Open Innovation and Crowd Sourcing

An organization which wants to encourage OPEN INNOVATIONS has to necessarily look at the process of innovation within and adapting it from a CLOSED process to a more OPEN process with predefined metrics for processes, procedures, steps, controls, etc. This also warrants a class of LEADERSHIP which can create the required OPEN culture within and extend same outside with the ability to drive synergies across in realizing the set vision goals and objectives.

Once an organization is able to create the OPEN culture within then extending the boundaries and making it an virtual organization becomes a more realizable option.We need an input focused approach in organizations, which in most will be a paradigm shift in itself, with finite action plans within the organization to create the commitment to implement Open innovations in a TRANSPARENT and PREDICTABLE manner.

Once an ORGANIZATION has built the basic foundation for OPEN INNOVATION then it can leverage on CROWD SOURCING, a corporate notion of outsourcing to more loosely specified body of people, to tap into the potential of virtual groups of specialists to constructively contribute in the INNOVATIONS of the organization and be rewarded in a commensurate manner.

BOUNDARIES ARE DRAWN BY US, IT'S OUR CHOICE TO EXTEND SAME and REAP THE BENEFITS of ENTERPRISE 2.0!!

Leading for Success in Program Management

Leadership is the corner stone of Successful Program Management in delivering "Business Value". In most cases the Programs and Projects fail not due to lack of knowledge of Project Management and related knowledge within the PMO, but more so due to lack of forethought in ensuring CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS for PROGRAM MANAGEMENT not being addressed as well as COMMON PITFALLS in PROGRAM MANAGEMENT not being managed or avoided. Recently I delivered a lecture on same at the Sri Lanka Chapter of the Project Management Institute and the detailed presentation can be downloaded from my site at http://www.ramesh24.com

Leaders must create a Shared Vision to be successful

Successful "Leaders" are the ones who are able to challenge the status quo, envision the future through exciting possibilities and successfully enlist others in a shared vision of the future.

In order to be able to do this, one must be able to establish his/her credibility as a "Leader".This can only be achieved by building an organizational culture around a core set of values that people believe and endorse. Couple of the values which  have a critical bearing on this are honesty, integrity, mutual respect, professionalism, walk the talk, zero tolerance on politicking, etc. A "Leader"  has made his mark when he/she is able to condition the culture of an organization based on a core set of shared values since then  he/she has been successful in creating a platform to nurture and build a shared vision. Once a Shared Vision is created its all about going after it with passion, commitment, energy and drive!

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!!

LEAD the WAY as if there is NO TOMORROW, but PAUSE to PONDER as to what YESTERDAY could have been !!

Thought Leadership - A vital DNA for Organization's survival

What makes an organization stand out of a pack? The key differentiator is "Thought Leadership". Contrary to popular belief that Thought Leadership can only emanate only from the top executives of an organization, many organization such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Youtube, etc have been able to create an environment which is conducive for Thought Leadership to emanate from any part of their organization.

Is this the secret to their success? Is it obvious or oblivious? Why aren't other companies following in their  footsteps  in creating a similar environment & culture which will foster Thought Leadership? There are many factors contributing to it and key reason for this is that we have organization who have got themselves entrenched into hierarchical structures, traditional practices, protocols/procedures sealed with red-tapes, bureaucracy coupled with tunnel-vision, etc which inhibit the organizations benefiting from  a free-flow of ideas. Thoughts lead to Ideas, Ideas lead to Change, Change leads to to Organization Development and so on.

Its apparent that we need to create an environment where people are able to challenges the status-quo, immaterial of ranks & profiles, based on rationale thought process to help the organization create ideas that will help the businesses take on the next point of inflexion or the quantum leap. We need to change how we lead since the future of our organization depends on how successful we are in creating "Thought Leadership" at every level of the organization.

LETS DARE TO THINK DIFFERENTLY, BUT ACT IN UNISON!

Project Management Organization - A necessity for Corporate Success

Project Management Organization(PMO), irrespective of the discipline, is a necessity for Corporate Success since it helps organizations to achieve their corporate goals and objectives. To this end, one must establish the need for one, assess its maturity, measure and benchmark to realize the full potential of its existence.

