What Are The Chances for IT Project Success?

So I was teaching a class in Enterprise Architecture and IT Governance this week. 

In one of the class exercises, one of the students presented something like this bell-shaped distribution curve in explaining a business case for an IT Project. 

The student took a nice business approach and utilized a bell-shaped curve distribution to explain to his executives the pros and cons of a project. 

Basically, depending on the projects success, the middle (1-2 standard deviations, between 68-95% chance), the project will yield a moderate level of efficiencies and cost-savings or not. 

Beyond that:

– To the left are the downside risks for significant losses–project failure, creating dysfunction, increased costs, and operational risks to the mission/business. 

– To the right is the upside potential for big gains–innovations, major process reengineering, automation gains, and competitive advantages. 

This curve is probably a fairly accurate representation based on the high IT project failure rate in most organizations (whether they want to admit it or not). 

I believe that with:

– More user-centric enterprise architecture planning on the front-end

– Better IT governance throughout

– Agile development and scrum management in execution 

that we can achieve ever higher project success rates along the big upside potential that comes with it!  

We still have a way to go to improve, but the bell-curve helps explains what organizations are most of the time getting from their investments. 😉

(Source Graphic: Adapted by Andy Blumenthal from here)

Birthing An IT System

Managing IT projects is no easy task.

You’ve got to get the requirements right. 

Technical issues need to be resolved. 

Dependencies have to be lined up. 

Integrations need to work. 

Design should be user-friendly and intuitive. 

Change management takes real leadership. 

And so much more. 

A lot needs to go right for the project to be a success. 

While of course, just one or two bad apples in the project equation can quickly make for a failure if not controlled for. 

But you can’t let it…the show must go on, progress is waiting to be made, and the systems need to be delivered for the benefit of the organization. 

This is where real strength and determination by so many good people come in. 

Keep moving things forward–one step at a time–don’t stop!!!—another step and another–heave ho, heave, ho–until one day soon a beautiful and efficient IT system is born. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Paul Allen And Steve Jobs – Both Left Us Early!

Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft died yesterday, Oct. 15, 2018.

His untimely death reminded me of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Microsoft who died Oct. 5, 2011.

Allen co-founder Microsoft in 1975 and Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976. 

Allen was 65 and Jobs was just 56 at time of death.

Both were pioneers in the IT Revolution.

Both died of cancer.

Both dropped out of college.

Both accumulated $20B of wealth in today’s money.

Both own(ed) 2 sports teams (Jobs posthumously)

Both were huge philanthropists in terms of what they left the world: money in Allen’s case and many innovations in Job’s.

Both have been in Time’s 100 Most Influential People.

Both died an early death–sadly too young!

(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)

Snowflakes Are Unique

Thought this was an interesting analogy. 

A colleague refers to some customers as snowflakes.

At first, I didn’t get it. 

Then I understood. 

Every snowflake is unique. 

Based on how the ice crystals fall to the ground through different temperatures, moisture levels, and atmospheric pressures, the shape of every snowflake is different. 

Sometimes when it comes to project management, customers too think they are unique, different, and special.

They think that solutions that work industry- or enterprise-wide could never work for them and their wholly distinct ways of doing business. 

Hence, as I learned, the term snowflake. 

For those of us who have been around the project management block a few times, we know that while there are specific customer requirements, most of them are not all that unique. 

And when some customers simply don’t want to do things differently than they’ve done it before, there can be greater resistance to change. 

Hence, the “We’re special. We’re different” reframe along with the standoffishness, doubting, circling the wagons, throwing up obstacles, or just refusing to fully participate. 

Obviously, it’s a lot more difficult to modernize and transform through technology and business process re-engineering when your customers aren’t on board. 

So it is critical to manage organizational change, address the questions, the fears, and elements that are truly unique, and bring the people along as true partners. 

Not every requirement is a snowflake and neither is every customer, but we have to manage the similarities and differences in every project and make sure it improves performance and meets the needs of the customer and the organization. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Impact of Hyperwork on Family

I am seeing this all the time now… 

Parents of little children, or even older children, who are too busy working to pay much, if any, attention to their families.

Call it a disease of the industrial revolution + information technology. 

Whether people worked on the assembly line making widgets or nowadays on the computer and smartphone answering their bosses and colleagues compulsively–it’s become a global obsession. 

On one hand, with the impending robot and AI revolution taking over jobs, people need to be grateful to even have a job to earn a living for the families.

On the other hand, with the connections to each other and our work 24/7, the depression-era saying of:

Brother, can you spare a dime?

Has morphed into:

Brother, can you spare some time?

Yes, we all need to be responsible adults, earn a decent living and pay our bills. 

But in the end, it’s not money or things that we give to our families that is the most important.  

I would argue money and things are the least important, and what is truly most precious is the love, time, and attention you give to yours. 

As the old saying goes:

Money can’t buy love.

But time and attention given to your loved ones can build meaningful relationships that last a lifetime and beyond. 

Yes, of course, people need to work to earn a living and productively contribute something to society, but it is also true that work is used as an excuse to run away from parental and familial responsibilities. 

It’s easier to give an Amazon gift certificate or a Gameboy then to actually spend the afternoon with the kids. 

