IT Outsourcing Services

BA: Am I Certifiable?

Thursday, August 5, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

Like Adriana Beal, I am often asked by BAs and aspiring BAs if I think that becoming certified would be a good career move. Adriana covered the Certified Business Analysis Professional^TM (CBAP^®) certification from the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA^®) very well. She noted two situations in which she, and I, would recommend you to obtain the CBAP^® certification:

the job titles on your work history do not reflect your experience in business analysis (they include other titles such as programmer, software developer, financial analyst, etc.) and/or;
you spent many years doing business analysis work for one company (perhaps even with the title of BA), but never obtained post secondary education, and is finding it difficult to get your resume noticed by other companies.

So I will cover the new Certification of Competency in Business Analysis^TM (CCBA^TM),

just introduced by the IIBA. This certification is targeted to the intermediate BA who has not yet achieved the 5 years of BA work experience required by the CBAP^®. The IIBA has positioned this certification as a stepping stone to the CBAP^®, as such it does not have a recertification process. The CCBA^TM is good for 5 years and it is expected that within that time most recipients will achieve their CBAP^® certification. If not, you will have to sit for the CCBA^TM exam again.

So is it a good idea to get the CCBA^TM certification? There are many good reasons to obtain a certification; Adriana points many of them out in her article so I will not repeat them here. However, I am often asked this question by BAs with no or less than one year of work experience. They clearly do not meet the requirements of the CCBA^TM certification; so what is the alternative for them?

The alternative to a certification for someone who is just starting out their BA career is a “certificate” from an education provider that you have completed some training in a specific area. It is advisable to get your training from an Endorsed Education Provider (EEP^TM) of the IIBA so that you know that what is being taught is in line with the IIBA Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® (BABOK^®). One other recommendation for those just starting out their BA career, go ahead and join the IIBA now. Just putting your IIBA membership on your resume shows your dedication and passion for the BA profession. It also gives you an excellent talking point during interviews.

As you are beginning your career as a BA, concentrate on improving your BA skills and gaining experience in a breadth of BA tasks and techniques. Remember, work experience can stand alone on your resume; a certification (or certificate) can not.

Why? Because that’s The Way It Is!

Friday, July 30, 2010 by Matt Warman

If you thought your job as an application development person is difficult, try being a consultant. I love my job as a consultant because I am able to affect change, that is, when people want it. The most dreaded phrase a consultant can hear is “that’s the way it is”. Those words have no rebuttal, no further review. It’s the organization’s way of saying “talk to the hand”! My job is to find gaps in code or process and bring them up to the client. Often times the client has fallen into way of doing things that are counter productive, or more likely, have not changed since the process was in place. A case in point, I was having a discussion with an architect about code review. I noticed that they had the Legacy style user, date, and change comments at the top of their classes. I made a review comment that they weren’t necessary, because Subversion tracks the changes for them. It was due to their work process that comments would be lost by Subversion on multiple merges. I mentioned that several high profile companies use Subversion and don’t seem to have a problem. The architect said that research was performed and it doesn’t, and if I have a better solution, I should do my own research before making a comment. I told him that software does indeed improve, and that if research has been done, it should be reviewed periodically to see if the issue had been fixed. I did research the issue, and Subversion did have bug but was fixed, and my client could use comments in their merged code. The key here is that the staff complains that changes don’t get done, but when they are in a position to make it better, they don’t do it. If anyone investigates a new technology or work process it should be DOCUMENTED AND REVIEWED! I don’t know if it will be investigated because it seems like a trivial issue, but the main problem is that the application development people complain that nothing changes. It’s our Culture. Culture is people, and all people, especially application development people can change culture. If there are deprecated methods and TODOs in production code, bring them up in your code review. I don’t accept “that’s the way it is” as a reason. You can’t change a decision for business reasons easily, but you can fix how things get done. If I don’t like the way that it is, I make it better.

Seven Deadly Sins of Consulting, Part 1.

Friday, July 23, 2010 by Jeff Welsh

You have probably heard your parents or grand-parents talk about when they were younger and how they had to walk to school, up hill both ways. When they shared this story with you it was to prepare you for times when things weren’t so easy and to provide you with their knowledge and advice from their hard earned experience. I wish that someone would have shared the list below with me earlier in my career. It might have saved me a few grey hairs and sleepless nights. I have to admit, I have been guilty of a couple of these in the past, but that’s why it’s called experience.

1. Bill for time not worked. This will be the quickest way to end up out of a consulting gig. Make sure you bill the client only for the time you actually work. This can be tricky if your clients are friends. When you go to a job like this, you know there will be a period of time spent socializing, especially when you first arrive. Don't bill for this time. Start the billing period when you start working. Sometimes clients will have celebrations during the day. If you don’t want to appear anti-social, by not going, just don’t bill. If there are any questions, ask the account manager to find out. If you are the account manager, ask your client manager at one of your one to one meetings if it’s ok to bill. Some client’s have a culture where that is part of the expectation.

