OC CIO Minutes June 13, 2013

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table

June 13, 2013 meeting

Present:        John Mooney, Sean Brown, John Alvertos, Keith Golden, Joel Manfredo, Jeff Hecht, Jim Sutter, Jon Grunzweig, Jeff Crowell, Dave Phillips

The following is a list of topics and speakers June through October:

6/13/13         Preparing for Cloud Computing               John Mooney, Pepperdine

7/11/1           Technology Business Management        Joel Manfredo

8/08/13         Internet of Things (IOT)                           Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting

9/12/13         BYOD                                                    Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown

10/10/13       Evolving role of the CIO                          Keith Golden, Econolite      

Topic:          Realizing business value from Cloud Computing

John Mooney is Department Chair and Associate Professor at Pepperdine University.

He recently took a sabbatical at CISR, where he worked as a research affiliate at MIT Sloan School of Management.  He shared with us his findings with regard to Cloud Computing.  A copy of his slides is attached. Cloud computing enables … on-demand, network access with minimal effort to a shared pool of … computing resources.  Slide 4 is an interesting cloud computing taxonomy by Forrester.  The cloud computing case study was done in cooperation with Allergan, where they tried to answer whether the company, the IS department, and their platform was ready to double in size over the next 5 years.  They defined the business capabilities required, the key performance goals for IS, and adopted a “Cloud First” policy to meet their needs.  Agility is key.  They tried to analyze when would Allergan be ready to consider the Cloud.  They did an architectural review for the technology and security, and a vendor due diligence in both 2010 and 2012.  They discovered that the benefits from the Cloud approach were not just cost, but things like increased responsiveness, speed of deployment and business agility.  They also discovered that there were challenges to success, such as data security concerns, immaturity of the vendors, reliability, and long term cost uncertainties.  One of the key questions was what management practices were needed to realize business value from the cloud approach.  They came up with 6 imperatives to prepare for the Cloud:

-                re-define the IT value proposition from efficiency to agility

-                re-focus the enterprise architecture

-                re-allocate funding from CapEx to OpEx

-                re-structure IT governance

-                re-think the purpose of IT

-                re-engineer the IT organization

The implication is for IS to adapt or become obsolete.

 

What a good topic for a future discussion! 

This was a great presentation and I thoroughly recommend that you take the time to study the slides which can be found at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio  .

 

OC CIO Minutes May 10, 2013

1993-2013

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table

May 10, 2013 meeting

 

Present:        Mario Leone, Sean Brown, William Zauner, Jon Hahn, Jennifer Curlee, Joel Manfredo, Robert Hsu, Jeff Hecht, Jeff Reid, Jeff Crowell, Ron Glickman, Dave Phillips

The following is a list of topics and speakers through June:

5/9/13           ERP Implementation Experiences Mario Leone, Apri Technology Partners         

6/13/13         Preparing for Cloud Computing    John Mooney, Pepperdine

By May 17^th suggest one topic (or more) for future meetings, one which you would like to hear discussed, and suggest a date if you plan to prepare the introduction.

Topic:          ERP Implementation Experiences

Sean Brown introduced Mario Leone, APRI, our guest speaker for the meeting.  Mario is a very experienced IT executive who has worked for many substantial clients, including companies like Ingram Micro, and has implemented several ERP systems.  His introduction focused on ERP Governance, Methodology and case studies.  A copy of his slides is attached and adds substance to this summary.  Selecting a new ERP is transformational, as its purpose is to overcome the faults of current systems, improve business processes and procedures, expand global governance, minimize risks, and prepare for the future, whether that includes an IPO or making acquisitions.  Moving to a new ERP is not easy – see Slide 3.  Before starting on an ERP project, a business process and IS review is imperative – you must know why you are starting an ERP project and must get the executive management team behind it.  The next step is to select an ERP solution, which meets the objectives.  It is important to launch the project properly, with the right mixture of IT personnel, capable user representation, and experienced consultants.  And that’s only the beginning!  Slides 4, 5 and 6 summarize these points very nicely.  The rest of Mario’s presentation expands on these concepts, identifies the need for a structured approach and a project strategy.  Excellent presentation. 

Several of the attendees had experience with major project implementation, including ERP projects, and had these points to share:

-       make sure it’s clear why you are about to proceed with such a major project

-       is the IS organization ready for this?

-       keep it simple; identify the minimum you are trying to achieve

-       use a dedicated team of good people, not people who are about to be laid off

-       high user support is critical

-       CEO and executive team support and backing is critical

-       rarely do you achieve all the benefits

-       avoid going back to analyze how much of the goals you achieved

-       switch consulting partners if it is not working

-       before implementation, make sure you unit test and walk through a few days in the life of the business to identify and correct what might go wrong

I am sure there was more wisdom expressed but not captured in these notes!

