Project Management

What Google Wave means for IT: Collaboration in IT management tools

The rush for Google Wave has begun. The much-anticipated release of Google’s collaboration tool has generated media hype, exclusive invites to try the beta and even eBay bidding wars for the opportunity to try it first. And this step in collaboration technology is a big one, as it works to combine email, wikis, blogs, instant messaging and social networking capabilities to allow integrated communication in real time. The use cases for the Wave technology could be endless as developers work on extensions to further enhance it.

For IT, I have to wonder how Google Wave will also change the face of project management, business process management and IT service management. Why? Most of the major concerns I hear regarding these types of tools are their lack of functional, easy-to-use, real-time collaboration and monitoring features.

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IT project failures not the only reason CIOs get fired

What’s going to get you fired from your CIO job? I was reminded this week of all the ways CIOs risk termination, from failed IT projects to jobs that outgrow them, during a “town meeting” (aka moderated conference call) on IT project failures. Featured speaker Chris Curran, a consultant and chief technology officer at DiamondConsultants, told the story of one CIO who was fired because he couldn’t get his arms around the Web 2.0 technologies and vendors that represented the organization’s next big technology initiative. “It doesn’t mean that CIO isn’t a good CIO,” Curran explained. “It just means they weren’t a good CIO in that situation.” Continued »

With PPM software, don’t always throw in the kitchen sink

Project and portfolio management (PPM) software is definitely not overlooked in the midmarket. According to a recent SearchCIO-Midmarket.com survey, 17% use some form of PPM software. But how many of those organizations are actually using all of what they paid for?

Time and time again, I hear the stories of the initial implementation process: Company purchases software, company implements relevant parts of the software in stages, company stops the process once it has implemented what it needs.

I once bought a 160-piece kitchen set. Out of the 160 “useful” kitchen tools, I use about 10 of them — the rest sit in my cabinets, waiting for the day I decide to make eight individual servings of crème brûlée or require a tool for removing my strawberry stem. At the time, I had big plans for my cooking skills and thought the new tools would inspire me to learn a bit more in the kitchen — maybe I really will try my hand at beef Wellington, I thought.

Nope.
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