InformationWeek

Ask The Secret CIO

By Herbert W. Lovelace
June 3, 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 secret@cmp.com . I'll respond to those lette rs 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.

Dear Herbert,

I had to laugh at your Feb. 24 column, " A Mission Is Our Mission. " A couple years ago our department manager decided we needed a mission statement. One of the programmers commented that it would eventually boil down to 1) Do good things; and 2) Make people happy.

After spending hundreds of hours on the "project," the team that was charged with creating the mission statement finally came up with wording that said we should make quality products and have a customer focus.

I think the programmer had right all along: Do Good Things, and Make Customers Happy.

Jordan

Dear Jordan, The programmer had it right, but he blew it. He should have had business cards printed that said he was a Mission Statement Evaluation Specialist, taken a crash course in applied jargon, and charged management about four times his daily rate to assist them. Anything less than four times his daily rate, and he would not have the creditability to have been hired.

Hi, "Herbert"

I have to say that I really enjoy your column in InformationWeek. But you sound too good to be true. Judging by the upper management in my company, and by my previous employer, I pretty much thought that most upper-management was just plain incompetent. Now you've gone and destroyed my theory.

OK, I guess I have over-generalized on my comment about upper- management, but us guys down in the trenches don't get to see too many executives like yourself. I'm more used to the ones that have studied the arts of backstabbing and political maneuvering. Actually, I find one of the most stressful parts of my job dealing with the poor decisions of upper- and lower-management.

Some of their decisions are just plain stupid, while others are definitely politically motivated and have nothing to do with improving business for the company. I can 't tell you how much our management has wasted over the last five years due to these poor decisions or the special deals that have gone on between "buddies" they know at our suppliers. This is after writing off $10 million on overpriced office space in the downtown area, outsourcing one of our main business applications with near disastrous results (still treading water on that one), etc.

Based on their track record, I don't feel it would be too hard for any reasonably intelligent person to take their place and not do at least as good a job, if not better.

Wow... that's a big paragraph! Oh well, I guess that rules out any move up into management. Anyway, I really just wanted to say thanks for giving me hope that good managers really do exist. I guess like anything else, the good ones really stand out, and they are the ones the staff really want to work for. I'm sure that your employees must feel that way about you. Keep up the good work and keep up the fight!

David

Dear David,

Thanks for your kind words. One of the problems with management is that it responds to Gresham's Law. Gresham's Law, in case you have forgotten, is that bad money (i.e., currency having less intrinsic value) will drive out good money from circulation. It was formulated by Thomas Gresham, an English merchant and royal financial agent who lived in the 16th century.

I suspect that the law also applies to 20th-century management, where bad managers drive out good ones. When managers spend their time trying to figure out how to go one up on their fellow managers instead of how to beat up on the competition, everyone suffers. If any of these clowns reach the executive suite, then there is trouble in River City.

But, a question. Why do you put up with this nonsense? If you can possibly see yourself clear to make a change, get the resume up to date and go for it. Life is too short to spend it with a bunch of people you do not respect.

Dear Herb,

Enjoyed your column in InformationWeek about company mission statements. (" A Mission Is Our Mission. " ) I have done about a half dozen of these myself. All were big time-wasters that are long forgotten.

Someone told me that the mission statement for Federal Express was his favorite. I like it too, and so might William of Occam: "Get it there." Perfect.

Jim B.

Dear Jim B:

Obviously Federal Express has its act together. If you want to read a really interesting book about the Federal Express experience, pick up a copy of Jim Wetherbe's book, The World On Time. In addition to riding motorcycles, playing in rock bands, and being a super educator, Jim is an excellent writer, and his description of FedEx's management principles is informative.

William of Ockham (also spelled Occam), for those of you who may not be familiar with him, lived in the early 14th century and was a philosopher and theologian. The principle called "Ockham's razor" has been attributed to him. It states that it is vain t o do with more what can be done with less. This maxim is interpreted to mean that the simplest of two or more competing theories is preferable or, said another way: Do not devise more explanations than necessary for any given situation.

I think he would have made a rotten consultant.

Dear Herbert:

I thoroughly enjoy reading your columns each week in InformationWeek! I am a VP of sales at a startup (two years old) Internet banking and network security company. As a result of being tasked with business development (a fancy term for sales), I spend much of my time selling to CIOs such as yourself, in Fortune 500 companies. My question is, Can you list for me the five most important things you look for when choosing a vendor to partner with in a software project and/or purchase. Thanks for your time, and keep those articles coming!

Best regards,

Richard G.

Dear Richard:

I was tempted to list my No. 1 choice five times to emphasize its importance -- after all, "locat ion, location, and location" are the top three features to look for in real estate. But I think that would be less than what you would like. Therefore, I've listed my top five below, in the now familiar backward list leading up to the "deal breaker," the one without which nothing else counts.

The top five attributes I look for when choosing a vendor for either a software purchase or a consulting arrangement are:

5. How Much Is The Total Price Of The Solution? Money is important. Spend more money than I have, and there is less money for something important to the company such as (not necessarily in order of importance) building a plant, developing a new product, or paying executive bonuses.

4. How Much Aggravation Will It Be To Maintain ? Long after the price is forgotten, the solution will have to be maintained. If it is difficult to do so, or annoys people because of its complexity, it will always remind folks of how poorly it fits the original problem.

3. How Much Flexibility Does The Sol ution Remove? Every time I commit the company to something, whether it's a standard word processor or a new client-server box, I eliminate another vendor or option from my alternatives in the future. And since I have no idea, really, of what the future will bring (if I did, I'd make a killing in the stock market and go sailing instead of working) I need to worry about what mistakes I may be making and how I'll be able to recover from them in the days ahead.

2. How Well Does It Solve My Problem? This is an interesting one. Note that I have not said anything about technical sophistication or elegance. I just want it to work. I can't tell you the number of projects I've seen where the project people get enamored of the technical solution and ask me to fund a beautiful solution that's totally unnecessary.

And finally, the most important attribute, the one without which none of the others above mean anything.

1. How Much Can I Trust The Vendor's Promises? Can I depend on the supplier to meet his or her commitments? If the salesperson tells me something will happen, can I stake the well- being of my organization on the word of the supplier?

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