A new MWD FM podcast series: Software Delivery InFocus
After an extended hiatus, we're relaunching our podcasting efforts with a planned series of discussions focusing on the challenges and issues associated with software delivery processes and competence in enterprises. We've called this podcast series "Software Delivery InFocus", and it's hosted by Bola Rotibi, MWD's Principal Analyst for Software Delivery. Each podcast in the series will feature Bola and one or two guest commentators.
In this 33'06" podcast episode Bola discusses a series of questions focused on the issue of making the right technology choices. Her guests are Alan Zeichick (Editorial Director at SD Times) and Clive Howard (Founding Partner of Howard/Baines, a web development consultancy).
In an environment where software is everywhere and increasingly business critical, but where new technologies and approaches appear on the horizon at an alarming rate - when organisations look to carry out projects, are the right technology choices being made, and if not, why not? And who's to blame? What can organisations do to help them make better technology choices?
You can download the audio
here or alternatively you can
subscribe to the podcast feed to make sure you catch this and all future podcasts!
As with all the episodes in this podcast series, we've also published a companion report which summarises the discussion and "key takeaways". You can find it
here, and it's free to download for all MWD's Guest Pass research subscribers (
joining is free).
Labels: alignment, development, podcast
Nodding about nodding dog alignment
I just came across Steve Jones' post,
Nodding dog alignment - the perils of aligning to people not business, in which he points out the sad reality that many IT organisations which believe they are aligned with the business aren't actually delivering value. Why? Because they are aligning with the wrong things. Instead of focusing on business goals they focus on the individuals who have those goals with the result that:
the IT department just turns into a nodding dog and says yes to all requests made by anyone who can claim to be a business person. This is what leads to hideously configured packages because "the business said so" and to a fragmented IT estate and ever increasing IT spend for ever decreasing business value.This issue is something that came out strongly in the research for
our book (the perfect Christmas gift ;-) )and is reflected in two of our principles for effective IT-business alignment.
First, the IT organisation must establish a peer relationship with the business, rather than a supplier-customer relationship which Steve flags. It's about shared accountability and responsibility and, in much the same way as a P2P network, involves dynamic interactions controlled through a set of protocols (or governance policies and procedures) in accordance with objectives and constraints (business goals, budgets, people in the IT-business alignment case; file downloads, network bandwidth and latency in the P2P case).
Second, it's not about working on the basis of "he who shouts loudest". Rather it's about working towards a set of goals and objectives that are coordinated and agreed by the combined business and IT team.
As Steve so aptly puts it:
Business alignment isn't about people alignment.Labels: alignment
