1993-2010
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
February 11, 2010 meeting
Present: Jim Sutter, Scott Campbell, Sanjeev Sobti, Jeff Hecht, Jeff Reid, William Zauner, Hicham Semaan, Vinu Gurukar, Jennifer Curlee, Sean Brown, Dave Phillips
We welcomed Sanjeev Sobti, Virco, and Vinu Gurukar, Edwards Lifesciences, to the meeting. The minutes of this and other meetings are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to other material, when available.
The following have volunteered to introduce topics in 2010:
3/11/10 On-demand computing Jeff Reid
4/08/10 Developing an IT strategy Rich Hoffman
5/13/10 IT Governance Carmella Cassetta
6/10/10 Social networking site comparisons Jeff Hecht
We still need discussion topics and volunteers for the rest of the year.
Check the updated spreadsheet for unassigned topic suggestions.
Topic: e-Collaboration, and the role of Web 2.0
Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, started by identifying business pressures, like globalization, the green initiatives, and cost cutting, which encourage e-Collaboration. His 3rd slide lists business drivers and the IT developments that enable them. For instance, globalization was enabled by the Internet, Wide Area Nets, e-mail, etc., all to support business growth. The strategy depends on whether the company strives for customer intimacy, or product innovation, or operational excellence, which determines whether they invest in people, product development or process improvement. He took us through a series of slides that describe process as requirements and business rules, supported by applications/software, which need an infrastructure/platform to run on. But it’s never that easy! The 21st century organization tends to have less hierarchy, more teams and empowerment (it’s OK to break the rules!), and is network-based. There are many workshop support products like Lotus Notes/Exchange/Outlook and blogs, wikis and social networks. There is a new generation of software, which is platform independent and Web 2.0 based. Web 2.0 facilitates connections, relationships, context and helps resolve ambiguities. There is a growing adoption of Web 2.0 by companies such as Texas Instruments and Stormhoek Vineyards – check Jim’s slides for more information on these and other applications. Jim's slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
Each attendee was asked to share with us their use of e-Collaboration and of Web 2.0.
Scott Campbell, First American Trust, said that there is a culture at First American that seems to exclude collaboration at any level, and so use of these kinds of tools is not encouraged. He really enjoyed the topic – it was a good refresher for him in how to collaborate with others to your advantage.
Sanjeev Sobti, Virco, described his company as a manufacturing company of 2,000 people and you would think that collaboration would be natural. This is not so – in fact the individual departments seemed to be against the concept.
Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that they use lots of collaboration tools such as wikis and blogs, but not many of the popular ones. There is a lot of collaboration with their offshore partner, but with little control so there is some concern about exposure of information when using public Web 2.0 tools. HR is not for it, and has developed a policy statement against it.
Jeff Reid said when he was at Conexant, they made heavy use of collaboration tools such as IM with their India and China partners. They did not make much use of the social networking tools. At Toyota Material Handling, everything was locked down. Now he has opened a Twitter account just to become familiar with the tool and its potential use in a corporation.
William Zauner, JAMS, said that Operations chose not to encourage use of collaboration tools, but not so in IT where they use them fairly extensively. They use My-page on Sharepoint for the department. He thanked Jim for the presentation.
Hicham Semaan, Quickstart, that they encourage the use of the tools, such as IM, Sharepoint, Facebook, and Twitter. They found that they needed more structure to be effective. It can be very productive but he sees both sides of that issue, and is concerned about potential time wasting. They also put training tools on the web. They have had problems with people at home using work tools to respond to questions.
Vinu Gurukar, Edwards Lifesciences, said that since they are a medical device company, they are highly regulated. The R&D department wants to collaborate with many people, but all they have is email and twitter messaging. The industry demands validation and regulation. Another challenge is the recognition by HR that use/availability of these tools can be a good attraction and retention feature for hiring new talent. How do blogs, wikis, and the like, fit best into this environment?
Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, that they do use a wiki-based tool within each department, but HR wants to block the use of any tool at home if someone is on sick leave or on a leave of absence. They do block the use of social networking sites at work, and also have software to track usage by keystrokes. They do use blogs for marketing products and to conduct forums.
Thank you, Jim, as always for a very good presentation and handout.
See you on March 11, 2010 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 01-14-10
1993-2010
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
January 14, 2010meeting
Present: Robert Bobojco, Scott Campbell, Larry Godec, Jennifer Curlee, John Mooney, Hicham Semaan, Andy King, Jeff Reid, Jeff Hecht, William Zauner, Sean Brown, David Mann, Dave Phillips
We welcomed Scott Campbell, First American Trust, and Hicham Semaan, Quickstart, to the meeting. The minutes of this and other meetings are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to other material, when available.
The following have volunteered to introduce topics in 2010:
1/14/10 IT alignment with the CEO/business Sean Brown/Robert Bobojco
2/11/10 e-Collaboration, with web 2.0 Jim Sutter
3/11/10 On-demand computing Jeff Reid
4/08/10 Developing an IT strategy Rich Hoffman
5/13/10 IT Governance Carmella Cassetta
We still need volunteers for the rest of the year. Check the updated spreadsheet that I will send to you in the next few days for unassigned topic suggestions.
Topic: IT alignment with the CEO/business
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, introduced Robert Bobojco as our guest speaker and subject matter expert. Today’s economic climate presents an opportunity for IT to evaluate its alignment with the business. The question is HOW – how do we develop a strategy which is aligned? How do we get the CEO and CIO to be aligned? How do we get a statement of direction? How do we document alignment? Alignment is a continuous process, and a perception that can be measured. If IT is not aligned, it is regarded as a cost (which can be reduced), not as a business enabler. Business strategy is about growth, customers, market, competition, operational efficiency, performance analysis and decision support. IT strategy is about platforms, budget, TCO, vendors, initiatives, projects, resources and skills. We need a translation process to support the business strategy in a structured, methodical way, to create IT strategy, objectives, initiatives, projects, solutions and capabilities. But IT strategy not only supports the business and the market and customers, it must also anticipate technology enhancements, and software and hardware vendors release strategies and capabilities.