Good meeting, great presentation and active participation. His slides are at:

http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

 

OC CIO Minutes April 11, 2013

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table

April 11, 2013 meeting

Present:        Scott Korgan, Sean Brown, Joe Desuta, Jennifer Curlee, Jim Sutter, Joel Manfredo, Jeff Crowell, Dave Phillips

The following is a list of topics and speakers through June:

5/9/13           ERP Implementation Experiences Mario Leone

6/13/13         Preparing for Cloud Computing    John Mooney, Pepperdine

John Mooney has a conflict for the May date and asked to be rescheduled to June.

Topic:          Social Media

Sean Brown introduced Scott Korgan, Sevenly, to the group.  Scott is an active coder and developer who works mainly in the start-up world.  He is currently working for Sevenly, which is company who provides services for charity organizations based on the use of social media for marketing.  Depending on your point of view, social media is a supplement or replacement for email.  Social media has changed the way people think, especially if you are of the younger generation.  Sevenly provides services to one charity a week, services like funding and awareness, and products like tee-shirts.  It was started about 2 years ago and now has 35 employees.  It has been profitable since Day One.  Every Monday at 10:00 a.m., they select the charity of the week, and focus totally on providing services to that charity for that week.  A charity can only repeat once every 6 months.  Sevenly’s strategy is to buy, grow and/or create niche social media properties; respond to as many as possible; and obsess over crafting content.

Our thanks to Scott who lead an interesting discussion on an interesting topic.

 

OC CIO Minutes March 14, 2013

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table

March 14, 2012 meeting

 

Present:        Charles Wilson, Sean Brown, Jeff Hecht, Jeff Reid, Keith Golden, Jim Sutter, Joel Manfredo, Jon Grunzweig, Jeff Crowell, Dave Phillips

The following is a list of topics and speakers through May:

3/14/13         Big Data – an update      
                     Charles Wilson

4/11/13         Social Media        
                     SeanBrown/Scott Korgan

5/9/13           Open

6/13/13         Preparing for Cloud Computing   
                     John Mooney

John Mooney has a conflict for the May date and asked to be rescheduled.

Topic:          Big Data – and update

Charles Wilson gave us an update on Big Data, which was based in part on his presentation in Oct 2011 on Business Analytics.  Sean took pictures of Charles’ white board summaries and these are attached.  Charles stated that more than 50% of analytics projects fail, either because of expectations being too high, or that the results are not good.  What do you need for success?  Charles feels that a positive ROI is good and it has to be adopted by the company.  What do we need for adoption? He proposed 3 qualities that have to be present:

It has to be easy to use – this often means visualization (specialized and interactive) is good. 

It has to have business value.  The logic has to rely on solid processes using tools like ERP, and to be calculation intensive to provide financial consolidation.

It has to fast, which means using more main memory rather than disk, in order to be dynamic, which implies a balance between cost and size of the data base.

Charles proposed 7 core dimensions of a successful project – see ..attachment …082042.jpg.  These are customer, product, time, entity/geography, measure, source and scenario.

This is a complex topic and we had an active discussion of the options and alternatives.

 

OC CIO Minutes February 14, 2013

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table

February 14, 2012 meeting

Present:        Subbu Murthy, Sean Brown, Joel Manfredo, Jeff Hecht, Keith Golden, Jeff Crowell, Dave Phillips

The following is a list of topics and speakers through May:

2/14/13         IT Governance                             Subbu Murthy, uGovernIT

3/14/13         Big Data - update                         Charles Wilson

4/11/13         Social Media                                Sean Brown/Scott Korgan

5/9/13           Preparing for Cloud Computing    John Mooney, Pepperdine

 

Topic:          IT Governance

Subbu Murthy started by defining IT Governance as a subset of corporate governance, focused on IT, necessitated partly because of initiatives like Sarbanes–Oxley.  From a CIO ‘s point of view, the scope involves all of IT so that everything IT does helps the company achieve its objectives.  This includes services requests and new project requests, because of business changes, technology changes, regulatory changes and new ideas for creating value.  One thing for certain – there is always more work than available $ or resources.  So the goal of IT Governance is to make sure that IT $ and time are spent on the right projects, at the right time.  CIO’s are faced with business as usual (service requests), the need to do more with less, and the need to increase business revenues.  Big company CIOs cope with this differently from S/M CIOs – see Subbu’s slides 8-11.  On demand CIO services are gaining traction – slides 12/13.  Subbu’s slides cover a governance framework, a maturity framework, and the need for an integrated solution.  They are well worth reading and prompted a lively discussion.   His slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

 

Thank you, Subbu, for a very interesting presentation. 

