Stifling Innovation With PMO Process

Often times project management organizations that roll out new governance processes inadvertently stifle innovation. They have many good intentions such as providing more visibility into corporate initiatives and better management of spending, but don't necessarily consider the ramifications.

Often times the process begins with ideas which if approved get converted to projects and executed on.  Seems perfectly logical and flexible right? Well as usual the devil is in the details. Once you start to process flow the lower level of detailed steps and what roles are conducting each you begin asking crucial questions. Who can create an idea? What information is needed to create an idea? Who approves ideas? These questions' answers can absolutely destroy a company, seriously!

Switch sides of the table.

You just had a brilliant idea that could make a lot of money for the company, but now what? Well, in the past you would just talk to a couple of people, revise a little and then get started. Now, you have to create an idea, but of course you don't have permission to do so. Instead, your director has to be the person to create it, which means you should probably put a well articulated email or deck together explaining your idea. Once you are prepared and can get some of their time,  you pitch it and all goes well. However, your director needs some key information like short and long term investments, timing, risks, return and it's alignment to the corporate strategy in order to create the new idea. If you make it this far without giving up already, your one of the few. 

Okay, switch back.

Most people and their ideas would have died long ago in your new process. That or they realized their idea was so great they could quit, start their own company,  immediately execute on the idea and ultimately put you out of business.

Those initial questions of who can create an idea, how and what's needed are really important because inherently they lead you to inhibiting the flow of ideas with your well-intended processes. One simple alternative could be anyone with an idea can reach out to your product evangelist team, which would shepherd the idea through the process giving it the momentum it needs or quickly killing it before wasting anyone's time.

An Operations Perspective

If you are in an IT delivery organization you may occasionally wonder why the operations side of the house is hesitant or resistant to introducing your changes into their production environment. Well, allow me to help you visualize this common problem.

Initially when you first worked together operations saw your application as a giant marble stallion rearing up on its hein legs ready to trample everything beneath it. However; over time, for whatever reason, their perspective changed to see a Trojan horse that more often than not bursts into flames, morphs into a flaming fire dragon and then burns their tranquil little shanty to the ground. And to make matters worse they get blamed for it and are then expected to rebuild everyone's shanties. Then on the horizon they see yet another Trojan fire dragon headed for their recently rebuilt shanty.

My Spring Break

I should take spring breaks off more often, because my spring break was great.  Here are some of the highlights:

• House/Animal sitting for friends
• Had dinner at new friends’ house
• Took my wife out on sushi, movie and yogurt dates
• Grilling a ton of meat with friends
• Working out a lot to loose the extra meat and winter coat
• Ran soccer drills with Brent at the park
• Dropped almost a grand on new tires for the Avalanche
• Spent a few days with my nephew John
• Nerf wars with John and Brent
• Playing soccer with Casey and John at the park
• Riding the rail and visiting the Dallas Zoo with Casey and John
• Ate way too much at a Chinese Buffet
• Played XBox with Brent
• Played more XBox with Brent
• Fixed my busted sprinklers in between trips to Lowes
• Dog sat for someone I didn’t know
• Had dinner with old friends Mason and Brenna
• Read multiple periodicals and a couple books
• Helped Casey’s granny move and spent time with family
• Attended first ever FC Dallas soccer game and firework show
• Counseled a couple for 6 hours ultimately reconciling their weekend and separation desires
• Grew a full beard
• Rarely ever thought about work
• Enjoyed lots and lots of time with my incredible wife

All in all, time well spent.

PCI Compliance

Why

Complying to PCI defined standards is crucial for retail shops that accept credit cards.  The PCI Security Standards Council is an open global forum for the ongoing development, enhancement, storage, dissemination and implementation of security standards for account data protection. The organization was founded by American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide, and Visa Inc. Therefore, if you would like to work with the major credit bureaus compliance is, as I said, crucial.

 

How

The Council has has defined and published a standard called PCI DSS, which is the global data security standard adopted by the payment card brands for all entities that process, store or transmit cardholder data. It consists of common sense steps that mirror security best practices.