Robert’s slides lead us through an alignment process and I recommend that you take the time to review them in detail. If you follow the process that he describes, you can end up with a proactive IT, working on tangible improvements, which are outward focused, and become regarded as a business enabler and partner. It is up to you to take the initiative. Robert's slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
I asked each attendee to tell us if they were aligned with the business and if so, what was the most important step or problem that they had to overcome to become aligned.
Larry Godec, First American, felt that his IT department is aligned with the business, and with the CEO. In the last 6 months, First American created a business strategy document. The one reference to IT was the IT infrastructure strategy and resulting cost savings from embracing the virtual server concept. Robert’s presentation was very good and it reminds Larry to go back to each Division president to make sure that IT understands their goals and objectives, and is positioned to support them.
Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, has divided up IT into groups reflecting the way the company is organized – one supporting the customer interface, another the manufacturing groups in the company, and herself and local staff supporting the financial and management group, including the CFO and the CEO. The biggest problem thwarting the alignment process is the reluctance of the divisions to talk with one another.
John Mooney, Pepperdine University, agreed that alignment is a process, not an event. Playing catch-up is not good, so sometimes you are ahead of the game, and sometimes you are not, so it’s very important to build a highly agile capability within IT. It doesn’t work well if IT takes total responsibility – a division should own the project(s) designed to support it, and be enabled by IT.
Hicham Semaan, Quickstart, said that he wears two hats in his company – CEO and CIO. As CEO he sees that he is part of the problem! The CIO’s problem is the need to communicate with the other executives, to develop relationships, to become friends, so that everybody understands that we are all on the same side of the table when it comes to solving problems.
Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, said that he has found that the more his IT department is aligned with the business, the less stressed he is. The biggest problem he has is to get face time with the CEO to make sure that he is aligned. Then he has the problem of staying aligned with each business group. He liked the presentation and the formality suggested by the process that Robert described.
Jeff Reid said that the biggest problem he found with alignment was the change of CEO. The new man always changes the business strategy, objectives and plan, which means that IT has to be nimble to get back in alignment. The process is a continuous one as companies either sell parts of the company, or acquire new companies, and expect IT to be able to handle both options with relative ease.
Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that his company is a very interesting place to work at, as the owners are forever acquiring things, or changing things. They don’t have a formal strategy, but they do have underlying principles – always focus on customer service, be the best at what they do, and keep improving. As a result IT has to focus on being nimble, agile and to implement infrastructure changes in anticipation of need.
William Zauner, JAMS, hopes that his IT function is aligned with the business. They do go through an annual budgeting and plan cycle, which starts with presenting a draft to the CEO for discussion. They need to do a better job of making sure that they aligned with the other divisions and business managers. For some reason, it becomes the responsibility of CIO to make sure this happens.
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, thanked Robert for an excellent presentation. He has found that the best way to make sure you are aligned not only within the company but also within the industry is to reach out to other organizations to see what they are doing, and feed that back within your own organization. It takes work but is worth doing.
David Mann, Word & Brown, also thanked Robert for his presentation – he got a lot out of it. He thinks that they are aligned but it takes a lot of work, not only on the technical end of things but also the political aspect, because everyone is trying to compete within the company for relatively scarce resources. Open communications becomes the key.
Scott Campbell, First American Trust, said that he is responsible for supporting the commercial banking division in First American, and they have recently got a new President, so the issue of alignment is immediately before him. He enjoyed the presentation especially the tangible, structured nature of the approach, and the need to meet and work at a peer level with the other division managers to make sure that they are meeting their requirements.
Thank you, Robert, for a very good presentation and handout.
See you on February 11, 2010 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
January 14, 2010meeting
Present: Robert Bobojco, Scott Campbell, Larry Godec, Jennifer Curlee, John Mooney, Hicham Semaan, Andy King, Jeff Reid, Jeff Hecht, William Zauner, Sean Brown, David Mann, Dave Phillips
We welcomed Scott Campbell, First American Trust, and Hicham Semaan, Quickstart, to the meeting. The minutes of this and other meetings are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to other material, when available.
The following have volunteered to introduce topics in 2010:
1/14/10 IT alignment with the CEO/business Sean Brown/Robert Bobojco
2/11/10 e-Collaboration, with web 2.0 Jim Sutter
3/11/10 On-demand computing Jeff Reid
4/08/10 Developing an IT strategy Rich Hoffman
5/13/10 IT Governance Carmella Cassetta
We still need volunteers for the rest of the year. Check the updated spreadsheet that I will send to you in the next few days for unassigned topic suggestions.
Topic: IT alignment with the CEO/business
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, introduced Robert Bobojco as our guest speaker and subject matter expert. Today’s economic climate presents an opportunity for IT to evaluate its alignment with the business. The question is HOW – how do we develop a strategy which is aligned? How do we get the CEO and CIO to be aligned? How do we get a statement of direction? How do we document alignment? Alignment is a continuous process, and a perception that can be measured. If IT is not aligned, it is regarded as a cost (which can be reduced), not as a business enabler. Business strategy is about growth, customers, market, competition, operational efficiency, performance analysis and decision support. IT strategy is about platforms, budget, TCO, vendors, initiatives, projects, resources and skills. We need a translation process to support the business strategy in a structured, methodical way, to create IT strategy, objectives, initiatives, projects, solutions and capabilities. But IT strategy not only supports the business and the market and customers, it must also anticipate technology enhancements, and software and hardware vendors release strategies and capabilities.