2. Negotiate rates and make deals with the client. If you work for a consulting firm, you know there are channels for clients to go though to make requests.. Most firms have some sort of account manager to handle those issues. Direct the client to the account manager. I had one consultant that actually went so far as to look in the client’s AP system to see how much we were getting paid and then wanted to negotiate a higher rate with the client. This particular action did not end well for the consultant and he has not been able to be considered for other assignments in this client even when his skill set was ideal. Never, ever work out a side deal or moonlight with a client this can comprise your integrity and jeopardize the trust between you, the consulting company and inevitably the client.

3. Act like a prima donna. Yes, you’re good, that’s why you have been hired. I actually heard a consultant tell the client that their employees were stupid. Hello? You are there to serve those employees. You don’t know what kind of constraints they have had to work with. Hind sight is always 20-20. Its always far better to politely make suggestions. You may find out your brilliant idea was considered previously and there was a very valid reason for it not being implemented. It’s much better to NOT have egg on your face or your foot in your mouth.

4. Miscommunicate or undercommunicate when engaged at a client I believe that the client should know what is going on with their project. Many times I have had to be the bearer of bad news. I also like weekly status reports to let the client know what I have worked on and what I’m planning on doing. If at all possible I like to let them know a percent complete. Years ago, I heard another consultant tell the client he was “unit testing”. The client assumed that meant he had all the functionality done and was testing. The reality was he had about 10% of the functionality done and was testing just that one small piece. When the truth came out, it was not pretty.

Tomorrow I will finish off the last 3 sins.
To be continued……

Business Case vs. Project Charter; Do You Need Both?

Monday, July 12, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

A few months ago I wrote on the benefits of developing a Business Case and how it should be used during the IT Governance and SDLC (Waterfall) process. My main point was that the Business Case document needs to be revisited at different points in the SDLC by the IT Governance body to continue to give its blessing to the project. At any point, yes even after development, the IT Governance body can hold up the “halt” sign on the project when factors or the environment has changed to make the project solution of little to no value. However, this can not be done when the IT Governance body reviews the project and the Business Case only at project inception. Constant review of the business case also assists in initiating the risk mitigation plan when factors or the environment changes that makes such mitigation necessary.

Today I look at the Business Case from a different perspective, that of Project Management. I have been involved in organizations that did the Enterprise Analysis activities that identified a business need and built the business case for a solution. The business case was brought before, and received the blessing, of the IT Governance body and a new project was born. It was then turned over to a Project Services team whose first task was to create a Project Charter.

I found it amazing that the similarities, in format and content, between the Business Case document and the Project Charter document were far greater than the differences. Some sections were reordered and some content was moved from one section to another, but essentially it would be easy to swap the names on the documents and most people wouldn’t even notice. Other than the intended purpose and audiences of the documents, they were essentially the same document. This naturally leads to the question: Do You Need Both Documents, or is it a great waste of time?

Yes, the Project Charter defined a few details in greater detail than the Business Case, but also realize it was written at least a week later, when more factors were known. Also, such content as risks and mitigation plans were then transposed, and further defined, into the project’s design documents. So why can’t the Business Case be used as the Project Charter?

In most cases, I would submit that the Business Case should be used as the Project Charter. Remember the Business Case has received the blessings of the IT Governance body and should therefore direct the scope of the project. Going back to the IT Governance body for approval of a Project Charter mostly restating the contents of an already approved Business Case would definitely be overkill and put undo burden upon the IT Governance body.

One case where Project Charter(s) are necessary after the approval of a Business Case, is when that Business Case is to be split into multiple projects to bring about the Business Case solution. In this scenario you would want a Project Charter for each project to define what part of the Business Case scope that particular project was initiated to handle.

In rare, very complex, business problems with complex business solutions you may find need for both a Business Case document and Project Charter document(s). In most cases, even in large companies, using the Business Case to define the scope and reach of a project is sufficient to get the job done.

Business Analyst: The Most Important IT Role

Friday, June 11, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

Now didn’t I say that Business Analysis has far reaching impact on the organization? A new Forrester research report supports my claim as it ranks Business Analyst #1 of the 13 Most Important IT Roles.

The age of IT specialization has been replaced by an emphasis on skills that can translate across the enterprise. According to Forrester, this shift can be traced to a number of emerging trends:

* Maturing technologies such as software-as-a-service and business intelligence are changing IT skills requirements;

* The growing array of outsourcing options have altered in-house staffing priorities, with more specialized skills increasingly likely to be outsourced; and

* The continued search for cost-reduction opportunities has changed how IT decisions are made.

With those trends in mind, here is Forrester’s list of the 13 Most Important IT Roles, based on the percentage of IT executives who believe each role is growing in importance.

