In the world of Higher-Education summer is a time of reflection on the past season, and planning for the new college year (all too rapidly approaching!) My own reflections this year are getting some inspiration from a recent CIO Magazine editorial: A Simple Scoring system for Complex Times. How does your organization score accomplishments and initiatives? In the article it is suggested that doing the expected – like maintaining system uptime or performing regular software upgrades – gets a 0. That zero. Why? In part because users don’t give us much, if any, credit for doing these things. And these items don’t actually add any value to the organization – we maintain existing value, but aren’t adding anything. Clear wins – projects that are noticed by users as generating new value or improvements – get a +1. And clear losers, where people notice and are unhappy, get a –1.
Over time the –1s will trend up towards 0, at least in a healthy organization where, for instance, mistakes in a deployment are corrected given a little extra time. But equally the +1s trend back down to 0 as the improvements become the accepted and expected standard. In looking across all projects in an organization we’ll expect to see a range of scores with a balance of +1s, 0s and –1s. There is a fair amount of just regular work that needs to be done – 0s. And resources are limited, so not every new initiative can be a +1 – some may fall to just a 0, and some may even hit as a –1. A –1 needs to be addressed over time, but doesn’t necessarily indicate a lack of planning. It may just indicate an attempt to keep budget tight, resources pulled off to support another project, and a few unexpected circumstances that kicks a planned 0 down below the grade. No mistakes indicates that you’re not trying hard enough, while too numerous or persistent –1s could indicate some structural problems.
I like the idea – it fells very real, and focuses attention on what really matters. On one end of the spectrum, how you add value to the organization? And on the other where did we miss the mark, why, and how is that corrected over time?
Secret CIO: A Simple Scoring System For Complex Times — Secret CIO — InformationWeek
Most IT organizations either a) need fixing, because things aren’t working; b) are doing OK because nothing’s on fire; or c) are enabling competitive advantage by boosting revenue, cost savings, customer satisfaction, and overall business value.
Comments / 2 COMMENTS
Michael Garretson added these pithy words on Jul 21 10 at 8:08 amIn time of diminishing budgets, it is often difficult to justify to users the importance of normal system upgrades. It becomes even more difficult when you require these same users to participate in the upgrade through user acceptance testing. I could easily understand how the user’s perceived benefit could be scored a zero, no express benefit and time away from more “important” task. It becomes the job of the IT professional to not just perform the upgrade but to “sell” the importance of the upgrade to the user, to answer the question “How will the user benefit,directly or indirectly, from the upgrade?” A failure to communicate this benefit is our failure. Just my two sense.
Randy added these pithy words on Jul 22 10 at 9:31 amYes, communication with all stakeholders is a crucial element. It is ironic that when we do things well we make it look effortless — which of course it isn’t. An essential part of any job is insuring we articulate the value added and effort expended.
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Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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