Robert’s slides lead us through an alignment process and I recommend that you take the time to review them in detail. If you follow the process that he describes, you can end up with a proactive IT, working on tangible improvements, which are outward focused, and become regarded as a business enabler and partner. It is up to you to take the initiative. Robert's slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
I asked each attendee to tell us if they were aligned with the business and if so, what was the most important step or problem that they had to overcome to become aligned.
Larry Godec, First American, felt that his IT department is aligned with the business, and with the CEO. In the last 6 months, First American created a business strategy document. The one reference to IT was the IT infrastructure strategy and resulting cost savings from embracing the virtual server concept. Robert’s presentation was very good and it reminds Larry to go back to each Division president to make sure that IT understands their goals and objectives, and is positioned to support them.
Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, has divided up IT into groups reflecting the way the company is organized – one supporting the customer interface, another the manufacturing groups in the company, and herself and local staff supporting the financial and management group, including the CFO and the CEO. The biggest problem thwarting the alignment process is the reluctance of the divisions to talk with one another.
John Mooney, Pepperdine University, agreed that alignment is a process, not an event. Playing catch-up is not good, so sometimes you are ahead of the game, and sometimes you are not, so it’s very important to build a highly agile capability within IT. It doesn’t work well if IT takes total responsibility – a division should own the project(s) designed to support it, and be enabled by IT.
Hicham Semaan, Quickstart, said that he wears two hats in his company – CEO and CIO. As CEO he sees that he is part of the problem! The CIO’s problem is the need to communicate with the other executives, to develop relationships, to become friends, so that everybody understands that we are all on the same side of the table when it comes to solving problems.
Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, said that he has found that the more his IT department is aligned with the business, the less stressed he is. The biggest problem he has is to get face time with the CEO to make sure that he is aligned. Then he has the problem of staying aligned with each business group. He liked the presentation and the formality suggested by the process that Robert described.
Jeff Reid said that the biggest problem he found with alignment was the change of CEO. The new man always changes the business strategy, objectives and plan, which means that IT has to be nimble to get back in alignment. The process is a continuous one as companies either sell parts of the company, or acquire new companies, and expect IT to be able to handle both options with relative ease.
Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that his company is a very interesting place to work at, as the owners are forever acquiring things, or changing things. They don’t have a formal strategy, but they do have underlying principles – always focus on customer service, be the best at what they do, and keep improving. As a result IT has to focus on being nimble, agile and to implement infrastructure changes in anticipation of need.
William Zauner, JAMS, hopes that his IT function is aligned with the business. They do go through an annual budgeting and plan cycle, which starts with presenting a draft to the CEO for discussion. They need to do a better job of making sure that they aligned with the other divisions and business managers. For some reason, it becomes the responsibility of CIO to make sure this happens.
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, thanked Robert for an excellent presentation. He has found that the best way to make sure you are aligned not only within the company but also within the industry is to reach out to other organizations to see what they are doing, and feed that back within your own organization. It takes work but is worth doing.
David Mann, Word & Brown, also thanked Robert for his presentation – he got a lot out of it. He thinks that they are aligned but it takes a lot of work, not only on the technical end of things but also the political aspect, because everyone is trying to compete within the company for relatively scarce resources. Open communications becomes the key.
Scott Campbell, First American Trust, said that he is responsible for supporting the commercial banking division in First American, and they have recently got a new President, so the issue of alignment is immediately before him. He enjoyed the presentation especially the tangible, structured nature of the approach, and the need to meet and work at a peer level with the other division managers to make sure that they are meeting their requirements.
Thank you, Robert, for a very good presentation and handout.
See you on February 11, 2010 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 12-10-09
1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
December 10, 2009 meeting
Present: Chris Andreozzi, Jennifer Curlee, Michael Tasooji, William Zauner, Sean Brown, Joe Cracchiolo, Carmella Cassetta, Dave Phillips
The minutes of this and other meetings are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to other material, when available.
We have volunteers to introduce the following topics, starting in January:
1/14/10 IT alignment with the CEO/business Sean Brown
2/11/10 e-Collaboration, with web 2.0 Jim Sutter
3/11/10 On-demand computing Jeff Hecht/Jeff Reid
4/08/10 Developing an IT strategy Rich Hoffman
5/13/10 IT Governance Carmella Cassetta
We still need volunteers for the following:
Web 2.0/Web 3.0
Go Green with ?
Service Catalog
CIO longevity (or lack thereof)
Topic: Unified Communications (UC)
Chris Andreozzi, Knowledge Centrix, gave us a great interactive demo of what UC is, as you will see from his slides “What UC is what U get”, or more or less! It used to be that video conference was all U got, but now we have office voice mail, phone voice mail, office e-mail, texting, instant messaging, social media communiqués, etc.. Depending on what communication and messaging systems you integrate, UC could make it better. Basically, UC makes real time systems (like instant messaging) share information with e-mail and voice mail over the same network, using VoIP to cut down on traditional phone bills, and reduces travel costs. Not all organizations are seeing the ROI – perhaps because they don’t know how to attach a $ figure to them - but lots are seeing real benefits. I recommend you take a look at Chris’ slides and read the article in the Sept. 15th CIO magazine. To start a UC project, you will need at minimum Microsoft Active Directory, at least 1 server
A number of the members had experimented with UC projects. Joe Cracchiolo used Office Communicator for internal use, and Microsoft MPLS for external usage. William Zauner looked at Cisco a few years ago, but settled on Shoretell because the licensing costs were far less. He is impressed with Microsoft products for the integrated solutions. Care must be taken with Exchange as the growth is huge – you need to set voicemail retention policy early on.