These days, people say ridiculous things like:

I love going into the office to get away from home. 

But you can’t run away from your problems at home–you need to work on them and solve them.

The diabolical murderous Nazis used work as a tool to enslave, torture, and exterminate their victims as the sign over the gate of the Auschwitz (and many other) concentration camps read:

Arbeit Macht Frei  (or Work Sets You Free)

But as we all know inside, true freedom is being able to give generously from your time and effort to your loved ones, and slavery is not being able to let go of your work. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Weaponizing Your Privacy

So this was the funniest War of the Roses on the Kane Show that I ever heard. 

They use the Alexa personal assistant from Amazon (voiceover) to call the cheater. 

In this skit, we really see the potential power of these home computing devices. 

Alexa hears and knows everything that goes on in the house (including the cheating).

Alexa confronts the cheater and calls him a few descript names for his infidelity.

Alexa punishes the cheater by going online to purchase items with his credit card. 

Alexa betrays him by calling his girlfriend and telling her about the cheating. 

Cheating aside, maybe this is a great lesson how we should all be considering our privacy in our homes and on our persons before we install Alexa, Siri, Cortana, the Google Assistant or any other personal or home surveillance systems. 

With all the bad actors out there and people that want to steal everything from your money, identity, secrets, and maybe even your wife–these devices are a direct line into your personal life.

This is called weaponizing your privacy!

Tell me, do you really believe that no one is listening or watching you?  😉

Computer Sentiment 1984

So I found this book in an IT colleague’s office. 

It’s called: “The Unofficial I Hate Computer Book”.

It was written in 1984, and like the George Orwell’s book by that name, it is a dystopian view of technology. 

The back cover says:

Computer haters of the world unite: It’s time to recognize and avenge the wonderful advances we’ve made thanks to computers–excessive eyestrain and headaches, irritating beeping noises, a one-ton printout where once there was a six-page report, a “simple” programming language you can’t understand without five handbooks, a dictionary, and a math degree.

The book goes on with illustration after illustration of unadulterated computer hate and associated violence. 

– Dogs dumping on it (see cover)

– Contests to smash it with a hammer

– Hara-kiri (suicide with a knife) into it

– Skeet shooting computers that are flung into the air

– Shotput with a computer

– Tanks rolling over them

– Sinking it in water with a heavy anvil

– Boxer practicing his punches on it

– Setting it ablaze with gasoline

– And on and on, page after hate-filled page.

So in the last 34-years, have we solved all the annoyances and complexity with computers and automation?  

Do the benefits of technology outway the costs and risks across-the-board?

How do security and privacy play in the equation? 

I wonder what the authors and readers back then would think of computers, tablets, smartphones and the Internet and apps nowadays–especially where we can’t live without them at all.  😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Information Is Power

Just wanted to share something I heard and liked about data and information:

“Everything is a record, record, record
in a table, table, table.”

Can everything in life really be reduced to lines of records, with fields of data in tables of information?

This is the information age!

Analytics and Big Data rule!

Knowledge is power!

In any conflict, we seek information dominance and supremacy!

Artificial intelligence is the future!

Records are unique with their own sys.id.

Creativity and innovation are also records in the table–even if they are the one in a million. 

The more records and tables–the more dots and connections between them–the more intelligence we can glean. 

Yes, everything is a record, record, record in a table, table, table. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Cyber Attacks Typology

Saw this acronym to describe the types of cyber threats and thought it was useful.

STRIDE

Spoofing – Falsifying identity to gain systems access

Tampering – Making unauthorized changes to data or systems

Repudiation – Forging identify of actions to data or system to deny responsibility or even blame a 3rd party

Information Disclosure – Stealing (exfiltrating) information and disclosing it to unauthorized individuals

Denial of Service – Depriving legitimate users access to data or systems

Elevation of Privilege – Transforming user account to allow it to exceed legitimate user privileges (e.g. admin account or superuser)

Funny-sad enough, these six types of cyber attacks can cause any information security officer to lose their stride. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal 

Reading Your Emails

So you know you typically get a message when you log on your computer at work that there is “no expectation of privacy.”

Meaning…you’re on the corporate network and so remember that you can be monitored. 

Well we all read that warning and sort of know it by heart.

But do you really think that someone is watching you.

Well be assured that they are!

Talking to one of my colleagues and friends recently and this is what happened.

He had to fire one of his senior guys. 

And I asked him why?

He said:

“Because he was dead wood.”

I asked what he meant as this was a senior person in the organization that was being let go.

So he said:

“Well I read the last few days of his emails on his account and he was doing absolutely nothing!”

And I was like hmm, that’s amazing that you actually go into his account and read his stuff.

Yeah, I know it’s not really his employees–the guy is at work–but still it’s his email account that he uses, seriously.

So it’s not just some corporate spooks sitting in the bowls of the building in a darkened security operations center behind a lot of cool looking screens monitoring your accounts for suspicious activity.

It’s your management too that can logon and see and read your stuff, whenever.

So this guy that was fired wasn’t just dead wood, he was actually dead meat. 

“Smile you’re on camera” in more ways then one.

So if you decide to write some juicy emails today or save some salacious files on “your” computer or on the network, the expectation surely is that they are being read–you can take that to your privacy bank. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)