Strategic Management of Information and Communication Systems

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Strategic Management ofInformation and
Communication Systems

• Mark P. Haselkorn
• Department of Technical Communication
• University of Washington
• markh_at_u.washington.edu

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Overview

• Introduction
• ICT System Management
• Y2K and ICT System Management
• The Role of the CIO
• Technical Communication and the CIO

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Introduction

• Standing Technical Communication on its head
• Hypothesis When the role of Chief Information
  Officer (CIO) is properly understood, the
  training and experience of technical
  communicators, augmented by additional training
  and experience in management, best suit the
  demands of this position.

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ICT System Management

• Dynamic, open systems
• System integration goes far beyond technical
  issues
• Balancing cross-organizational tensions

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ICT System Management

• Balance central management and local execution
• Consider evolution of ICT issues over time
• Clarify ownership of and responsibility for ICT
  systems
• Consider the impact of local diversity on ICT
• Consider the role of local autonomy in ICT
• Build trust between local ICT administrators and
  central managers
• Strengthen horizontal ICT relationships across
  the organization

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ICT System Management

• Overcome funding disincentives to working across
  organizational boundaries
• Assure that central ICT guidance is at an
  appropriate level
• Address cross-boundary issues in life-cycle
  management of ICT systems
• Tackle the informational effort needed to support
  management of integrated ICT systems
• Address issues of organizational culture that
  impact ICT
• Empower permanent organizational entities focused
  on cross-boundary ICT issues

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Y2K and ICT Management

• Need felt to establish temporary entities to
  spearhead Y2K response
• Not so much because the problem was large and
  important, but because existing entities did not
  encompass the cross-functional, cross-hierarchy,
  cross-organizational, cross-system issues
  involved
• Organizations already had permanent homes for
  functional parts of their ICT system-of-systems
  they needed homes for the space between those
  parts

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Y2K and ICT Management

• Toughest problems occurred not within areas under
  responsibility of an ICT manager, but rather
  within areas that cut across those
  responsibilities
• These more holistic problems werent about hard
  machine issuesinvolved integration of and
  communication across the entire system of systems
  
• There are a number of areas that are very soft
  and it would be wonderful if they got a greater
  emphasis. The programs have their problems, but
  largely those are being worked. What isnt being
  worked is the overall infrastructure.

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Y2K and ICT Management

• Yet as difficult as it had been to focus on
  enterprise-wide ICT management during a crisis
  situation, managers knew it would be even more
  difficult to maintain this focus under normal
  conditions
• The enterprise as a whole is not being looked
  at. We may have management and policy, but
  strength from an enterprise standpoint is lost
  and were moving away from it Momentum here that
  we gained through Y2K is rapidly falling
  awayWere losing our opportunity to maintain the
  enterprise perspective.

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Y2K and ICT Management

• 1995 Standish Group report
• US spends more than 250 billion each year on IT
  application development
• Approximately 175,000 projects
• Average project cost for a large company is
  2,322,000 for a medium company is 1,331,000
  and for a small company is 434,000

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Y2K and ICT Management

• 1995 Standish Group report
• A great many of these projects will fail.
  Software development projects are in chaos.
• 31.1 of projects will be canceled
• 52.7 of projects will cost 189 of their
  original estimates
• Lost opportunity costs are not measurable, but
  could easily be in the trillions of dollars (e.g.
  unreliable baggage handling software at the new
  Denver airport cost the city 1.1 million per day)

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Y2K and ICT Management

• Standish Group estimated that in the coming year
  (1995) American companies and government agencies
  would
• Spend 81 billion for canceled software projects.
  
• Pay an additional 59 billion for software
  projects that will be completed, but will exceed
  their original time estimates

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Y2K and ICT Management

• While temporary Y2K entities have disappeared,
  there are legacies of Y2K aimed at addressing
  this ongoing management challenge
• Agents of change are rewiring corporate
  culture one technology project at a time. These
  direct descendants of Y2K crisis management teams
  are more highly disciplined and closely managed
  than past IT teams The CIO has emerged as the
  driving force behind these collaborative
  implementations of technology.
• McCartney, Larry, Change Agents, CIO Insights
  Executive Briefs, 2001.

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Y2K and ICT Management

• But while CIOs have increasingly been charged
  with managing an organizations information and
  knowledge systems, there has been considerable
  uncertainty as to the exact nature of and
  appropriate skills for these positions.
• What is enterprise-wide management of an
  organizations information and knowledge systems?
  