#1 – Business Analyst – 70%

Talk about holding all the cards: Not only do these IT pros know the business, they also have their fingers on all the insight. As the saying goes, knowledge is power.

#2 and #3 – Architecture and IT Strategy/Planning – 66%

As IT has evolved into an increasingly important part of business, both of these roles have become critical in ensuring that every department has the infrastructure and tools that it needs.

#4 – Project Management – 65%

What business doesn’t need people who can mange multiple personalities, master numerous business processes, understand different aspects of the business and make sure things get done?

#5 – Security – 62%

With the onslaught of breaches and identity theft that constantly filters through the headlines, not to mention the growing mandates for better access controls, is there really an explanation needed here?

#6 – Service Management – 60%

The whole thing about the customer applies here to, as managing IT from the customer’s perspective has become de rigueur.

#7 – Client Relationship Management – 56%

We’re in the age of customer service, and anyone who’s mastered the art of managing CRM environments is worth their weight in gold.

#8 and #9 – Business Continuity and IT Financial Management – 55%

With companies paranoid about their systems surviving natural and man-made disasters, and cost-effective IT spending more important that ever, it’s no wonder these roles are on the rise.

#10 – Portfolio Management – 50%

This is a growing area driven by the desire to demystify the measurement of the impact of IT investments.

#11 – Asset Management – 34%

Like other spin-offs from more general business roles, this is another specialized function better outsourced.

#12 – IT Research – 30%

Research? That’s what consultants are for.

#13 – Human Resources (within IT) – 20%

HR for IT is an increasingly unnecessary luxury in an increasingly self-service environment.

Take a closer look at that list and you will notice Business Analysis has been ranked #1, #2, #3 and #10.

Youtube Versus Viacom

Wednesday, June 2, 2010 by Matt Warman

For those of you not following geek things, there is a lawsuit going on between Youtube (owned by Google), and Viacom (CBS, Daily Show, Colbert Report). Viacom is angry that some of their content was posted on Youtube. Apparently, there was 63,000 separate items on Youtube that were copyrighted by Viacom. Viacom has been supported with a “Friend of the Court” brief by NBC, BMI, and ASCAP (Basically the RIAA). Google has similar briefs by EBay, Facebook, Amazon, and Yahoo. How does this court case affect me as an application development person? Well, it could determine your web application development. There are many interesting issues here: fair use, piracy, site owner responsibility. The key issue here is for the very soul of the Internet. As you probably know, the Internet was created to share information amongst researchers around the globe. This communications device allows us to share voice, text, audio, and video. This makes it easy to share ideas, even if those ideas weren’t ours. A part of that communication is the same kind “water cooler” talk that everybody has done for years. “Did you see what that talk show guy said last night”? The only difference is now you can post it. This song expresses how I feel, and I have added some pictures to show how it has affected my life.
The media outlets want the site owners to control the content on their site. They claim that Youtube is a content provider, and thus are “stealing” their content for gain. This would be analogous to suing the U.S. mail for getting a threatening letter. We have fair use, so any signal sent through the airwaves is free for anyone take and use. This meant that anyone who broadcasted, the content could be consumed by anyone. The content providers made money by placing advertisements in the content. Since that time, content providers have been using congress to side step these boundaries by changing the length of copyright, putting "digital" rights on formerly analog content, and pushing for laws that allow content to be controlled by the provider. The large media companies ignored the Internet because there wasn’t any correlation to their business. When companies like Google started to compete for the same advertising dollars, the large media outlets saw the Internet as a threat to their business model, and are now looking to destroy it.
No one is trying to deny content providers money. It was agreed long ago that your work was yours, but eventually it would be owned by the public. That changed when media companies are entirely built upon their own content (just look Mickey Mouse at Disney). Do people take content that doesn’t belong to them? Yes. Are people just posting items broadcasted to make their point, or to inform? Yes. We have to decide as a society whether the Internet is place to allow copyrighted material as a form of communication. NBC found it distasteful that their shows were on Youtube. That’s why they created Hulu.

What do you want the Internet to be, a free (as in liberty) communication device, or a pay-per-view broadcast medium?

Making the Business Case for an Internal BABOK

Friday, April 30, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

As I move from client to client, IT shop to IT shop, the one think I notice is that most organizations do not have an internal BA Body of Knowledge. There are several reasons that I can think of as to why organizations have not taken on the task of developing an internal BABOK:

    1. Companies are slow to embrace the idea and value of a BA Center of Excellence.
    2. Companies do not understand what an internal BABOK is and what should be in it.
    3. Companies have not realized the value of an internal BABOK.
    4. Not enough time, not enough resources.

So let’s take a look at these reasons. First, creating a BA Center of Excellence would allow the organization to use their BA talent in a more strategic role within the organization. It would allow them to move their BAs among the business units within the organization with a much less learning curve. BAs leaving the organization don’t take valuable business knowledge out the door with them and just as important, new BAs have a much shorter ramp up time to become effective to the organization. I believe once organizations realize the value that developing a BA Center of Excellence can have on the organization, they would all want one.

