I ran across your page and was wondering exactly what the Secret CIO is?

Cathy

Dear Cathy,

Larger than a bread box, smaller than an executive.

I realize that it is supposed to be irrelevant in today's world, and I'm only asking because it would make your nom de plume just that much more effective in disguising your identity.

Are you a woman?

Just curious,

Derek

Dear Derek,

That's a good question. Do you mean in terms of genetics or solidarity?

We have a employee who answers to the name of Rodney. He ha s certain characteristics that accompany his considerable skills: arrogance, pompousness, righteousness, and conceit. I find it hard to deal with Rodney. My job requires me to deliver sysouts and faxes to the systems engineers. When Rodney arrives in the operations room, he makes it a point to push any faxes or sysouts in my face and expects me to stop what I am doing and deliver them. I find this rude and annoying.

What shall I do? I have already spoken to my immediate supervisor. I want Rodney to quit it. I do my job just fine without his assistance. We are not in a critical mission, however, we do have some time-sensitive data because we assist credit unions. Sometimes faxes can sit there for two or three hours, mainly due to my talents being required to fix a computer or other emergency situation. Why would Rodney be so pressed to make an jerk of himself just so that I could deliver a fax?

In need of assistance,

Don

Dear Don,

One way that Rodney may become more human is for you to accept his need for self-importance. Let's give Rodney the benefit of the doubt and assume that either he just doesn't realize he is acting like an idiot, or maybe you just don't understand that the faxes have the first priority. Kill him with kindness. Explain the task that you are doing when he interrupts you. Ask if the fax is more important than the job on which you are busy or whether it can wait a little while. Make sure you give him a time-frame such as, "I'll deliver it within the next hour..." Now, if Rodney still throws his weight around and preempts your present activity, then smile and do as he asks. Next, tell the person on whose job you were working that Rodney interrupted you. You'll soon find out whether Rodney is correct in his reordering of your priorities. At the very least, it should be fun to watch what happens.

What is your personal opinion of combining the CIO and CFO positions?

Regards,

Gordon Jenkins

Dear Gordon,

I don't have a problem with the idea. In fact, it probably has some significant advantages. I can think of several. The only downside I can see is that most financial people, generally, and CFO's, specifically, would be uncomfortable reporting to the CIO.

Global managing of supply chains is strategic in international industrial groups. It is a challenge to replace local systems by an integrated software package in all locations of an international group.

Another option is to keep existing systems with an interface to an integrated supply-chain system. Do you know some actual cases of companies having done this way?

Sylvain Faurie

Dear Sylvain,

Ensuring that there is global supply-chain management is extremely important in order to be competitive. If you are not paying attention to lowering your costs or providing better service through supply-chain management, you can rest assured that your competitor is.

Supply-chain management is not, however, synonymous with an integrated software package. The basic choice when deciding to combine logically the computer systems in a company is whether to buy an enterprisewide integrated system such as SAP or to integrate the individual systems that are used for different functions, business units, or geographic locations. This second approach is called "best of breed."

Since both ERP (enterprisewide resource planning) and best of breed approaches focus on internal connection of systems, supply-chain management (which in its advanced forms has connections to suppliers and customers) can be done with either approach.

One company, Tesco, in the U.K., has done some very interesting work with supply-chain management in the grocery business. They would be a good source with whom to start.

I'm currently in my final year at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and as part of my course assessment, I'm required to write a paper and give a presentation on team building.

The focus of my paper is mainly on the designing and implementation issues involved in team building. I have been having several difficulties in searching for materials and reference articles. I would greatly appreciate it if you could provide me with some of your ideas, and if possible, recommend to me some articles available on the Net. Thank you once again for your time and I truly appreciate your help.

Yours sincerely,

Bernard L.

Dear Bernard:

I am a great believ er in team building, but not a great believer in thinking it requires a whole lot of anything other than common sense. Here are some of the things, in particular order, that are important.

Keep people physically co-located so that they have a chance to really get to know each other.

Have some fun events, such as birthday parties, so that people can spend time together when work is not the subject. Tell people who come to you complaining about another team member to work out the problem by talking to the person. If necessary, get everyone in the same room so that nothing is said behind anyone's back.

Push them hard to succeed at their project and give them lots of encouragement and help when they request it. Nothing builds teamwork like management support and succeeding at a difficult goal.

Reward the team as well as individuals. Quickly get rid of anyone, regardless of skill level, who likes to make himself look good by making someone else on the team look bad.

I think it best that you do your own evaluation as to the quality of the articles and books written about teamwork (after all, it is your research project). I suggest you focus your Internet search on the Society for Information Management . SIM has published some interesting work on the subject. Other good sources are the leading IT management publications such as InformationWeek and CIO magazine .

I read your columns with joy and I even saved the one where Cindy gave such great insight on the people-skills side of technical people. But when I told someone about this great article, I couldn't find the copy. I did poke around on the CMP Web site, but all I could find is the latest column and your "Ask the Secret CIO" column. How can I get your original Secret CIO columns? Thanks.

HCS

Dear HCS:

For now, the easiest way I have found to get back issues of the columns is to go into the search feature of the home page and enter the word, Lovelace. That's what I do.

I really don't have any comment in particular on your column, other than to say I flip first to the back page of every InformationWeek issue just to see if your column appears that week.

It's refreshing, and so applicable to corporate IT. Next to Dilbert, it's the most refreshing look at the lunacy of corporate business I've read yet!

Keep up the good work. It helps all of us -- mid-level managers like me and all others, I'm sure -Ñ keep everything in perspective.

Don H. in Houston

p.s. Any amusing situations related to SAP installations would be a nice column to read!

Dear Don:

Thanks for the comments. However, the column has been moved from the back page, so check out the index. It now appears a few pages in from the back cover.

p.s. Amusing situations related to SAP installations? You've got to be kidding. With SAP, either the installation is late and the team is too exhausted to spot amusing situations, or the installation is successful and the team is too exhausted to spot amusing situations.

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