Thank you, Chris, for a great interactive presentation. Chris' slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
See you on January 14, 2010 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260.
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
December 10, 2009 meeting
Present: Chris Andreozzi, Jennifer Curlee, Michael Tasooji, William Zauner, Sean Brown, Joe Cracchiolo, Carmella Cassetta, Dave Phillips
The minutes of this and other meetings are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to other material, when available.
We have volunteers to introduce the following topics, starting in January:
1/14/10 IT alignment with the CEO/business Sean Brown
2/11/10 e-Collaboration, with web 2.0 Jim Sutter
3/11/10 On-demand computing Jeff Hecht/Jeff Reid
4/08/10 Developing an IT strategy Rich Hoffman
5/13/10 IT Governance Carmella Cassetta
We still need volunteers for the following:
Web 2.0/Web 3.0
Go Green with ?
Service Catalog
CIO longevity (or lack thereof)
Topic: Unified Communications (UC)
Chris Andreozzi, Knowledge Centrix, gave us a great interactive demo of what UC is, as you will see from his slides “What UC is what U get”, or more or less! It used to be that video conference was all U got, but now we have office voice mail, phone voice mail, office e-mail, texting, instant messaging, social media communiqués, etc.. Depending on what communication and messaging systems you integrate, UC could make it better. Basically, UC makes real time systems (like instant messaging) share information with e-mail and voice mail over the same network, using VoIP to cut down on traditional phone bills, and reduces travel costs. Not all organizations are seeing the ROI – perhaps because they don’t know how to attach a $ figure to them - but lots are seeing real benefits. I recommend you take a look at Chris’ slides and read the article in the Sept. 15th CIO magazine. To start a UC project, you will need at minimum Microsoft Active Directory, at least 1 server
A number of the members had experimented with UC projects. Joe Cracchiolo used Office Communicator for internal use, and Microsoft MPLS for external usage. William Zauner looked at Cisco a few years ago, but settled on Shoretell because the licensing costs were far less. He is impressed with Microsoft products for the integrated solutions. Care must be taken with Exchange as the growth is huge – you need to set voicemail retention policy early on.
Thank you, Chris, for a great interactive presentation. Chris' slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
See you on January 14, 2010 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260.
Monday, November 30, 2009
OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 11-12-09
1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
Present: Jerry Thode, Jeff Hecht, Tina Haines, Jeff Reid, Jim Sutter, Sean Brown,
Joe Cracchiolo, Subbu Murthy, Dave Phillips
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
We are still looking for volunteers to introduce the following topics, starting in January:
IT alignment with the CEO/business
IT Governance
Web 2.0/Web 3.0
On-demand computing
Go Green with ?
Service Catalog
CIO longevity (or lack thereof)
Topic: Multisourcing and Vendor Managed Systems
Jerry Thode i-staff, started by stating the many reasons for and myths of multisourcing. The myths include - it is independent of business strategy; it will reduce costs; it will manage itself; the best price wins; the skills for managing external services are the same as for internal services. There are good reasons for multisourcing including access to specific skill sets, and flexibility and agility to do multiple projects without adding permanent staff. It pays to develop relationships with more than one source, and to establish rules for governance. Keys to success include focus on business value, on functional optimization and standardization. He described a number of case studies. He then went on to talk about VMS – vendor managed services – customized programs to improve effectiveness of some or all of a company’s contracting, procurement and management processes of external services. This includes professional payroll services and a virtual bench. He described the evolution of service, and the VMS management process and measures of success, including SLAs and reports. This was an interesting, interactive presentation and discussion – thank you Jerry for a lively introduction. Jerry's slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
We asked each of the members present to relate one experience with multisourcing or vendor managed systems.
Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, talked about a payrolling experience that he had 9 years ago. At that time he worked for a start-up that was starting to grow too big to handle the function by themselves, but too small to hire a full payroll staff, so they all became employees of a payrolling service company. It worked well for a while. A lot of what Jerry talked about resonated with Jeff, especially some of the myths. Putting a 3rd party VMS company between you and your vendors tends to takes away from the relationships that you form with each vendor.
Jeff Reid, formerly of Conexant/Toyota, said that some of the myths are right on. In his experience, the financial group gets involved and the contract is awarded to the cheapest vendor, which makes all the myths true. He has had to go in to a new company and renegotiate contracts so that both sides benefit from the relationship.
Tina Haines is big on relationships, and recalls the early days of using Wipro. They tried to cut out using all the middle people. Things did not go smoothly, and they had to hire all those people back again. The result was that they used the same people for years.
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, remembers doing business with BMW in S. Carolina for several years. He developed a great relationship with BMW staff over time, until a VMS group got in, and all his personal relationships were lost. He was not getting enough intelligent feedback, but he had to learn to adapt to the new process.
Subbu Murthy, USourceIT, said that this was his bread and butter. He is starting to work with VMS groups, but is not going to replace the traditional outsourcers. Staffing can be web based, but project outsourcing works better with personal relationships.
Thanks again to Jerry Thode, i-staff, for his presentation which can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
Present: Jerry Thode, Jeff Hecht, Tina Haines, Jeff Reid, Jim Sutter, Sean Brown,
Joe Cracchiolo, Subbu Murthy, Dave Phillips
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
We are still looking for volunteers to introduce the following topics, starting in January:
IT alignment with the CEO/business
IT Governance
Web 2.0/Web 3.0
On-demand computing
Go Green with ?