Secondly, there is reference material available that conceptually describes an internal BA Body of Knowledge, but you would have to dive deep into reading material to find it. So, let me spell out for all to see what we are talking about when we say an organization should develop an internal BA Body of Knowledge. This is a centralized, electronic copy of documents that define anything within the business. This is a wealth of knowledge that all your BAs can draw from to better perform their duties. This would allow a BA to learn a new area of the business quickly that they have not worked in before as they are assigned new tasks. This BABOK would define the business organization, the business units with it and the interrelationships between those business units. What did that sound like to you? If you said an Enterprise Architecture, you are absolutely correct. The first thing to include in your internal BABOK is the organization Enterprise Architecture, including all five parts of the architecture. Also include the BA Career Ladder, BA Competence Model, BA Job Descriptions, new BA training material, BA departure review and BA reference material pertinent to the organization.

Thirdly, now that you understand what wealth of knowledge is included in an internal BABOK, I think you can realize the value of it without me saying a word. Most organizations do not have an Enterprise Architecture, let alone an internal BABOK. Those organizations that somewhat have one; usually have it dispersed all over the company network, which makes finding material very difficult. Centralized, easy to access, electronic, included in the company’s backup and restore process adds tremendous value to the organization.

Lastly, this is always the reason that many good ideas do not take form. Realize, that if you had an internal BABOK that your BAs used on a daily basis that research tasks take a lot less time. This can decrease project schedules, freeing up more than just BA resource time.

That all sounds nice, but what does it mean to the organization? Well, there are many benefits to having an Enterprise Architecture and internal electronic BABOK to the organization:

Project portfolio in greater alignment with business strategic goals and initiatives
Realization of BA talent in a more strategic role
New BAs become more effective to the organization faster
Ensure enterprise knowledge stays within the organization when BAs leave the organization
Starting point for Enterprise Capability Gap Analysis
Reference material for new product feasibility studies
Reference material for competitive edge analysis
Required material for new enterprise software impact analysis

There are many benefits to the BA practice within the organization:

Reference material easily available without exhaustive searching
Understand BA Competencies important to the organization
Understand BA Competencies needed to achieve the next level on the BA Career Ladder
Move within the business units of the organization with greater ease and knowledge
Needed reference material for Enterprise Analysis activities

Now can your organization survive in these economic times without an internal BABOK?

Testquerade Part Two.

Monday, February 22, 2010 by Jeff Welsh

In Part one, I introduced the idea of Test Data Management or TDM. TDM is not something unique to IT Applications in Cincinnati, Dayton or to Ohio. It’s something that will need to be addressed nationwide. With more and more government regulations and data privacy concerns, it will be more and more important to not only manage production data, but also test data used for quality assurance as well.

One of the aspects of good TDM is for the obfuscation (sometimes referred to as de-identification or masking) of data values from a production database in order to make the test instances “safe”. One of the challenges is preserving data distributions and referential integrity–even across distributed database systems. This is particularly important in the healthcare and financial industries where PHI (Personal Health Information), social security numbers or banking information could get exposed.

Another aspect is the challenge of maintaining security around the test databases themselves. Many companies have tight security around production data, but next to none around test and developer data. Often this data is just a copy of production data that is not masked in any way. According to a Ponemon Institute study, data breach incidents cost U.S. companies $202 per compromised customer record in 2008, that is compared to $197 in 2007. With the cases studied a range of 4,200 to 113,000 records that were affected.

Do any of you reading this have a little twinge in your stomach? Can’t anything be easy anymore? Maybe some RX is in order. That was EASY!!!!

Testquerade Part One.

Thursday, February 18, 2010 by Jeff Welsh

I had lunch today with one of our Cincinnati customers and he made the comment that his company had eliminated a lot of costs via their IT applications. He also said there was no more low hanging fruit in their IT applications. Everything is integrated and there are no easy changes. I laughed and said there is nothing easy any more; even my easy button quit talking!

In today’s world some IT applications have grown quite complex. It was not that long ago an application developer that knew business could do the business analysis, the technical design, program the application, test and implement it.
Enterprise IT applications today require a team of dedicated professional working together and a good process methodology. Many members of the team are specialized in a particular skill or a part in the development process.

One of the things that is sometimes overlooked or gets glossed over is testing and quality assurance. I have even heard developers say “why should I test, that’s what we have users for”. Because systems have become so integrated and complex, quality assurance is not something to be taken lightly. As a matter of fact, it is quickly becoming a specialty in and of its self. There are many aspects to quality assurance, but one that I think we will be seeing a lot more of in the coming months and years is the notion of Test Data Management. To be continued……….

Where Does the BA Fit into Your Organization?