PMO's maturity can be broadly classified into 5 and they are,

1. Ad hoc processes with reactive response
2. Repeatable processes with reactive response
3. Standardized processes with proactive response
4. Optimized processes with measurable/proactive response
5. Agile/Optimized Processes with predictable/proactive response

The best performing PMO should maximize business value and minimize business risks!

Cloud Storage comes of age with IBM's new offering !

IBM recently unraveled a new disk-based archive array called the IBM Information Appliance that can scale to 300TB and offers retention rules and customized policies. The SAN Volume Controller storage virtualization appliance now supports solid state disk drives, greatly increasing the throughput of the device. IBM's new Smart Business Storage Cloud private cloud service uses commodity components such as x86 servers in IBM's BladeCenter rack, and a scaled-down version of the IBM's high-performance General Parallel File System to offer a preconfigured rack-mountable file-based cloud storage offering.

IBM plans to ship its Information Archive appliance that uses the XIV management software, its Enhanced Tamper Protection tool and IBM's BladeCenter seBrvers to offer users a pre-configured, rack-mountable disk-based archive system in the first quarter of 2010.

The world of 2.0

Social Networking as come of age with Web 2.0. There is no option but to embrace it with open arms since everyone needs to ride this wave if they are to survive in the World of 2.0.

Thought its opportune to share some notes on Web 2.0 as a platform since it is deffinitely an enabling platform for both individuals and enterprises alike in addressing their respective objectives whether it be social networking or leveraging on its capabilities to extend the boundaries of your enterprise to extend the business benefits of same.

Cloud Computing Options

As the discussion of Cloud Computing and the possibilities dawn to organizations, I thought it would be opportune to put on the table the spectrum of options which may open out to organizations at different stages of adoption of this emerging trend.

Private.Public.Hybrid are broadly the options.

Many would be confortable establising their own clouds within their data centers as proivate clouds and then slowly moving to Hybrid model where the web applications are hosted in the public cloud where as the rest would be in the private cloud. As the concept matures and concerns with regard to governance and security gets addressed we would see wide spread adoption of the public cloud.

The scale ultimately will drive the cost of the cloud down in enabling a wide-spread adoption like the Internet.

Framework to assess Organization's SOA maturity

The Open Group's SOA Integration Maturity Model (OSIMM) provides organizations a framework to assess its SOA maturity level. The model consists of 7 levels of maturity and 7 dimensions of considerations that represent significant views of IT and Business capabilities.
This helps organizations to assess the current state and desired state of adoption of SOA.

IT intensity as a measure of IT enablement in organizations

IT intensity is a company's IT expense as a factor of its Operational expenses. A higher ITintensity would mean that businesses would be using IT innovatively in its value chain to drive its growth.

It's a good practice for organizations to benchmark their IT intensity with peers in the same industry segments with a view of establishing a competitive landscape vis-a-vis their objectives and KPIs.

Organizations who have low IT intensity will look to outsource IT for greater efficiency, availability, costs as well as thought leadership from the outsourced partner to leverage business benefits of IT.

Organizations who have high IT intensity will look to establishing a strong IT organization internally primarily to drive its business strategies since they see IT as a strategic business lever.

CIO: Chief Innovations Officer?

In today's context, CIO plays a pivotal role in providing stewardship for Businesses to leaverage business benefits through investments in innovative technologies. CIO's ability to lead innovations in and organizations is key for an organization stay competitive.......................read more on this @ http://www.mitcio.com/

Are you ready to embrace the Cloud ?

Cloud Computing is gathering momentum in SME as a cost effective way to host your applications. Is your organization ready to embrace that wave?

Some interesting views expressed at a panel discussion on Cloud Computing at the recently clocluded MIT Sloan's CIO Symposium 2009 @
http://www.fastforwardblog.com/2009/05/25/mit-sloan-cio-symposium-keynote-panel-part-four-cloud-computing/

Business/IT Alignment - How critical is it for the success of business?

This has been a hotly pursued topic and I have spoken in length on this subject at various forums and wish to share my views if anyone is interested.

You can also view one of my recent presentations at a CXO Summit in Colombo, Sri Lanka conducted by ISACA, Sri Lanka Chapter @ http://www.isaca.lk/node/59