’Punch would with economy provide. But there is
the rent on New Year’s day! Also, and more near, is Christmas, with
not a penny to spare. It must perforce be a bare festival, this
Christmas. It will be a blow to little Davy of the crutch, who has
talked only of Christmas for two months past and gone.
Mike, as has been intimated, is dull and slow of brain. He has just
enough of education to be able to read and write. He owns no bad
habits—no habits at all, in fact; and the one great passion of his
simple heart is love without a limit for Mollie and little Davy. He lives
for them; the least of their desires is the great concern of Mike’s life.
Therefore, when his income shrinks from twelve dollars to six, it
creeps up on him and chills him as a loss to Mollie and Davy. And
peculiarly does this sorrowful business of a ruined Christmas for
Davy prey on poor Mike.
“You and I won’t mind,” says housewife Mollie, looking up in Mike’s
face with the sage dignity of her eleven years, “because we’re old
enough to understand; but I feel bad about little Davy. It’s the first
real awful Christmas we’ve ever had.”
Mollie is as bright and wise as Mike is dull. Seven years her senior,
still Mike has grown to believe in and rely altogether on Mollie as a
guide. He takes her commands without question, and does her will

like a slave. To Mollie goes every one of Mike’s dollars; it is Mollie
who disposes of them, while Mike never gives them a thought. They
have been devoted to the one purpose of Mike’s labors; they have
gone to Mollie and little Davy of the crutch; why, then, should Mike
pursue them further?
Following housewife Mollie’s regrets over a sad Christmas that was
not because of their poverty to be a Christmas, Mike sits solemnly by
the window looking out on the gathering gloom and hurrying holiday
crowds of Pitt Street. The folk are all poor; yet each seems able to
do a bit for Christmas. As they hurry by, with small bundles and
parcels, and now and then a basket from which protrude mayhap a
turkey’s legs or other symptom of the victory of Christmas, Mike, in
the midst of his sluggish amiabilities, discovers a sense of pain—a
darkish thought of trouble.
And as if grief were to sharpen his wits, Mike has for almost a first
and last time an original idea. It is the thought natural enough,
when one reflects on Mike’s engagements, evening in and evening
out, with Professor O’Punch.

That day Mike, in passing through the Bowery, read the two
hundred dollars offer of the selfconfident Terror. At that time Mike
felt nothing save wonder that so great a fortune might be the
reward of so small an effort. But it did not occur to him that he
should try a tilt with the Terror. In his present stress, however, and
with the woe upon him of a bad Christmas to dawn for little Davy,
the notion marches slowly into Mike’s intelligence. And it seems
simple enough, too, now Mike has thought of it; and with nothing
further of pro or con, he prepares himself for the enterprise.
For causes not clear to himself he says nothing to housewife Mollie
of his plans. But he alarms that little lady of the establishment’s few

sparse pots and kettles by declining to eat his supper. Mollie fears
Mike is ill. The latter, knowing by experience just as any animal
might, that with twelve minutes of violent exercise before him, he is
better without, while denying the imputation of illness, sticks to his
supperless resolve.
Then Mike goes into the rear room and dons blue tights, blue
sleeveless shirt, canvas trunks, and light shoes; his working
costume. Over these he draws trousers and a blue sweater; on top
of all a heavy double-breasted jacket. Thrusting his feet, light shoes
and all, into heavy snow-proof overshoes, and pulling on a bicycle
cap, Mike is arrayed for the street. Mollie knows of these several
preparations, the ring costume under the street clothes, but thinks
naught of it, such being Mike’s nightly custom as he departs for the
academy of Professor O’Punch. At the last moment, Mike kisses both
Mollie and little Davy; and then, with a sudden original enthusiasm,
he says:
“I’ve been thinkin’, Mollie; mebby I can get some money. Mebby
we’ll see a good Christmas, after all.”
Mollie is dazed by the notion of Mike thinking; but she looks in his
face, with its honest eyes full of love for her and Davy, and as
beautiful as a god’s and as unsophisticated, and in spite of herself a
hope begins to live and lift up its head. Possibly Mike may get
money; and Christmas, and the rent, and many another matter then
pinching the baby housekeeper and of which she has made no
mention to Mike, will be met and considered.
“It’ll be nice if you should get money, Mike,” is all Mollie trusts
herself to say, as she returns Mike’s good-bye kiss.
When Mike gets into Pitt Street he moves slowly. There’s the
crowd, for one thing. Then, too, it’s over early for his contest with
the Terror. Mike prefers to arrive at the theatre just in time to strip
and make the required application for those two hundred dollars. It
may appear strange, but it never once occurs to Mike that he will not