Monday, February 15, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

I attended the CIO Speaker series sponsored by the Cincinnati Chapter of the IIBA^®. The January meeting showcased the CIO and Deputy CIO of FirstGroup America. It was not part of their presentation, but a question was asked of them “should the BA report to IT or to the Business?” This alludes to the bigger question “where does the BA fit into the organization?”

This is the question that many organizations are still trying to answer today. Many organizations are just realizing the benefits of the BA role. One thing to realize, is those of us in the BA arena today are in the forefront of an infantile and growing profession. The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA)^®, the professions governing body, was formed in 2004; incorporated in 2006. There are 827 certified professionals (CBAP)^® in the world. Compared to the Project Management Institute (PMI)^®, which was incorporated in 1969, offer five certification programs and has nearly 300,000 certified professionals. You may say that your company has had BAs for the last 5 or 10 years. Then I say your company is one of the forward-thinking organizations that has recognized the benefits that the BA role provides in developing IT business solutions.

Now I believe this discussion will go on for years; but as this is my blog, here I get to put my two cents in. First, let’s define the role of the BA in which we discuss. Many organizations have a quality assurance team, department or processes within the IT application development team. As these people support system or user acceptance testing procedures, these people are Business Analyst. For this discussion, I refer to the Business Analyst that works on the front end of the project life cycle. Who develops the Enterprise Architecture, gathers business requirements for business process improvements and makes the business case for IT business solutions projects to make those improvements.

As the role of the BA is to develop requirements and make the business case for IT application development projects, this is an IT function; therefore the BA is an IT position and should report to the IT management as opposed to the Business management. Although the duties that the BA performs may put him/her in front of external customers of the company, their goal is not to perform the business of the company but to recommend IT business solution projects to improve business processes within organization; this is an IT function.

If your organization is large enough to use terms such as Business Process Organization (BPO) and Project Management Office (PMO); then you should find the BA at the heart of the BPO. The purpose of the BPO is to analyze and recommend improvements to business processes. So now you say that in most organizations the BPO is a business team; I would reply that it should be a combination business and IT team. The improvement to business processes may require a business solution, such as upgrade or replace business machinery or training; or an IT solution, such as application enhancement, system training or system upgrade. Therefore, the BPO should be made up of business positions and IT positions working together to determine the best solution to business issues.

One thing that I would change in many organizations is that I believe the BA should sit more in the vicinity of the business unit(s) that they support as opposed to sit in the IT Department. BAs will be much more effective when they fully understand the business processes in place, issues that business workers face and the daily going-ons within the business unit(s). Also, easy approachability to the BA for the business gains buy-in to the duties and recommendations of the BA.

So there is my opinion on the subject, what is yours?

How to Get the Financing You Need

Monday, February 8, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

Any good Business Analyst will tell you that IT and business speak in different languages. Good CIOs and IT Infrastructure Management know that CFOs have a language all their own. “That being said, it is the money people who generally stand in the way of engineers and technologists and the spending required to accomplish great things with IT.”, according to an CTOEdge article. CIOs generally don’t speak in the language of the CFO when making spending requests, so we walk away feeling that they “just don’t get it”. Here are 10 areas where we, as the promoters of IT, can begin to communicate better with the CFO.

1. Think TCO, not ROI

To the CFO, return on investment is how much money you’re going to give back to the company. Let’s face it. Most IT projects — no matter how compelling — don’t bring “return” to the organization like an additional sales person, a new marketing campaign, or a new product launch. Preach total cost of ownership (TCO); repeat it until you are blue in the face. Whether business application development, web application development, IT infrastructure investment; you can demonstrate “fiscal stewardship” through cost reduction or increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

2. Cloud Computing

CFOs like what they hear about cloud computing as a cost saver. Don’t fight them on it.

3. Green IT

Are you surprised when the CFO is not willing to pay a premium to keep the environment cleaner? The reality is that no green projects exist unless they have a better TCO. So whether to upgrade your IT infrastructure, better IT infrastructure cooling, or saving space for your IT infrastructure you can build a strong business case of the decreased TCO and community relations intangibles of being an “environmentally conscious” firm.

4, 5 and 6. Virtualize, Virtualize and VIRTUALIZE

“This subject takes up three spots because there are three key virtualization targets -- servers, desktop and storage. But again, the key here is how to justify and how now NOT to justify.” Again build your TCO case for virtualization, but be realistic in your cost savings estimates. Many times virtualization projects are viewed as unsuccessful because they did not meet the upfront cost estimates. Be sure to include high traffic times such as end-of-month close periods.

7. Adopt IT-Centric Business Continuity

Over the years responsibility for business continuity have been put on IT management. This needs to change. Organizations need to understand that there are three phases to a business continuity plan; event response, disaster recovery and business continuity. With the financial impact on the organization of disaster recovery and business continuity, business management must be involved and responsible for these areas. It should not be IT management’s responsibility to determine which business units are most important.

