Brisbane

ITGI Roundtable discussion

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Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the Brisbane ISACA chapter’s Executive Lunch with John Thorp on the topic of Value Governance, Investment Management and Portfolio Management.  Amongst many other qualifications, John chairs the ITGI Val IT Committee.

John’s luncheon presentation was very, very good, and reaffirmed some of the positions I’ve had for some time now.  What I love about COBIT and VAL IT is that it is bringing a framework to all that stuff we have in the past done ‘just because’. 

Some highlights for me from John’s presentation were the following points:

  1. IT investments don’t exist, this is all about investment in IT-enabled change – which we can only change when business and IT know who is responsible for what.
  2. A nice little formula from John:  OO + NT = COO [Old Organisation + New Technology = Complex Old Organisation].  Seen that a few times.
  3. Appealing to the television geeks in the audience (like myself), John pilloried the Star Trek school of management – ‘Make It So!’ is rarely as successful as it is in Star Trek.  For a start, most people have no common view as to what ‘it’ is.
  4. John has a nice turn of phrase – ‘bad news does not get better with age’; ‘decibel-based decision-making’, ‘more effort into less things for more value’ (so true!).
  5. Apparently governance goes back to the Greek word ‘kubernan’, which is defined as ‘continually steering or adjusting to stay on course’.
  6. There is a new VAL IT – VAL IT 2.0, which partners COBIT more closely than in the past, and is maturing.  I suspect that in a year or two the course I am giving on IT Governance needs to pick up on this point and move with it.
  7. What I have always referred to as a ‘business prioritisation forum’ is better called an ‘investment services board’ – at least that is what it is in VAL IT parlance.

I believe John’s presentation will soon be on the Chapter website.

Last night I had also had the honour of attending dinner for a recorded roundtable discussion on the topic of IT Governance, with many local professionals giving their thoughts and comments.  One of the curious things that really did highlight for me is probably that the term ‘IT Governance’ is all wrong – which is why ISACA’s new qualification is called ‘CGEIT’ – Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT.  I haven’t met anyone yet who actually likes the term, yet we keep using it and getting confused with corporate governance issues.

I mean, why don’t we have a marketing governance or an HR Governance, or such like?

At any rate, John is very passionate about advancing the profession in the world of IT management.

It was a good night, and we certainly managed to relax after the microphone was turned off in the convention centre.  I was bitterly disappointed though – the Plough Inn was closed at 10.20 on a Thursday night.  Bitterly disappointed!

CPA Australia ITM CoE meeting

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Well I’m off to Melbourne again this morning for the first face-to-face meeting of the ITM Centre of Excellence this year.  In some ways we’ve been a bit slack this year – but our work plan is still cranking out because we’ve got the dance card aligned. 

There’s a major publication coming out on the business management of IT (that is very, very excellent and I love Chris Gillies’ and Jan Barned’s work on this one – you’ll be able to buy it online very soon), a research publication on telework has come out (thanks John Campbell from University of Canberra and Jon Heales from UQ- read it on the weekend and it looks good), there’s been an article for the CFO Software Guide that comes out next month (on social networking – thanks me!), and there are two forthcoming articles on the impact of social networking on your career and business (June and July issues).

These last two are for InTheBlack and again, thanks me!

There is also a major publication coming up that is a guide to ICT Outsourcing, which wraps up a stream of work that has been around for a couple of years now. 

CPA Australia has also commissioned me to write a policy and procedure guide to social networking.

As well as that I believe there is a ton of work coming through on the telework research front, and I am down to give three presentations at CPA Australia PD sessions in the next four months or so (Townsville, Brisbane, and Sydney and Melbourne, and Brisbane again). 

As well as continuing on with the IT Specialists assessment panel. 

There is also a total review of the websitre, and our content has been, finally, rebranded as “IT Management” rather than eBusiness, and as well as that we came up with some points to go to the 2020 Summit with.  However I don’t know that that produced very much :). 

So when I say ‘slack’ I actually think I may mean it in the ‘quite busy’ context. 

I think our work plan is still going strong – that will be the focus today and to align the dance card for the rest of the year.  April is a bit late for our first face-to-face meeting but no doubt it will all come together.