last the demanded four rounds. But it seems such a weighty sum!
Mike doubts if the offer be earnest; hesitates with the fear that the
management will refuse to give him the money at the end.
“But surely,” decides Mike, “they will feel as though they ought to
give me something. I lose a dollar by not going to Professor
O’Punch’s; they must take account of that.”
Mike loiters along with much inborn ease of heart. Occasionally he
pauses to gaze into one of the cheap shop windows, ablaze and
garish of the season’s wares. There is no wind; the air has no point;
but it is snowing softly, persistently, flakes of a mighty size and
softness.
Ten minutes before he arrives at that theatre which has been the
scene of the Terror’s triumphs, Mike enters a bakery whereof the
proprietor, a German, is known to him. Mike has no money but he
feels no confusion for that.
“John,” says Mike to the German; “I’ve got to spar a little to-night
and I want a big plate of soup.”
“Sure!” says John, leading the way to a rear room which thrives
greasily as a kind of restaurant. “And here, Mike,” goes on John, as
the soup arrives, “I’ll put a big drink of sherry in it. You will feel good
because of it, and the sherry and the hot soup will make you quick
and strong already.”
At the finish, Mike, with an eye of bland innocence—for he is
certain the theatre will give him something, even if it withhold the
full two hundred—tells John he will pay for the soup within the hour,
when he returns.
“That’s all right, Mike,” cries the good-natured baker, “any time will
do.”
“This w’y, me cove,” observes a person with a cockney accent, as
the sharp gamin delivers Mike, together with the message to the

Terror, at the stage door; “this w’y; ’ere’s a dressin’ room for you to
shift your togs.”
Later, when Mike’s outer husks are off and he stands arrayed for
the ring, this person, who is old and gray and wears a scarred and
battered visage, looks Mike over in approval:
“You seems an amazin’ bit of stuff, lad,” says this worthy man;
“the build of Tom Sayres at his best, but’eavier. I ’opes you’ll do this
Mick, but I’m afeared on it. You looks too pretty; an’ you ain’t got a
fightin’ face. How ’eavy be you, lad?”
“One hundred and eighty-one,” replies Mike, smiling on the
Englishman with his boy’s eyes.
“Can you spar a bit?” asks the other.
“Why, of course I can!” and Mike’s tones exhibit surprise.
“Well, laddy,” says the other; “don’t let this Dublin bloke rattle you.
’E’s a great blow’ard, I takes it, an’ will quit if he runs ag’in two or
three stiff ’uns. A score of years ago, I’d a-give ’im a stone an’ done
for ’im myself. I’m to be in your corner, laddy, an’ I trusts you’ll not
disgrace me.”
“Who are you?” asks Mike.
“Oh, me?” says the other; “I works for the theayter, laddy, an’,
bein’ as ’ow I’m used to fightin’, I goes on to ’eel an’ ’andle the
amatoors as goes arter the Terror. It’s all square, laddy; I’ll be be’ind
you; an’ I’ll ’elp you to win those pennies if I sees a w’y.”
“I have also the honor,” shouts the loud master of ceremonies, “to
introduce to you Mike Men-ares, who will contend with the Dublin
Terror. Should he stay four rounds, Marquis of Queens-berry rules,
the management forfeits two hundred dollars to the said Menares.”
“What a model for my Jason,” says a thin shaving of a man who
stands as a spectator in the wings. He is an artist of note, and

speaks to a friend at his elbow. “What a model for my Jason! I will
give him five dollars an hour for three hours a day. What’s his name?
Mike what?” The battle is about to commence; the friend, tongue-
tied of interest, makes no reply.
The Dublin Terror is a rugged, powerful ruffian, with lumpy
shoulders, thick short neck, and a shock gorilla head. His little gray
eyes are lighted fiercely. His expression is as savagely bitter as
Mike’s is gentle. The creature, a fighter by nature, was born meaning
harm to other men.
There is a roped square, about eighteen feet each way, on the
stage, in which the gladiators will box. The floor is canvas made safe
with rosin. The master of cermonies, himself a pugilist of
celebration, will act as referee. The old battered man of White
Chapel is in Mike’s corner.
Another gentleman, with face similarly marred, but with Seven
Dials as his nesting place, is posted opposite to befriend the Terror.
There is much buzz in the audience—a rude gathering, it is—and a
deal of sympathetic admiration and not a ray of hope for Mike in the
eyes of those present.
The Terror is replete of a riotous confidence and savage to begin.
For two nights, such is the awe of him engendered among local
bruisers, no one has presented himself for a meeting. This has made
the Terror hungry for a battle; he feels like a bear unfed. As he
stands over from Mike awaiting the call of “Time,” he looks
formidable and forbidding, with his knotted arms and mighty hands.
Mike lounges in his place, the perfection of the athlete and picture
of grace with power. His face, full of vacant amiability, shows pleased
and interested as he looks out on the crowded, rampant house. Mike
has rather the air of a spectator than a principal. The crowd does
not shake him; he is not disturbed by the situation. In a fashion, he
has been through the same thing every night, save Sunday, for three
years. It comes commonplace enough to Mike.