• What does an entity devoted to this activity do?

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The Role of the CIO

• CIOs office initially seen as an extension of
  already influential acquisitions and system
  development function
• Technology the central component of an
  organizations information and knowledge
  activities
• CIOs primary role as owner and manager of that
  technology
• Activities centered on standardizing and keeping
  up with new information and communication
  technology

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The Role of the CIO

• But as Y2K demonstrated, enterprise-wide ICT
  management is not primarily about functionally
  organized technology
• If the CIO owns anything, it is the space between
  these nodes of responsibility
• Focus on the conversation and interactions that
  link the functional parts into a strategic whole

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The Role of the CIO

• Units responsible for fielding new systems
• We need to do a lot of work on PC and server
  common operating environments. Because we are
  finding out that servers have different disk
  drives on them, different versions of Oracle,
  different versions of the operating system. And
  as a result of that we cant distribute software
  in a rational manner.
• Units responsible for security
• From the information warfare perspective
  diversity is not such a bad thing. If every
  piece of software is absolutely standardized, one
  hole gets you in everywhere. When an adversary
  has to figure out which executable is on which
  computer among 1,300 possible options, that makes
  his targeting problem hugely more difficult.
  Thats a fundamental point thats almost always
  missed.

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The Role of the CIO

• Distinguish functionally bound ICT issues from
  enterprise-wide ones
• Where issue resides within a functional
  responsibility, role is greatly minimized or
  non-existent (But often an incorrect assumption
  that a cross-functional issue is bounded within a
  particular functional responsibility)
• When an ICT issue is identified to be
  enterprise-wide, take ownership

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The Role of the CIO

• Ownership means assuring a single point of
  contact providing consistent guidance at the
  appropriate level
• Under normal circumstances, ownership does not
  mean that the CIOs office should be that point
  of contact or own the problem parts
• The CIO owns the space between the partsthe
  space that makes it a cross-enterprise issue
• Primary role is to identify relevant
  organizational perspectives, determine best
  available representatives of those perspectives,
  and then link, guide, and empower those people
  and units to manage the issue

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The Role of the CIO

• Under the CIOs guidance, a cross-boundary entity
  defined to represent the relevant organizational
  perspectives on an issue becomes the point of
  contact
• Only such an entity, acting with the guidance and
  authority of the CIOs office, can balance
  competing organizational goals that surround a
  cross-boundary ICT issue
• CIO is the fulcrum in this balancing
  actteam-building, facilitating cross-boundary
  communication and activity, assuring that ICT
  activities are aligned with organizational goals
  and strategies, and institutionalizing desired
  change

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The Role of the CIO

• Given the high risk for failure of teams, the
  CIOs who lead collaborative groups require
  business, technology, team-building, project
  management and communication skills to be
  effective.
• Jessica Lipnack, co-author of Virtual Teams

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The Role of the CIO

• At special times, CIO must go beyond the
  fulcrum role to one of greater authority and
  stronger leadership.
• There are bureaucracies that are designed to
  slow down decision-making and there are places
  where you want to do thatbut in this case,
  because of time urgency, the bureaucracies were
  either pushed aside or stepped aside and allowed
  that rapid reaction to take place. And you need
  to be able to adapt your organization to do some
  of those things.

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The CIO and Technical Communication

• CIOs office the glue that integrates the many
  facets and perspectives of an enterprise-wide ICT
  system
• CIO works partly through central authority, but
  more commonly through the creation and ongoing
  support of cross-functional entities focused on
  cross-boundary ICT issues
• Fundamental skills include communication,
  facilitation, team-building, and creative use of
  information toolscentral skills of technical
  communication

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The CIO and Technical Communication

• CIO generally needs to adopt a perspective
  focused on strategic goals, the use of
  information to achieve those goals, and the role
  of individuals and information tools to
  facilitate that use
• CIOs perspective must consider the boundaries of
  organizational lines and functional distinctions,
  even as it works to remove their potential
  negative impacts on cross-functional information
  issues and objectives
• Again, this recognition of multiple audiences and
  goals is the perspective of technical
  communication

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The CIO and Technical Communication

• CIO is owner of the information space between
  functional nodes of an organization
• CIO is a communicator, a facilitator, and a
  politician
• CIO is a technical communicator with extremely
  high-level management skills
• Technical communication needs to partner with
  related fields to produce these people. They are
  sorely needed throughout industry and government

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