Service Catalog
CIO longevity (or lack thereof)
Topic: Multisourcing and Vendor Managed Systems
Jerry Thode i-staff, started by stating the many reasons for and myths of multisourcing. The myths include - it is independent of business strategy; it will reduce costs; it will manage itself; the best price wins; the skills for managing external services are the same as for internal services. There are good reasons for multisourcing including access to specific skill sets, and flexibility and agility to do multiple projects without adding permanent staff. It pays to develop relationships with more than one source, and to establish rules for governance. Keys to success include focus on business value, on functional optimization and standardization. He described a number of case studies. He then went on to talk about VMS – vendor managed services – customized programs to improve effectiveness of some or all of a company’s contracting, procurement and management processes of external services. This includes professional payroll services and a virtual bench. He described the evolution of service, and the VMS management process and measures of success, including SLAs and reports. This was an interesting, interactive presentation and discussion – thank you Jerry for a lively introduction. Jerry's slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
We asked each of the members present to relate one experience with multisourcing or vendor managed systems.
Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, talked about a payrolling experience that he had 9 years ago. At that time he worked for a start-up that was starting to grow too big to handle the function by themselves, but too small to hire a full payroll staff, so they all became employees of a payrolling service company. It worked well for a while. A lot of what Jerry talked about resonated with Jeff, especially some of the myths. Putting a 3rd party VMS company between you and your vendors tends to takes away from the relationships that you form with each vendor.
Jeff Reid, formerly of Conexant/Toyota, said that some of the myths are right on. In his experience, the financial group gets involved and the contract is awarded to the cheapest vendor, which makes all the myths true. He has had to go in to a new company and renegotiate contracts so that both sides benefit from the relationship.
Tina Haines is big on relationships, and recalls the early days of using Wipro. They tried to cut out using all the middle people. Things did not go smoothly, and they had to hire all those people back again. The result was that they used the same people for years.
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, remembers doing business with BMW in S. Carolina for several years. He developed a great relationship with BMW staff over time, until a VMS group got in, and all his personal relationships were lost. He was not getting enough intelligent feedback, but he had to learn to adapt to the new process.
Subbu Murthy, USourceIT, said that this was his bread and butter. He is starting to work with VMS groups, but is not going to replace the traditional outsourcers. Staffing can be web based, but project outsourcing works better with personal relationships.
Thanks again to Jerry Thode, i-staff, for his presentation which can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
Friday, October 30, 2009
OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 10-8-09
1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
October 8, 2009 meeting
Present: Tina Haines, Jennifer Curlee, Sean Brown, Jeff Reid, William Zauner,
Jim Sutter
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
We are still looking for volunteers to introduce the following topics, starting in January:
IT alignment with the CEO/business
IT Governance
Web 2.0/Web 3.0
On-demand computing
Go Green with ?
Service Catalog
CIO longevity (or lack thereof)
Topic: IT Organization Trends
Tina Haines, Meggitt Electronics, introduced the meeting and provided a comprehensive handout. Tina provided significant background on organizational thinking and OD thinking. Quotes from Andy Grove, Peter Drucker, Parkinson, and Werner von Braun spiced the material. Elements of OD theory affect:
Behavior
Motivation
Performance
Teamwork and cooperation
And, inter organization relationships.
She pointed out that despite all the organization styles defined and adopted over the years, most still tend to be quite hierarchical. She gave the pros and cons of the hierarchical, matrix, flat, and federated approaches. She led a discussion on decentralization verses centralization, followed by some thoughts on 21st Century trends (Globalization, Diversity, and Flexibility). She pointed out that best practices were difficult to nail down, despite efforts by ITIL and others. Some laws to guide us in the New Rapidly Changing environment:
If you understand it, it’s obsolete.
Strategy: If it’s static, it’s obsolete.
Training: If it’s certified, it’s obsolete.
Understandably, a discussion followed.
Future workforce dynamics were examined that supported material presented in prior meeting regarding the changing demographics and the expectations of Gen Y entrants in the workforce. Among the statistics Tina cited: “there is a huge amount of expertise walking out of the economy. In 2010, 3 people will leave the economy for every person that enters it; by 2012, 4. By 2016, 6 people will leave for every new worker that joins. These are staggering realities”. More lively discussion.
Tina reported on the results of her recent survey of Peer Group members. Sixty-two (62) percent report to the CEO. A fine presentation and excellent handout material. Thanks Tina.
William Zauner, JAMS, commented that his organization is a combination of Federated and Flat. He underscored the longevity that he and his fellow executives have and the resulting trust and cooperation that characterizes JAMS. The issues he deals with have to due with resource limitations and responding to aggressive ideas of independent lawyers and their technology initiatives.
Jenifer Curlee, Surefire, described her portfolio management approach to organizing IT work. The resources are organized by function within the business. She co-locates IT resources in these functions and sets tight architectural standards and guidelines. Given the various priorities of different areas of the business, significant negotiation is an on going part of the job.
Jeff Reid, formerly of Conexant/Toyota, pointed out that he has experienced all flavors of the organizational styles described. He has reported to the CFO, and the CIO. He has seen companies get flatter as they are forced to reduce size. Throughout, the key to success and effective operation is trust, mutual respect, and relationship building.
Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, in his consulting work, has dealt mostly with IT organizations that were highly centralized and stated that this seems to be a trend in leading companies. Rockwell operated in four very distinct industries, providing significant challenges in providing corporate IT services and governance.
Thanks, again, to Tina Haines for leading a top-notch discussion. Tina's slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
October 8, 2009 meeting
Present: Tina Haines, Jennifer Curlee, Sean Brown, Jeff Reid, William Zauner,
Jim Sutter
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
We are still looking for volunteers to introduce the following topics, starting in January:
IT alignment with the CEO/business
IT Governance
Web 2.0/Web 3.0
On-demand computing
Go Green with ?
