Google made one of t

Google made one of the biggest ever changes to its search engine algorithms which would immediately effect many who rely on Google to drive traffic to their sites through traditional means of SEO optimisation

Google made one of t

Google made one of the biggest ever changes to its search engine algorithms wich would immediately effect many who rely on Google to drive traffic to their sites through traditional SEO optimisation!

It is amazing what y

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit - Harry Truman

Today's focus of IT Organizations: Business Opportunities

More and more we are finding that IT is at the core of the businesses than at the periphery, and more so as the core enabler of businesses. Given this, it's imperative that the IT organization thinks, acts and lives like a Business - ie as a Profit Center rather than a Cost Center.  

In the recently concluded "The State of the CIO survey 2010", IT's contribution in the order of priority is as listed below, 

1.Improve end user productivity
2.Lower company operating costs
3.Re-engineer core business processes
4.Improve quality of products 
5.Provide innovative market offerings and business practices 
6.Improve risk management 
7.Manage customer relationships 
8.Acquire and retain customers 
9.Support global expansion 
10.Enable regulatory compliance  


If you look at the above list, it's very obvious that the IT priorities are fast becoming business driven rather than IT specific. It's time that our IT Organizations come alive to meet these expectation or run the risk of fast becoming extinct!!

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.