8. Align with the Big Picture

Along with TCO, build your requests showing how the request aligns with the business objectives and goals of the organization.

9. Proactive Cost Reduction

Boy does that sound like another way to say TCO to you? Take a proactive stance on reducing cost. The article showed how to reduce cost of document retention.

10. Reduce Data Center Costs

The organization’s data center is usually the center of the IT infrastructure, both in physical space and cost. Just as in application software development, modular building of a data center can cut cost of the IT infrastructure through avoiding construction cost, reduced cooling cost and reduced capital expenditures.

“While the relationship between CFO and CIO can sometimes have more debits than credits, it is definitely worth the investment in time and effort to highlight IT projects in terms the CFO will understand.”

ROI, Do we have to?

Tuesday, January 19, 2010 by Jeff Welsh

Happy New Year!!! Welcome to a new year, new decade and a new beginning.

As the recession recedes and recovery takes hold, IT executives are looking at their project lists and trying to decide what their priorities are. Should we do application development in house or bring in an IT consulting company? Should we consider an open source application? What is the ROI? What’s a company to do? It doesn’t matter if your company is in Cincinnati, Dayton or Katmandu, the questions are the same.

Last month we did a pulse survey to see how IT leaders are managing ROI measurement. The results were surprising and sparked a lot of conversation here at STAR BASE, Inc. The thing that surprised us the most was the number of companies that did NOT look at ROI before doing a project. Most of our respondents (58%) do not.

Some of conversations we have had revolved around the idea of doing a project or installing an application just to stay in the game. Could you imagine a company of any size today functioning without email? I could argue that there is negative ROI with amount of time managing my email in box takes!

For those that measure ROI, only about half see the actual ROI align with the projected ROI most of the time. The other half report that they see the actual ROI align with the projected ROI less than half the time and most said seldom or never. I have often said that if management knew how much it was really going to cost to install that new ERP system before they started, they probably wouldn’t.

Since most of our respondents don’t look at ROI and of those that did, half said the ROI did not align, my question is this: How do you decide what projects to do? Are most companies spending money on IT because they need to “keep up with the Jones’ “? Is it because installing that new ERP will look good on everyone’s resume?

Get your copy of our ROI Survey results by going here.

Open-source Security A Major Concern for 2010

Friday, January 15, 2010 by Aaron Whittenberger

According to ComputerWorld, web application development remains top dog by far in the top IT skills to have in 2010. Specifically, companies will look for developers with knowledge of .Net, Java, Web development, open source and portal technologies. The article goes on to suggest that combining web application development skills with business analysis or project management skills is a big plus. ComputerWorld lists the remaining skills to have for 2010 in its top six as: Help Desk/Technical Support, Networking, Project Management, Security and Business Intelligence.

I feel ComputerWorld did not put enough emphasis on Security; this without doubt will be the biggest challenge for IT executives in the coming years. Open-source software may be an innovative money saver, but IT professionals still have concerns that networks could be vulnerable to viruses, cyberattacks and other intrusions.

According to InfoWorld, a new survey from Forrester Research found that 58 percent of large companies have security concerns about open source. In addition, 57 percent of small and mid-sized businesses expressed concern that open-source software would be "complex and hard to adopt".

With the advent and increasing usage of open-source in the business world, expect to see demand for IT security related skills to grow. According to the FLOSS 2020 roadmap presented at the Open World Forum in Paris, 40 percent of jobs will be related in some way to open source by 2020. You can expect application development and security to comprise a great majority of these jobs.

Run with the Pack

Friday, November 20, 2009 by Jeff Welsh

I was reading this article and as a Cincinnati based IT consulting firm owner, found it interesting. Social networks are influencing our everyday lives more and more each day. This research was conducted by Don Bulmer from SAP and Vanessa DiMauro According to them, there were six key findings:

1. Professional decision-making is becoming more social - enter the era of Social Media Peer Groups (SMPG).
Professionals want to be collaborative in the decision-cycle but not be marketed or sold to online; however online marketing is a preferred activity by companies.
2. The big three have emerged as leading professional networks: LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter.
The convergence of Internet, mobile, and social media has taken significant shape as professionals rely on anywhere access to information, relationships and networks.
3. Professional networks are emerging as decision-support tools.
Decision-makers are broadening reach to gather information especially among active users.
4. Professionals trust online information almost as much as information gotten from in-person.
Information obtained from offline networks still have highest levels of trust with slight advantage over online (offline: 92% - combined strongly/somewhat trust; online: 83% combined strongly/somewhat trust).
5. Reliance on web-based professional networks and online communities has increased significantly over the past 3 years.
Three quarters of respondents rely on professional networks to support business decisions
6. Social Media use patterns are not pre-determined by age or organizational affiliation.
Younger (20-35) and older professionals (55+) are more active users of social tools than middle aged professionals.
There are more people collaborating outside their company wall than within their organizational intranet.