Service Catalog
CIO longevity (or lack thereof)
Topic: IT Organization Trends
Tina Haines, Meggitt Electronics, introduced the meeting and provided a comprehensive handout. Tina provided significant background on organizational thinking and OD thinking. Quotes from Andy Grove, Peter Drucker, Parkinson, and Werner von Braun spiced the material. Elements of OD theory affect:
Behavior
Motivation
Performance
Teamwork and cooperation
And, inter organization relationships.
She pointed out that despite all the organization styles defined and adopted over the years, most still tend to be quite hierarchical. She gave the pros and cons of the hierarchical, matrix, flat, and federated approaches. She led a discussion on decentralization verses centralization, followed by some thoughts on 21st Century trends (Globalization, Diversity, and Flexibility). She pointed out that best practices were difficult to nail down, despite efforts by ITIL and others. Some laws to guide us in the New Rapidly Changing environment:
If you understand it, it’s obsolete.
Strategy: If it’s static, it’s obsolete.
Training: If it’s certified, it’s obsolete.
Understandably, a discussion followed.
Future workforce dynamics were examined that supported material presented in prior meeting regarding the changing demographics and the expectations of Gen Y entrants in the workforce. Among the statistics Tina cited: “there is a huge amount of expertise walking out of the economy. In 2010, 3 people will leave the economy for every person that enters it; by 2012, 4. By 2016, 6 people will leave for every new worker that joins. These are staggering realities”. More lively discussion.
Tina reported on the results of her recent survey of Peer Group members. Sixty-two (62) percent report to the CEO. A fine presentation and excellent handout material. Thanks Tina.
William Zauner, JAMS, commented that his organization is a combination of Federated and Flat. He underscored the longevity that he and his fellow executives have and the resulting trust and cooperation that characterizes JAMS. The issues he deals with have to due with resource limitations and responding to aggressive ideas of independent lawyers and their technology initiatives.
Jenifer Curlee, Surefire, described her portfolio management approach to organizing IT work. The resources are organized by function within the business. She co-locates IT resources in these functions and sets tight architectural standards and guidelines. Given the various priorities of different areas of the business, significant negotiation is an on going part of the job.
Jeff Reid, formerly of Conexant/Toyota, pointed out that he has experienced all flavors of the organizational styles described. He has reported to the CFO, and the CIO. He has seen companies get flatter as they are forced to reduce size. Throughout, the key to success and effective operation is trust, mutual respect, and relationship building.
Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, in his consulting work, has dealt mostly with IT organizations that were highly centralized and stated that this seems to be a trend in leading companies. Rockwell operated in four very distinct industries, providing significant challenges in providing corporate IT services and governance.
Thanks, again, to Tina Haines for leading a top-notch discussion. Tina's slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
Monday, September 21, 2009
OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 9-10-09
1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
September 10, 2009 meeting
Present: Mitch Morris, Jim Sutter, Jennifer Curlee, Jeff Reid, Jeff Hecht, Tina Haines, Subbu Murthy, Sean Brown, Sharon Solomon, Dave Phillips
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
We are looking for volunteers to introduce the following topics, starting in January:
IT alignment with the CEO/business
IT Governance
Web 2.0/Web 3.0
On-demand computing
Go Green with ?
Service Catalog
CIO longevity (or lack thereof)
Topic: e-Discovery – Data retention and other related topics
Mitch Morris, IAPMO, started this very interactive discussion by stating that document retention means many things to many people, depending on rules and practices defined by their industry or as part of the definitions contained in SOX, HIPPA, and COBRA. If you are not mandated by federal or state law, it is very important to define your own policy, which will make e-discovery much more efficient. In this way, you can define how long to keep ”old” data, reduce the amount and governance of data you need to store for all types of storage devices (hard disks, servers, mobile devices, e-mail, tapes, off-site storage, etc.). e-Discovery deals with discovery in civil litigation of electronic stored information (ESI), which is very different from paper because of volume, transience, persistence and the metadata, which usually accompanies the data. This was the subject of 2 amendments to rules 16 and 26 of Federal Rules of Civil Procedures, 12/1/06 – please refer to Mitch’s handout for the precise definitions. Responding to an attorney’s broad request for data (a data witch hunt) can have serious financial, time and resources impacts. The best advice is anticipate the possibility and work with your legal department to define a response process. Do not to respond directly to the requesting attorney but work through your own legal department to narrow down the data requested, and the time frame for developing an estimate and doing the work. The members present had a variety of experiences with trying to be responsive to requests for information, on the one hand, and not overwhelming the IT organization on the other hand. There is also a confidentiality aspect to this subject so we will not identify the precise organization and experience. Most organizations have had some experience with trying to respond to request for e-discovery. One organization had 2 e-discovery legal actions, and so they had to define the search parameters and the financial impact before responding to the request. They now have 1 person in IT as their litigation point of contact. They also have purchased a device to archive all their email. Another organization makes sure that their response policy is contained in all the contracts with their outsourcers. Mitch mentioned the Sedona Conference, which is an annual conference set up to define legal and operational guidelines for responding to such requests. He included a 2-page summary of the best practices, recommendations and principles addressing electronic document production – it lists the top 14 best practices. Fundamentally, lawyers don’t fully understand IT yet, nor the impact of their requests on IT. It is important for your company to have a data retention policy.
Thanks again to Mitch for an informative handout and for the interactive discussion.
Mitch Morris' handout is at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
.
