“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place” – George Bernard Shaw   In thousands of conversations with IT organizations of different sizes, within various industries, and across sectors, we’ve noticed people purchase and implement new technology with the expectation it will deliver their …

Organizations traditionally pay for outsourced IT work in one of two ways, by the hour for time and materials, or by way of a fixed price for the entire project. There are assumed advantages in each of these scenarios – paying hourly allows you to control costs by managing project …

Organizations purchase software not to implement new software, but to achieve business outcomes, such as improving customer experience, increasing operational efficiency, remediating risk, and reducing operational costs. As project design begins, however, these business outcomes become buried beneath lengthy lists of technical requirements and project deliverables, and become increasingly distant. …

An IT project typically follows the Pareto principle, with 80% of the excitement, momentum, and executive sponsorship devoted to the project itself, often resulting in a mere 20% of the output necessary to achieve the intended long-term business outcomes. While a successful go-live can drive short-term gratification, it rarely results …

In many (if not all) of our blog posts, we stress the importance of user adoption in achieving your outcomes. Without it, you won’t; technology doesn’t produce outcomes, people do. In our experience, the most effective way to drive user adoption is to market the benefits of an impending change …

Your software implementation is done. You’ve invested a tremendous amount of time, effort, money and political capital (and grown a few more gray hairs) to get to this point. You now (hopefully) have the tools and methods in place to mature your IT Operations. What now? When the glow of …

The science behind choice reveals that although people are drawn to having choice, having too much of it contributes to anxiety, dissatisfaction, and inaction. Approaching IT project design without considering this paradox will yield underwhelming and ineffective results, and as this process is the bedrock of any IT initiative and …

Way back in 1978 there was a Clint Eastwood movie called “Every Which Way But Loose”. That was a lifetime ago technologically, but the title is a great way to sum up the frequent and scattered use of the term AIOPS in the ITOM marketplace today. It seems we are …

Back in 2017, I spoke at the Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (now Micro Focus) Government Summit in Washington, DC. I was on a panel discussing IT Transformation. The moderator asked me to share my experiences and perspective as the former Director of IT Operations at IRS, as well as my new focus …

Let’s talk about one of the biggest challenges that stands in the way of change in your organization.  If you’ve ever worked on an IT project that has introduced some sort of change, you have probably dealt with a small but loud minority who stubbornly resist [almost] anything new, particularly …

If you’ve ever bought anything requiring a significant investment, then you’ve likely experienced the pre-sale courtship followed by the post-sale cold shoulder. During the sales process, the sales team is responsive, helpful, and solicitous. You get the impression that you’re beginning a relationship, not just buying a product. Then the …

Traditional IT services offerings and categories are becoming less relevant.  Models that help customers implement and simply manage the software are no longer enough. They do not produce long term sustainable outcomes and customers are justifiably dissatisfied. Right now customers need service providers designed to help them reduce operational complexity, …