After reading this, a Bad Company tune came to mind, “Run with the Pack”. There is certainly safety in numbers. My question is this: If everyone is doing the same thing, are they giving up any competitive advantages?

Is IT Qualified To Satisfy The Business?

Monday, November 9, 2009 by Aaron Whittenberger

“IT executives increasingly implement marketing initiatives to improve the communications with their business customers. But these efforts often focus solely on the brand aspects of the services under the IT’s control without understanding the business’ perception of IT. To maximize the success, IT must add business satisfaction assessments to its tool kit. Understanding business satisfaction requires qualitative and quantitative data that capture customer expectations and perceptions through different types of interactions such as interviews, panels, focus groups, complaint systems, and surveys. This report provides best-practice recommendations, survey templates, and questions to guide IT executives through the deployment of a business satisfaction assessment. It applies Forrester’s deep expertise in external customer satisfaction to the interface between business customers and their internal IT suppliers.” says a new Forrester report.

I have served on countless business application development teams within several organizations in the Southwest Ohio and Cincinnati Information Technology community, one thing I can say is that most IT organizations do not gauge business satisfaction with IT business solutions. I have served in only a couple of organizations where the business serves on the IT governance committee. An organization does not have to be “big” to have an IT governance committee. No matter what the size of the organization decisions are made as to priorities in IT work. IT governance does not have to be a long drawn out process or take great time commitment from the business or IT executives, but business involvement in IT governance goes a long way in gaining business buy-in as you roll out the IT business solutions to the business.

Involvement in IT governance is just one way that many organizations in the Greater Cincinnati area can improve the IT-business relationship. The Forrester report goes into ways to solicit and gauge business satisfaction with IT business solutions. Doing so should affect decisions concerning not only IT business solution delivery but also IT Infrastructure and IT outsourcing initiatives.

Takin’ the Basset Hound to the Farm (Part Two)

Thursday, October 22, 2009 by Jeff Welsh

In part one; I talked about some of the IT Strategies and business strategies that were discussed at the Techserve Alliance conference we recently attended. I’ll admit I’m a sucker for quaint sayings and one of the speakers had a good one: It’s time to take the Basset hound to the farm. So what does that have to do with IT Strategy or business?

Plenty, takin’ the basset hound to the farm means it’s time to re-think what you are doing, why you are doing it, and who is doing it. It’s time to eliminate products, services, processes or people that are not delivering value to the business. This is not just an IT strategy, but an important business strategy as well. It is critically important to make sure both business and IT are aligned.

The trick is to figure out what your basset hound(s) are. Every business that has been around for any length of time has one or more of these. It may be a line of products that are kept in stock because it “rounds out the product line”, when the reality is the items are not that important. It could be a service that our “customers really want”, but in reality the service does not deliver value or it could be that “special process” that you do “because we have always done it that way”. Then there is Bob. Everybody likes Bob. Bob has been around forever and knows everything. The problem is Bob doesn’t really do anything.

It’s always better to take the basset hound to the farm on your own terms rather than be forced into it by circumstances. Take for example the company in New England that manufactured parts for submarines. When the ship yard closed a few years ago, they were forced to change. They redeployed their manufacturing expertise and now make parts for the medical industry. What could they have accomplished if they had manufactured both parts for submarines and medical devices? Could the business have been double the size?

That’s where an outside consultant can help. They can be objective and bring an outside perspective to your current business and IT strategy. STAR BASE is in a good position to teach old dogs new tricks”. (Who let the dogs out? Who? Who?!)

Takin’ the Basset Hound to the Farm (Part One)

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 by Jeff Welsh

Seems like it has been a while since I have had a chance to do a post. For the last 3 weeks things have been absolutely crazy in our IT consulting world, but in a good way. We had a chance to go to the Techserve Alliance national conference in Las Vegas. I have heard all the jokes, including the one about it staying in Vegas. We did learn that just because you are pre-checked with the airline, does not mean that your bags are. We got our bags checked with literally a minute to spare and fortunately all made it back to Cincinnati.

Upon return, we signed a support contract for a new customer. They trust us enough to outsource their entire IT applications support to us. We have a real life example of an IT Strategy that was discussed at the conference (See #3). Not only was IT strategy discussed but business strategy as well. Here are some highlights:

1. Market Differentiation - customers have lots of choices, how will you stand out?

2. Improve Systems and methodology for delivering service- excellence, efficiency, depth of service.

3. Outsource what you can-eliminate the busy work that does not add strategic value.

4. Deal with the economy being slow to recover till 2012, spend your money wisely, hire wisely, fire quickly, and refine what is working, stop what is not.

5. Build Alliances with like minded providers in different industries and sell collaboratively to serve the customers' need.

My favorite of these five is number four. Said another way, its takin’ the basset hound to the farm. I’ll expand more on that in my next post.