 

OC CIO Minutes January 19, 2013

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table

January 10, 2012 meeting

 

Present:        Jon Grunzweig, Sean Brown, Jim Sutter, Subbu Murthy, Joel Manfredo, Jeff Hecht, Keith Golden, Jeff Reid, Jennifer Curlee, Dave Phillips

 

The following is a list of topics and speakers through May:

2/14/13         IT Governance                             Subbu Murthy, uGovernIT

3/14/13                                                 

4/11/13         Social Media                                Sean Brown/Scott Korgan

5/9/13           Preparing for Cloud Computing    John Mooney, Pepperdine

Action items from the survey:

1.             I will contact each member who didn’t respond to the survey to find out why they didn’t respond and why they don’t attend that often.

2.             Each member present will invite at least one new CIO (or equivalent) to join and become an active member of the group.

3.             Other occasional speakers could include a CEO, and/or CFO, lawyers, executive recruiters, sales managers, and vendor management.

Topic:          Controlling Project Costs

Jon used the Endeavor’s last mission as a project that had some problems despite the planning that went into preparing the best route through LA to it’s final parking spot.  Why is this so like a number of IT projects? Too many moving parts?  Changes in scope? Incomplete scope and estimates? Poor cooperation between IT and the business?  Unscheduled events? Issues with the vendor and/or supplier? Lack of sufficient training?  Unfortunately this is true even on projects that have been done before, or at least similar to ones that we have done before.  Jon focused on the accountability cycle, on control of scope, hours charged and the timeliness of cost tracking.  Several members spoke to the notion of projects being a 3-legged stool – scope, cost and schedule – any changes to one affects the other two.  You either design to a budget or budget to a design.  Perhaps performance incentives help.  Jon describes some of his foundations for control in slide 14, and onwards. Scope can be defined in terms of deliverables. Each deliverable should include testing and integration, deployment and training, (and on-going support?).  Costs include estimated costs by deliverable and actual cost tracking by deliverable in a timely fashion. Sometimes fixed price contracts work when the deliverable is the responsibility of a vendor or supplier. Schedule is again defined by deliverable, and by deliverable dependency.  Jon’s presentation was well received and led to an active discussion.  The slides are posted at:  http://www.slideshare.net/occio .

 

OC CIO Minutes December 13, 2012

1993-2013

Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table

December 13, 2012 meeting

 

Present:        Joel Manfredo, Sean Brown, Jim Sutter, Joe Desuta, Jon Grunzweig, Jeff Reid, Jeff Hecht, David Mann, Keith Golden, Dave Phillips

 

The following is a list of topics and speakers through January:

 

1/10/13         Controlling Project Costs                        Jon Grunzweig

We discussed the responses to the survey. In summary, the positives include choice of topics, interaction with other CIOs, formal presentations and lively interaction, full participation. The negatives include the attendance, which sometimes is small.  To improve the situation, I will contact each member who didn’t respond to the survey, and each member present will invite a new CIO (or equivalent) to join and become an active member of the group. Other occasional speakers could include a CEO, and/or CFO, lawyers, executive recruiters, sales managers, and vendor management to speak on what they expect from CIOs and the IT department.  Despite the comment of “same old, same old”, topics for 2013 could include Cloud computing, mobile, social media, SCRUM, offshore, IT Governance.  Two members volunteered to present the following: John Mooney (Six imperatives to Cloud Computing}, and Sean Brown (Social Media). We are looking for more volunteers!

Topic:          Branding and Marketing IT

Joel Manfredo started by warning IT to take control of your brand, or others will.  The first slide was an overview of the organization, what it took to right the ship, the goals, methods and results – be transparent, or be gone.  The next few slides are the IT Service Management path to maturity from 2009 through 2012.  The need for an IT Brand is to become relevant, to move past the traditional back-office to the front office.  The Press suggests that IT is irrelevant, but we do good work!  So we need to communicate better, and run like a business. What is a brand?  See slides 12, 13 but not 14 or 15!  How to develop a brand is covered in the next several slides.  Noel then described the process they went through at the County of Orange.  He showed us their Marketing Brochure, which is very good.  He showed us several other documents including the IT Service Catalog, which all carried the brand, the same look and feel.  We all complimented Joel on another good presentation.  His slides can be found at:

http://www.slideshare.net/occio