Blame Canada

There is no simple formula for achieving success on business transformation projects such as large IT initiatives. One primary reason these projects are complex is because they cross organizational boundaries and departments.

(..) two recent articles emphasize the CEO’s role in determining the outcome of IT initiatives.

Information Week’s Bob Evans raised this issue in a piece about Mark Hurd, CEO of Hewlett-Packard:

“Because I’ll tell you, I don’t know how many CEOs are in the audience here, but when you show me bad IT—and I meet a lot of CEOs, and do a lot of talks in front of CEOs—and I get a lot of CIOs who tell me how bad their IT is. My first reaction—to be very frank—is it’s probably a bad CEO, as opposed to bad IT.”

Along the same lines, SAP consultant, Caroline Olsen, wrote an impassioned (and somewhat bitter sounding) plea for CEOs to take their own projects more seriously:

I have spent over fifteen years assisting you, including seven years in various SAP Project Rescue initiatives around the world.

Your SAP projects, so important for your business and the already harmed global economy, have no importance to most of you.

You purchase “SAP talents” like toilet paper.

You excel in the art of improvisation and hypocrisy.

Your CEOs are notably absent while your CIOs radiate smugness.

(...) Sometimes upper management mismanages IT, which does what it thinks is best, but not necessarily what the company needs. That’s the source of the alignment problem. Management structure causes these issues rather than the individual tactical issues related to a project.

(...)My take. Increasing your CEO’s commitment to IT as a business function requires persistence, dedication, and coordinated action. Although few observers discuss the CEO as a primary driver of IT success or failure, it’s time for that to change.