IT Outsourcing in for some big changes

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 by Aaron Whittenberger

A new report from Gartner Research Firm

IT Outsourcing is not going away anytime soon, but a new report from Gartner Research states that the market is in for some big changes. The report predicts that one in four business-process outsourcing firms will disappear within the next three years.

The article in InformationWeek gives advice to CIOs who wish to initiate a new IT Outsourcing contract on warning signs to look for in your prospective BPO partner that would indicate this firm may not be able to fulfill any new contract:

1.    Are they losing money?
2.    Are they winning new business?
3.    The loss of marquee clients.
4.    Poor capitalization is impeding growth.
5.    Toxic exposure to tainted financial firms.
6.    Lock down your exit strategies.

In another article in EconomicTimes I read that IBM will goble up half of India’s IT outsourcing business in 2010.

This is not to suggest that the offshore IT outsourcing business is coming home. IBM’s business is international. With IBM awarding one-half to 1 billion dollar contracts, many India firms will not be able to compete in delivering hardware, software, IT consulting services and integrated business solutions. IBM is one reason that 25% of IT BPO firms will meet their demise within the next three years.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Friday, September 18, 2009 by Jeff Welsh

Its good to see Cincinnati and Dayton area companies starting to embrace open source as an alternative to custom application development. As an IT Strategy consultant, I can say there is a place for both.

STAR BASE, Inc. just landed another Magento project. I have written about Magento before and this post has links to several others. These are not your father’s shareware packages. The packages we are working with are what I’m calling Commercial Open Source.

I’m curious, why have you or your company not implemented an open source option? Is it because the light at the end of the tunnel looks more like a train? Maybe we’re just ahead of the curve again and I need a little bit of Patience.

Cincinnati companies show a commitment to Business Analysis

Thursday, September 17, 2009 by Aaron Whittenberger

I attended the first meeting of the season for the Cincinnati IIBA^® Chapter. They are doing a series entitled CIO Speaker Series, where they have the CIO from prominent companies in the Cincinnati area who have demonstrated a solid commitment to promoting the effective practice of Business Analysis in their organizations come and speak on how that commitment is put into practice within their organization.

Now I really thought this was going to be boring but the speaker; Jeff Wolverton, Senior VP and CIO of Great American Financial Resources, Inc. (GAFRI), captured my attention when he spoke about how he used the area of Business Analysis to turn his IT organization around and assist them in providing better IT business solutions.

Jeff has been with GAFRI for 11 years and has held the position of CIO for the past 8 years, but they have really put an emphasis on the area of Business Analysis and have begun to reap the benefits thereof here in the last year and a half.

He demonstrated how putting Business Analysis first changed the reputation of his IT staff within the organization from an IT production support group that is slow in delivering business applications that are often bug ridden, to an IT staff that develops great business application solutions that work for the business. GAFRI IT staff went from delivering solutions and telling the business to report any bugs found and they will fix them to delivering business solutions where they had found 85% of all bugs prior to user acceptance testing.

Jeff also spoke about how in last year’s economy where IT budgets in most organizations were being slashed, he received a double-digit increase; the largest increase in his 8 years as CIO. So how do you get that kind of budget increase and turn around the reputation of your IT staff and the business application solutions that they deliver? GAFRI did it by getting to the business requirements behind the business requests and implementing a systematic, repeatable project delivery process.

Jeff and his team put into place a new IT business solutions delivery process from the requirements gathering phase to project delivery (implementation). This new process was going to take much longer than the old process. What use to take a week will now take two to four weeks. How do you get business buy-in to wait for their business applications? When you deliver a business application solution in which the business usually reports several bugs during testing to delivering a solution in which the business reports almost no bugs, they see value in the new process.

GAFRI’s new IT business solution delivery process put emphasis on two areas: requirements gathering and application testing. They created new roles within their IT staff and put people in place with very specific duties to gain measurable increased value in these areas. They not only put IT staff through training, but they put the business through training on the new delivery process and the business role on working with the IT staff to drive better IT business solutions.

The first new IT role is the Requirements Analyst. This person works with the business in the beginning of the project to elicit and form clear and concise business requirements for the IT business solution. So many times when IT delivers a project they get the punch line to that Dr. Seuss rhyme about the Super Programmer, where the requester says ‘You gave me just what I asked for but not what I need!’. The Requirements Analyst works throughout the project, in a diminishing role, to ensure that the IT solution will meet the needs of the business.

The second new IT role created is the Test Analyst. Typically, testing is thought of after development is complete or nearing completion. In GAFRI’s model test plans are created before or as development starts and are based on the business requirements of the project. The Test Analyst either performs or supports IT Quality Assurance testing and supports User Acceptance Testing.

GAFRI is a shining example of how commitment to the area of Business Analysis can reap many benefits for the organization, both for IT and the business. The end result is better IT business solutions.