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
September 10, 2009 meeting
Present: Mitch Morris, Jim Sutter, Jennifer Curlee, Jeff Reid, Jeff Hecht, Tina Haines, Subbu Murthy, Sean Brown, Sharon Solomon, Dave Phillips
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
We are looking for volunteers to introduce the following topics, starting in January:
IT alignment with the CEO/business
IT Governance
Web 2.0/Web 3.0
On-demand computing
Go Green with ?
Service Catalog
CIO longevity (or lack thereof)
Topic: e-Discovery – Data retention and other related topics
Mitch Morris, IAPMO, started this very interactive discussion by stating that document retention means many things to many people, depending on rules and practices defined by their industry or as part of the definitions contained in SOX, HIPPA, and COBRA. If you are not mandated by federal or state law, it is very important to define your own policy, which will make e-discovery much more efficient. In this way, you can define how long to keep ”old” data, reduce the amount and governance of data you need to store for all types of storage devices (hard disks, servers, mobile devices, e-mail, tapes, off-site storage, etc.). e-Discovery deals with discovery in civil litigation of electronic stored information (ESI), which is very different from paper because of volume, transience, persistence and the metadata, which usually accompanies the data. This was the subject of 2 amendments to rules 16 and 26 of Federal Rules of Civil Procedures, 12/1/06 – please refer to Mitch’s handout for the precise definitions. Responding to an attorney’s broad request for data (a data witch hunt) can have serious financial, time and resources impacts. The best advice is anticipate the possibility and work with your legal department to define a response process. Do not to respond directly to the requesting attorney but work through your own legal department to narrow down the data requested, and the time frame for developing an estimate and doing the work. The members present had a variety of experiences with trying to be responsive to requests for information, on the one hand, and not overwhelming the IT organization on the other hand. There is also a confidentiality aspect to this subject so we will not identify the precise organization and experience. Most organizations have had some experience with trying to respond to request for e-discovery. One organization had 2 e-discovery legal actions, and so they had to define the search parameters and the financial impact before responding to the request. They now have 1 person in IT as their litigation point of contact. They also have purchased a device to archive all their email. Another organization makes sure that their response policy is contained in all the contracts with their outsourcers. Mitch mentioned the Sedona Conference, which is an annual conference set up to define legal and operational guidelines for responding to such requests. He included a 2-page summary of the best practices, recommendations and principles addressing electronic document production – it lists the top 14 best practices. Fundamentally, lawyers don’t fully understand IT yet, nor the impact of their requests on IT. It is important for your company to have a data retention policy.
Thanks again to Mitch for an informative handout and for the interactive discussion.
Mitch Morris' handout is at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 8-13-09
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
August 13, 2009 meeting
Present: Carmella Cassetta, Tina Haines, Jim Sutter, Jeff Reid, Sharon Solomon, Sean Brown, Dave Phillips
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available. Carmella introduced this topic by conference call from Toronto, where she was attending a meeting at one of her regional centers.
Topic: ERP Implementations – lessons learned.
Carmella Cassetta, Corinthian Colleges, began by doing a situation analysis – 106 locations, 3 regional centers (Toronto, Tampa, and Santa Ana), growing through acquisition, $1-1.5 B revenue, 10,000 employees, 7 different systems and technical environments, no data standards, past ERP implementations failed. She summarized the reasons for an ERP – common information flow throughout the organization, effectiveness, efficiency, lower TCO, organizational alignment, optimized business processes, integrated financials, technical obsolescence. It was a $45M investment, but she had executive commitment, support and participation, without which any ERP implementation will fail, and a business strategy and discipline to align BP changes to match a vanilla package implementation. Other common reasons for failure include poor project management, poor estimates of time and resource requirements, not cleaning inconsistent data prior to implementation, cultural rejection, poor change management, inadequate training, and customizing the software. Because of these, the stats show 35% of ERP projects are cancelled, and only 10% are completed on time and within budget. To ensure success, identify each CSF and develop a plan to support each of them. For example, identify the project as a business driven project (not an IT project) by identifying the executive sponsor, creating a cross-functional team to formulate business needs up-front and identify the strategic priorities, and to support the changes in company culture, structure and processes. CCI’s ERP project was named UNIFY. Carmella has several slides on other CSFs, including a Gartner one which suggested accepting “best practice” ERP for your industry (in CCI’s case, CAMPUSVIEW), and minimize customizations. CCI’s approach did many things right, including tying success to business bonus and performance plans. She has several slides in her handout detailing the UNIFY project in its 3 phases, the role of the executive oversight committee, and the PMO. She hired a consulting company, PRTM, to help her with the project organization and structure, and to support CCI throughout the 3-year implementation. I thoroughly recommend that you review the handout and the slides on CCI’s approach. To summarize, Carmella shared with us some lessons learned at this stage of the project – 60% complete, 40 sites to convert over the next 6-8 months, within 10% of original budget, schedule delay of 6 months waiting on software enhancements. The organization is responding well, with several keys to success. The hardest parts include getting the right balance of training (before and after installation), don’t underestimate the difficulties of change, waiting on customization, maintaining good communications and business alignment over 3 years, and keeping to the cost estimates. Her slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio/cio-council-erp-update-081309 .
Tina Haines congratulated Carmella on an excellent presentation, and on her leadership throughout the project. Tina has been involved with implementing ERP systems 4 times, with probably the most successful being one centralized in Singapore, supporting 40 business units and 110K employees. She recently was involved with converting a UK company into the US system, using in-country resources, which became a problem because they wanted to optimize the system.
Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting, complimented Carmella on a very good presentation and project. He suggested that CCI offer a course on Project Management, focusing on ERP implementation best practices. Many years ago, before they had the benefit of best practices, Rockwell tended to “learn as we go”. His Winery client used the ERP implementation to try to unify the company, which were historically split in two. They selected the JD Edwards system as the base system, but the project was nowhere near as well managed as CCI’s. They allowed many modifications to be made to the order entry system. They also wanted best of breed solutions for other systems. Three years ago, they dropped maintenance and now are starting to inch closer to Oracle’s ERP.