 

Build and Maintain a Secure Network

1. Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data

2. Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords and other security parameters

 

Protect Cardholder Data

3. Protect stored cardholder data

4. Encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public networks

 

Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program

5. Use and regularly update anti-virus software or programs

6. Develop and maintain secure systems and applications

 

Implement Strong Access Control Measures

7. Restrict access to cardholder data by business need to know

8. Assign a unique ID to each person with computer access

9. Restrict physical access to cardholder data

 

Regularly Monitor and Test Networks

10. Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data

11. Regularly test security systems and processes

 

Maintain an Information Security Policy

12. Maintain a policy that addresses information security for all personnel

 

References

PCI Security Standards Council - https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/

How to Circumvent the IT Department

Let’s be honest. Often times the corporate IT department just can’t get it done.  Therefore, it’s up to you and it might as well be right?  Your the profit center.  Your the business unit truly on the cutting edge where it counts, in dollars that is.

In today’s world, many business units don’t engage their corporate IT counterparts because they have learned that lesson the hard way.  Their needs didn’t get fulfilled, their ideas never grew to fruition, their performance suffered and in the end they’re held responsible.

Let’s get straight to the dirty stuff.  How do you cheat on your IT department? We’re being honest right?  That’s really what your doing.  The need for IT doesn’t disappear.  Your simply getting your needs met elsewhere.*  In a time where internet statistics are measured in the trillions, you can guarantee the demand for IT isn’t going anywhere.  In fact if your reading this and your not in an IT department, believe it or not, your likely already becoming IT.  Yep, your being indoctrinated into the ways of the geek and no, we can’t talk about star wars right now.  So what does it mean?  Well your demand and lack of supply compel you to look elsewhere.

Let’s look at a common example.  You are in a marketing department, your customer is a young tech savvy knowledge worker and you need to stimulate viral demand for your products.  Utilize a micro-blogging service such as Twitter to inform your market of upcoming sales or last minute deals, which incentivize your potential customers to engage in a new channel specifically tailored to their interests.

As you can see the demand still exists and the needs are simply met by a third party IT, in this case Twitter.  But what do you do when the IT or IT service doesn’t exist and therefore can’t be leveraged?  Easy, engage those that really want to build it or do it and ultimately partner with you to meet your needs, the vendors.

There are numerous reasons why engaging a vendor makes sense.  The most important being that they are ingrained with necessity to deliver.  They also typically have deep experience, considerable drive, third party or competitive perspectives, industry best practices and the talent to succeed.

Wait a minute, did we just go to commercial break?  Here’s the caveat.

I won’t pretend to have worked with all IT service vendors, but I’ve heard from those that do (yes pretend), most vendors have good intentions but fail to deliver or worse deliver later with a few more pretty zeros added on to the price tag.  How nice of them. :(

Selecting the right vendor is absolutely crucial because there could be much more than the first need at stake.  In reality the first need is the honeymoon of the marriage or should be considered so.  In selecting a vendor, you are entrusting quite a bit.

Now let’s take it full circle and get back to the root of the problem.  The IT department still has a role to play when vendors are engaged.  A good vendor includes the IT department in their strategy because they know they will need them and at some point the IT department will support the solution thereby allowing you and the vendor to move on to your next idea.

I know what your thinking, I just brought you full circle and your forced to depend on the IT department again.  Well this turn of the carousel is different.  This time the carousel is being built by trained professionals instead of a tribe of carnies trying to throw something together and the operator has a manual instead of a death wish.

Now if your unsure which vendor you should go with bring in someone you trust or a really revered consulting firm to conduct a vendor selection for you.  They will provide a third party perspective and help guide you through the process of selecting the right vendor for the job as well as all future jobs.

This may sound like merely a marketing piece especially coming from a consultant, but how do you think your competitors are gaining your market share and getting ahead of you?  How are their ideas coming to fruition and how so fast?  Why is it you always seem to end up playing follow the leader when you already have the ideas that could have led the pack?

If you can’t get it done internally, don’t accept defeat.  You can’t afford not to look elsewhere.  Carpe Diem!

 

*Don’t read too much into this style of writing.  I’m in no way shape or form encouraging cheating on your wife or husband.  I’m a strong believer in Jesus Christ and in Deuteronomy 5:18 God commands us to not commit adultery.  I strongly encourage you to heed this command for the penalty of sin is death.