Ask The Secret CIO

By Herbert W. Lovelace
Issue date: Jan. 28, 1997

Your letters to my print column and this E-mail forum ask some serious questions about managing information technology in today's world. Since today's world is essentially absurd, my serious responses may sometimes sound a little whimsical, and my occasional whimsical ones, serious. In any case, if you want to participate, write to me at se cret@cmp.com . I'll respond to those letters that I can. I reserve the right to edit for size and content. Just sign your E-mail the way you want it to appear online.

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Dear Herbert:

I just wanted to express how much I enjoy your column in InformationWeek . You bring a reality and humanity that is sadly missing in most articles. I am particularly grateful to be spared the usual platitudes and [garbage] that almost all corporate executives employ. Are you the exception that proves Dilbert correct?

Ron

Dear Ron:

Of course not. It's just that I am probably somewhat slightly less incompetent than they are. If they weren't so incompetent, they could afford to be a little more human. Being human is not one of the factors weighted into the formula for the executive bonuses and thus is verbally praised but not required for senior management.

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Mr. Lovelace,

Just a qui ck note to empathize with the shenanigans you describe in your InformationWeek column. As yourself, I was very close to the CEO/Board/VP levels, due to my involvement in a extremely visible project. While I was more near the Dilbert level in salary structure, I did have a lot of involvement with the big boys upstairs.

To my point: I have toyed with the idea of writing a book based on executive funnies that happen in the boardroom and non-work related activities of the corporate elite. I believe there is a never-ending supply of stories that the public would enjoy reading about. I even think this could extend to a TV show similar to Murphy Brown, etc.

These episodes would make a great book--what do you think about collaborating? I consider myself a fairly entrepreneurial person, and would like to bring this thought to reality some day.

I'm also involved in other very lucrative businesses that I work in part-time, that you could certainly be involved in, if interested.

Mu ch Regards, and keep up the great columns!

Sam
Dallas

Dear Sam:

Although I have to decline your offer of collaborating (my ego doesn't let me share credit--my staff and I get so little), you have some good ideas there. I especially like the TV series, but rather than Murphy Brown , maybe the CIO series should be more of a combination of The X-Files and ER . That way, we could have aliens racing through the data center in search of resuscitation. The theme would be really familiar to anyone who has worked on a help desk or who has been assigned to support finance or human resources executives.

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Dear Herb,

As the person responsible for sales and marketing training at a large software company, I wanted to take a moment to tell you how much I enjoy reading your perspective in The Secret CIO column of InformationWeek . I refer to many of the topics when sharing a particular sales technique during my classes. One of my favorite thoughts came from "Dining at the Paradigm" ( IW Sept. 23, 1996.) "it just proves that your opinion of someone's intelligence is confirmed if their ideas coincide with yours."

So, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind answering the following question to help me continue adding different ideas and value to my training curriculum. What are the top three business issues you face as a CIO today and what difficulties do you anticipate over the next 3-5 years?

Sincerest regards,
Kathe

Dear Kathe,

On the assumption that because you are so astute, you will agree with my observations, here are the top three issues I see:

1) Continuously proving the value of the IT organization. The era of reengineering, downsizing, etc. isn't over and the theme at the turn of the century will continue to be, "What have you done for me lately?" The proof, by the way, will have to be in terms that are meaningful to the people that pay the bills. Saying that your systems provide better information, for example, will be worthless unless you can explain how that will help the bottom line.

2) Understanding the implications of the technology. The rate of change in the industry is immense. The potential for making big--and I mean big--mistakes is increasing. It is getting harder and harder to pick the right path to follow because of the cost of building the infrastructure and because product life cycles are in months where before we saw them lasting years. Get started down the wrong path and you will be badly beaten up in short order. So short, in fact, that everyone can point at you and remember that you made the wrong decisions.

3) Communicating a vision and direction. We are no longer high priests hidden behind large and mysterious doors. Everyone graduating college today and more than a few elementary school students have a good knowledge of computers--or at least thi nk they do. If we cannot explain what we want to do and why, we will find ourselves stuffed and mounted in the obsolete species section of the Smithsonian.

Care to respond? Send an E-mail .

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Herbert:

I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of meeting size and length, especially when they are consensus-building exercises--unless, of course, you know the boss' expected results in advance, in which case you can get consensus as soon as the doughnuts are finished.

R.B.

Dear R.B.

A better idea would be to give the doughnuts as a reward for guessing what the boss wants and not holding the meeting in the first place--but then, I guess, the boss would get into trouble with all that free time.

