- Current offerings
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Business Consulting
- Investment Reporting Solutions, Risk Reporting & Simulation
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Big Data
- Infosphere BigInsights / Streams / Data Explorer, Hadoop, MapReduce
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IBM OPTIM
- Data growth, data privacy, data quality, governance solutions on multiple platforms
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IBM INFOSPHERE WAREHOUSE
- consulting services
- Education
- Data management education and workshops on request
Challenges in adopting change - and responses
In the last years we have seen multiple waves of budget cuts that hit IT seriously. Often enough this resulted in running on KTLO budgets with very limited room for innovation. We shouldn't be surprised to see that such a wave will hit line of business in the near future, too.
How can line of business prepare to operate on reduced budgets while generating more income or being more effective, or even both? Typically, two main strategies are followed, sometimes in combination:
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Cost reduction
- accomplished via automation aka process optimization aka industrialization and ultimately reduction of staff. The first industrialization initiatives have already been started. This measure reduces the unit cost of your offerings, but doesn't help if the market is not really interested in the offerings.
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Market development
- either aimed at development of new markets or at increasing market share. This measure is key to staying in business in the future. Pure cost reduction won't do.
Pursuing either of these strategies without an appropriate project management will fail. Challenges differ depending on which strategy you follow. The easy part - not without plenty of obstacles and stumbling blocks - is sticking to the known procedures as described in PMBOK, PRINCE2, etc. Not doing this sends projects into severe weather. Success quotes of projects speak a clear language.
However, there is more than those well documented procedures to lead projects to success. Here are some important ones:
- Do the right things
- understand the business pain points and strive for appropriate, cost effective business solutions
- Do the things right
- select appropriate architectures / designs / technology and integrate them with the specific risk and governance requirements
- Be prepared for change
- a project takes time and goals may change; but the project must address the business goals at its completion, not just those that were valid at its beginning
- Be prepared for resistance
- people, stakeholder management and conflict resolution is key
These factors make the difference from bureaucratic to successful project management. As a consequence, besides knowing the project management 101 a project manager should
- have a good understanding of the business problem
- understand up- and downsides of technology choices
- balance cost and benefit of candidate solutions
- facilitate a culture of adaptive change
- have practical leadership skills
A five day's class in project management methods won't do.
This is where my and my network's experience in business subject matters, technology, organizational topics, and leadership comes in.