In a blurred way Mike resents the blood-eagerness which glows in
the eyes of his enemy; but he knows no fear. It serves to remind
him, however, that no restraints are laid upon him in favor of the
brute across the ring, and that he is at liberty to hit with what lust
he will.
“Time!” suddenly calls the referee.
Those who entertained a forbode of trouble ahead for Mike are
agreeably surprised. With the word “Time!” Mike springs into
tremendous life like a panther aroused. His dark eyes glow and
gleam in a manner to daunt.
The Terror, a gallant headlong ruffian, throws himself upon Mike
like a tornado. For full two minutes his blows fall like a storm. It
does not seem of things possible that man could last through such a
tempest. But Mike lasts; more than that, every blow of the Terror is
stopped or avoided.
It runs off like a miracle to the onlookers, most of whom know
somewhat of self-defensive arts. That Mike makes no reprisals,
essays no counterhits, does not surprise. A cautious wisdom would
teach him to feel out and learn his man. Moreover, Mike is not there
to attack; his mere mission is to stay four rounds.
While spectators, with approving comment on Mike’s skill and
quickness, are reminding one another that Mike’s business is “simply
to stay,” Mike himself is coming to a different thought. He has grown
disgusted rather than enraged by the attacks of the Terror. His
thrice-trained eye notes each detail of what moves as a whirlwind to
folk looking on; his arm and foot provide automatically for his
defense and without direct effort of the brain. This leaves Mike’s
mind, dull as it is, with nothing to engage itself about save a
contemplation of the Terror. In sluggish sort Mike begins to hold a
vast dislike for that furious person.
As this dislike commences to fire incipiently, he recalls the picture
of Mollie and little Davy of the crutch. Mike remembers that it is after

ten o’clock, and his two treasures must be deep in sleep. Then he
considers of Christmas, now but a day away; and of the money so
necessary to the full pleasure of his sleeping Mollie and little Davy.
As those home-visions come to Mike, and his antipathy to the
Terror mounting to its height, the grim impulse claims him to attack.
Tigerlike he steps back to get his distance; then he springs forward.
It is too quickly done for eye to follow. The Terror’s guard is opened
by a feint; and next like a flash Mike’s left shoots cleanly in. There is
a sharp “spank!” as the six-ounce glove finds the Terror’s jaw; that
person goes down like an oak that is felled. As he falls, Mike’s right
starts with a crash for the heart. But there is no need: Mike stops
the full blow midway—a feat without a mate in boxing. The Terror
lies as one without life.
“W’y didn’t you let ’im ’ave your right like you started, laddy?”
screams the old Cockney, as Mike walks towards his corner.
Mike laughs in his way of gentle, soft goodnature, and points
where the Terror, white and senseless, bleeds thinly at nose and ear.
“The left did it,” Mike replies.
Out of his eyes the hot light is already dying. He takes a deep,
deep breath, that arches his great breast and makes the muscles
clutch and climb like serpents; he stretches himself by extending his
arms and standing high on his toes. Meanwhile he beams pleasantly
on his grizzled adherent.
“It wasn’t much,” says Mike.
“You be the coolest cove, laddy!” retorts the other in a rapt
whisper. Then he towels deftly at the sweat on Mike’s forehead.
The decision has been given in Mike’s favor. And to his delight,
without argument or hesitation, the loud young man of the
vociferous garb comes behind the scenes and endows him with two
hundred dollars.

“Say,” observes the loud young man, admiringly, “you ain’t no
wonder, I don’t t’ink!”
“But how did you come to do it, Mike?” asks the good-natured
baker, as Mike lingers over a midnight porterhouse at the latter’s
restaurant.
“I had to, John,” says Mike, turning his innocent face on the other;
“I had to win Christmas money for Mollie and little Davy.”
“And what,” said the Sour Gentleman, “became of this Mike
Menares?”
“I should suppose,” broke in the Red Nosed Gentleman, who had
followed the Jolly Doctor’s narrative with relish, “I should suppose
now he posed for the little sculptor’s Jason.”
“It is my belief he did,” observed the Jolly Doctor, with a twinkle,
“and in the end he became full partner of the bruiser, O’Punch, and
shared the profits of the gymnasium instead of taking a dollar a
night for his labors. His sister grew up and married, which, when
one reflects on the experience of her mother, shows she owned no
little of her brother’s courage.”
“Your story,” remarked the Red Nosed Gentleman to the Jolly
Doctor, “and the terrific blow which this Menares dealt the Dublin
Terror brings to mv mind a blow my father once struck.” This was a
cue to the others and one quickly seized on; the Red Nosed
Gentleman was urged to give the story of that paternal blow. First
seeing to it that the stock of burgundy at his elbow was ample, and
freighting his own and the Jolly Doctor’s glasses to the brim, the Red
Nosed Gentleman coughed, cleared his throat, and then gave us the
tale of That Stolen Ace of Hearts.

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