Jeff Reid thought the presentation was excellent, and wished he had listened to it before he started his first implementation. Many companies go through agonies with an ERP project. He noted that PRTM worked out well for them. He will use this as a checklist for his next ERP implementation project.
Sharon Solomon also complimented Carmella on a great presentation and project leadership. Support from the top down is very important. She remembers her first ERP project – they were 10 months into the project when another company acquired them, and she was selected to be on the N. A. leadership group for the implementation. She made sure it was business driven, and that they developed an effective monthly communications meeting because the rumor mill can be very destructive. When they acquired another company, they were able to convert them very quickly to the new ERP system, working closely with top management.
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, thought the presentation was excellent and he took lots of notes. Enhancements to Campus View did cause problems. Getting the users to be part of the selection process is important. He remembers working for an Asian company whose philosophy was “change or be beheaded”. He agrees that its important to find a partner to help manage the project, use best practices, and to help with change management – they have used Sharepoint to help them do change management.
Thanks again to Carmella for an excellent introduction and handout.
August 13, 2009 meeting
Present: Carmella Cassetta, Tina Haines, Jim Sutter, Jeff Reid, Sharon Solomon, Sean Brown, Dave Phillips
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available. Carmella introduced this topic by conference call from Toronto, where she was attending a meeting at one of her regional centers.
Topic: ERP Implementations – lessons learned.
Carmella Cassetta, Corinthian Colleges, began by doing a situation analysis – 106 locations, 3 regional centers (Toronto, Tampa, and Santa Ana), growing through acquisition, $1-1.5 B revenue, 10,000 employees, 7 different systems and technical environments, no data standards, past ERP implementations failed. She summarized the reasons for an ERP – common information flow throughout the organization, effectiveness, efficiency, lower TCO, organizational alignment, optimized business processes, integrated financials, technical obsolescence. It was a $45M investment, but she had executive commitment, support and participation, without which any ERP implementation will fail, and a business strategy and discipline to align BP changes to match a vanilla package implementation. Other common reasons for failure include poor project management, poor estimates of time and resource requirements, not cleaning inconsistent data prior to implementation, cultural rejection, poor change management, inadequate training, and customizing the software. Because of these, the stats show 35% of ERP projects are cancelled, and only 10% are completed on time and within budget. To ensure success, identify each CSF and develop a plan to support each of them. For example, identify the project as a business driven project (not an IT project) by identifying the executive sponsor, creating a cross-functional team to formulate business needs up-front and identify the strategic priorities, and to support the changes in company culture, structure and processes. CCI’s ERP project was named UNIFY. Carmella has several slides on other CSFs, including a Gartner one which suggested accepting “best practice” ERP for your industry (in CCI’s case, CAMPUSVIEW), and minimize customizations. CCI’s approach did many things right, including tying success to business bonus and performance plans. She has several slides in her handout detailing the UNIFY project in its 3 phases, the role of the executive oversight committee, and the PMO. She hired a consulting company, PRTM, to help her with the project organization and structure, and to support CCI throughout the 3-year implementation. I thoroughly recommend that you review the handout and the slides on CCI’s approach. To summarize, Carmella shared with us some lessons learned at this stage of the project – 60% complete, 40 sites to convert over the next 6-8 months, within 10% of original budget, schedule delay of 6 months waiting on software enhancements. The organization is responding well, with several keys to success. The hardest parts include getting the right balance of training (before and after installation), don’t underestimate the difficulties of change, waiting on customization, maintaining good communications and business alignment over 3 years, and keeping to the cost estimates. Her slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio/cio-council-erp-update-081309 .
Tina Haines congratulated Carmella on an excellent presentation, and on her leadership throughout the project. Tina has been involved with implementing ERP systems 4 times, with probably the most successful being one centralized in Singapore, supporting 40 business units and 110K employees. She recently was involved with converting a UK company into the US system, using in-country resources, which became a problem because they wanted to optimize the system.
Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting, complimented Carmella on a very good presentation and project. He suggested that CCI offer a course on Project Management, focusing on ERP implementation best practices. Many years ago, before they had the benefit of best practices, Rockwell tended to “learn as we go”. His Winery client used the ERP implementation to try to unify the company, which were historically split in two. They selected the JD Edwards system as the base system, but the project was nowhere near as well managed as CCI’s. They allowed many modifications to be made to the order entry system. They also wanted best of breed solutions for other systems. Three years ago, they dropped maintenance and now are starting to inch closer to Oracle’s ERP.
Jeff Reid thought the presentation was excellent, and wished he had listened to it before he started his first implementation. Many companies go through agonies with an ERP project. He noted that PRTM worked out well for them. He will use this as a checklist for his next ERP implementation project.
Sharon Solomon also complimented Carmella on a great presentation and project leadership. Support from the top down is very important. She remembers her first ERP project – they were 10 months into the project when another company acquired them, and she was selected to be on the N. A. leadership group for the implementation. She made sure it was business driven, and that they developed an effective monthly communications meeting because the rumor mill can be very destructive. When they acquired another company, they were able to convert them very quickly to the new ERP system, working closely with top management.
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, thought the presentation was excellent and he took lots of notes. Enhancements to Campus View did cause problems. Getting the users to be part of the selection process is important. He remembers working for an Asian company whose philosophy was “change or be beheaded”. He agrees that its important to find a partner to help manage the project, use best practices, and to help with change management – they have used Sharepoint to help them do change management.
Thanks again to Carmella for an excellent introduction and handout.
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