On another note – I’m thinking about setting up a video blog on this blog – technically, it’s all sorted.  I just need to find something to say.

Happy new business year

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There’s a common saying in Brisbane, at least, and that is that business shuts down from about Melbourne Cup day to Australia Day.  It’s not quite true, but if you’re a consultant this time of year can be the bane of your life – normally, when a potential client wants to make a decision about a proposed consulting engagement, it takes several people to sign off on the proposal.  And of course, at least one of the several people that need to give their blessings are off on leave at some time over this period. 

Hence – realistically – the business year doesn’t really start until the first business day after Australia Day.  And – with this beautiful logic – I wish everyone a happy new business year well in advance :).

Looking forward to a positive 2008, and a successful year in business for us all.

Business Process and Change Management

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I note that I really need to keep up with this blogging thing so watch this space some more.

On Monday just gone I gave a presentation on change management (in the context of business process management) for the Ark Group.  I did a fair chunk of research for this presentation – I wanted to feel that I was on top of the topic – and so it does have some (what I consider to be) fairly good content.  The presentation notes are a bit big I think for a blog post (but I will probably put it in the articles section eventually.

For anyone that is wondering (which is perhaps 3 people and my dog), the Applied Insight website will be up and running in the next couple of weeks.  Until then it will be under construction.

The Powerpoint for the presentation on Monday is provided below.  The speaker’s briefing I was given is below:

Monday 26 November

3:45pm:  Business process management and change management

  1. Moving towards an enterprise process-driven organisation
  2. Dealing with employees who have ownership over their processes
  3. Understanding why change management has been tagged as the major factor behind BPM success

Micheal Axelsen, Director, Applied Insight Pty Ltd

 

You can download the PDF handout of the Powerpoint slides on the below link:

20071126_bpm_cm

And the complete paper is here:

20071126_bpm_cm_handout

I believe the presentation was well received by the participants in the conference, but of course I will wait for feedback from the wonderful Velerie Moerbeck and Aimee Rootes of Ark Group before the jury is in on that.  I wish I had been able to stay longer at the end of the presentation, but being from Brisbane I of course had to fly back on Monday night – and as it was I only checked in 5 minutes before the plane commenced boarding.  Traffic across town was horrific.

Of course that was academic, as flying Virgin the flight was of course delayed (for the fourth time in a row) by at least half an hour.  Grrr.

Information Management is the new Black

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Dr Kate Andrews is a partner at BDO Kendalls (QLD), and Kate’s area of specialty is intellectual capital and knowledge management.  Kate looks for very practical outcomes from knowledge management to benefit the business, and I can’t recommend Kate highly enough as a KM practitioner.  Kate and I, though, often work with clients together in the area of information management and knowledge management.  There are a great number of aspects to a knowledge management strategy that are very relevant to business, and a great many of these aspects are extremely interesting, engaging, and fire the imagination of clients.

Perhaps unfortunately, information management is not, perhaps, shall we say, the most sexy of aspects of knowledge management to pursue.  Unfortunately for those that are really intrigued by the more exotic aspects of KM, information management is the absolute foundation building block of a successful knowledge management strategy.  It is very difficult to manage your knowledge if you can’t manage your information.  And so Kate and I frequently work together in the area of knowledge management and information management to get good client outcomes.

The most practical application of information management that we have found is the framework adopted by the Government Chief Information Office in New South Wales, although these have now been withdrawn from circulation and are in the process of being revised.  These identify specific activities around audit, copyright, framework, inventory, liability, data quality, and information custodianship.  BDO Kendalls uses this framework to provide an information management strategy based around our usual approach (three month milestones, defined work programs, and capability growth for the business in the area of information management for critical information types). 

One of the major variations we use to the NSW approach is that today we think more seriously around the use of a folksonomy instead of a formal taxonomy.  Although it – to my logical accountant brain – is illogical and irrational and makes no sense whatsoever, we find that this approach gives our clients 80% of the benefits for 20% of the effort (well, approximately – there’s never an argument with the pareto principle is there?). 

Future information management posts will provide an overview of information management and build a library around the topic.Â