Care to respond? Send an E-mail .

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Dear Herb:

In your article " The First Law of Meetings ," ( IW Nov. 4, 1996.) your equation does not differentia te between total meeting time and productive meeting time.

I propose the equation T = k(P^2-4P) + B.

T= total meeting time
k= company cultural constant
P= number of attendees
B= incorporates the minimum length for a meeting, the minimum number of attendees, and the k value

I have assumed that a meeting must have at least two people present (or else it wouldn't be a meeting, would it?). I have also assumed that there is an insurmountable minimum meeting length of five minutes (obviously it takes time to discuss any topic, not matter how quickly the individuals want to get to the point).

Mathematically,
Brandon

Dear Brandon,

You have a great idea, but your basic assumption that there is a difference between total meeting time and productive meeting time would be challenged by most of the people who have written to me about the meetings' columns. They seem to think that talking about productive meeting time is an oxymoron, sort of like jumbo shrimp or bug-free code.

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Dear Herb Lovelace:

I have enjoyed reading your column in IW for several months now. The recent one impressed me quite a bit. Being a very poor time manger myself, I constantly try to improve on this area and making meetings more effective is one of them pet-peeve of mine. My two cents in attempts to reduce the colossal waste of American assets in meetings:

I instituted Fridays to be "meetless" days where any group members found in a conference room better had a very good reason to be meeting.

I cut the conference room bookings for meetings from one hour to 30 minutes.

I found that the meeting overload fuse was at an IQ of 1,000; i.e., if the combined IQs of the meeting participants exceeds 1,000 you can be guaranteed that nothing meaningful will come out of the meeting.

Would be curious and anxious to get your thoughts.

Nat

Dear Nat:

I think y ou have some good ideas --certainly at least on two of the three.

If Fridays are better as "meetless" days (unless there is a very good reason), what hint does that give us for what we should be doing on Mondays through Thursdays?

Booking conference rooms for 30 minutes instead of an hour is a great idea. One strategy that I use is to publish the time a meeting will end as well as the time it will start--and then setting up meetings back-to-back so that they have to end on time.

The IQ bit is where I think I differ with you. I'm not sure how I would measure the IQ's or what I would do with the information once I had it. My sense is that the IQ is a dynamic measure that degrades rapidly during a meeting. Besides, how big are your conference rooms that you worry about the 1,000-point limit?

Care to respond? Send an E-mail .

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Dear Secret CIO:

How concerned should CIOs be with Year 2000 compliance issues? What's the best way for them to go about it, with the goal of not having their systems break Jan. 1, 2000 (or earlier)? Is there any way to certify that software and hardware is Year 2000 compliant? Should the Year 2000 work be outsourced or added to the existing staff's workload?

Ted

Dear Ted,

CIO's should be very concerned about Year 2000 compliance issues. After all, when things break, it will be clear who fell down on the job. There really isn't any single best way of going about resolving the problem. It depends on the industry, the state of the systems, and the ability of the staff to respond to errors. If you take a look at The Year 2000 Advantage (May 27, 1996) and The Year 2001 Crisis (Jan. 27, 1997) you'll get a sense of an approach that seems to make sense to me.

Basically, I think we should

1) Fix what we know is wrong. There is a lot of institutional knowledge resident in an organization, and we should use it.

2) Check first the most used programs and systems by using test cases a nd by setting system clocks to dates that cycle from now to beyond 2000

3) Leave alone what will not impact the business--such as the dates that appear on order entry screens, and

4) Absolutely strengthen the ability to respond to the inevitable missed problems.

I don't know of any way to certify that hardware and software is really compliant, although I strongly recommend getting your vendors to do just that. If there are legal teeth in your contracts about Year 2000 compliance, there is a high likelihood that your vendors are taking the problem seriously.

So far as outsourcing the work, I divide the answer based on how long you intend to keep the system. Keep in mind that there is no better way of learning what is in the system than having to perform maintenance on it. On the other hand, it may not be practical to use your in-house staff if the job is really big, and it would mean hiring a lot of people or delaying some critical work. In no case, however, should accountability be given to outsiders. Someone who is key to your organization has to ride herd on the project if there is a significant contractor presence.

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Got a question for The Secret CIO? Just send an E-mail .

View past issues of "Ask The Secret CIO"

Jan. 14, 1997 Dec. 24, 1996 Dec. 3, 1996 Nov. 19, 1996 Nov. 5, 1996

Oct. 21, 1996 Oct. 7, 1996 Sept. 24, 1996 Sept. 9, 1996 July 29, 1996 June 24, 1996

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