Transforming IT

Introducing The Quantum Age of IT

2011-08-16T22:27:24-07:00

I would like to announce that I have launched a new website called The Quantum Age of IT (www.thequantumageofit.com) and that I will be moving my main blog to that site. This site represents my vision of the future of IT and what it means to every IT leader and professional in our industry. The concept centers around four central themes:

IT as we know it is dead. The fundamental IT business model has shifted to the customer being in control
Because of this, every IT organization will need to make a choice and become either a Strategic Sourcer or a Strategic Innovator as we enter what I am calling The Quantum Age of IT
To enter the Quantum Age, every IT organization must develop five new organizational traits. They must become Learning Organizations, Disciplined Organizations, Transparent Organizations, Intimate Organizations and Dynamic Organizations
Finally, to compete in this new age, every IT professional must develop a set of 5 new skills: Marketing & Communication, Innovation & Collaboration, Critical Thinking & Analytical, Financial Management and Leadership

The new site is dedicated to these ideas and will serve as the home to the "movement" that will be created around these ideas. My latest blog post is entitled, Why Critical Thinking is Critical. I hope that you check it out.

New Soap Box: Service Management is NOT a Toy

2011-07-18T04:00:00-07:00

I have a new episode of my Soap Box Series entitled, "Service Management is NOT a Toy." It is my little tribute to all the Kool Aid drinkers out there who get so focused on Service Management and ITIL that they forget what it is really all about. I hope you enjoy.

Listen to Service Management is NOT a Toy

"What" Is More Important Than "How"

2011-07-14T21:38:23-07:00

In IT, we get paid for the "how." From the beginning, it has always been that there is some problem that needs to be solved - and IT was HOW it could be solved. This has led to innumerate advances in technologies and processes over the years and it is a big reason that technology and IT has been the primary driver of productivity for the last twenty years or so.

In some cases, however, this focus on the "how" can work against us.

As we enter this new era for IT - what I am calling the Quantum Age of IT - the problems are not quite so apparent. It is no longer as simple as having a better way to do something. IT must now be a part of creating its own destiny. In short, IT leaders and entire organizations need to begin focusing on the "what."

While this can sometimes be foreign to IT professionals, it is actually a very proven and intuitive approach. Before you worry about how you will you do something, you need to know what it is that you want to accomplish. It is kind of like trying to plot the fastest way to go someplace. You need to know where that place is first. This sounds simple, but the truth is that for most of IT's existence, someone else has picked the destination. Our job was simply to find the most effective and most efficient way to get there.

But things have changed.

IT must now be a part of picking that destination. That means that we must be focused on the "what."

Whether you are establishing the entire vision for the IT organization or just focused on a specific component of its operation, the process is the same. You need to follow a simple equation:

Clearly articulate what you want to achieve - where you want to go, the end-state you seek (Note: this isn't what tasks you want to complete, it is what you expect it to look like when you are done.)
Understand what obstacles are in your way and are stopping you from achieving this end-state
Determine what you will need to change, fix or create to overcome those obstacles
Then - and only then - figure out how you will you do it

This simple formula can be repeated in greater detail as you start putting your plan together. The first iteration will be a vision and a high-level plan. Each component of that plan can use the same process to figure out what needs to be done and so on. In truth, this simple, intuitive approach can be used in any effort - no matter how large or small.

Focusing on the "what" is not always natural for IT pros. We are natural problem solvers and we thrive on being the hero that can come up with solutions to the most vexing problems. But the world is changing and our customers are expecting far more from us than just problem solving today. They are looking to us to help drive technology-enabled efficiencies and innovation deep into the core of the business. They want us to help identify the problems that need fixing in the first place. And that requires a lot more imagination and creativity - and a lot more focus on the "what."

Update to CharlesAraujo.com & The New Soap Box Series

2011-06-28T04:00:00-07:00

So, I've done a major and much-needed rebuild to www.charlesaraujo.com. As part of this update, I've introduced a brand new audio series called The Soap Box Series. This series is just what it sounds like - me jumping on my "soap box" to let loose a little. I hope you enjoy them.

The first three in the series have been released. They are:

Check them out. I hope that you enjoy them. And don't forget to let me know what you think about the updated charlesaraujo.com!

Do You Need More Enemies?

2011-06-16T07:29:49-07:00

How much time do you spend every day trying to make trouble?

I bet the answer is not much. But that's the wrong answer.

In today's corporate world - really in today's politically correct world - we all spend a lot of time and energy worrying about how not to upset or offend people. While we should all maintain a level of decorum and should seek positive (and not destructive) discourse, if you focus too much on trying to keep people happy it is a sure path to ensuring that nothing ever changes.

One of the most difficult parts of affecting change is overcoming inertia. It is easy and comfortable for people to get "set in their ways" and anything that threatens that is going to get very uncomfortable, very fast.

If you want to change things in your organization or in your life you are going to have to come to terms with the fact that you are not going to be able to make everyone happy. You will upset people and you will probably pick up a few enemies along the way - people who are just diametrically opposed to what you are trying to do. If you don't, well, you probably aren't pushing the envelope far enough.

Here is the simple recipe for affecting meaningful change:

Create a vision for how the world (however big or small that may be) can be a better place if something changed
Create a narrative story that makes that vision real and tangible for those around you and that paints a picture of this better place
Do not compromise or make excuses - you must have an undying faith in this vision before anyone else will share it with you
Pursue that vision with unrelenting passion - do not let naysayers or political correctness stand in your way

Whether you are seeing a vision for how to fix our national healthcare problems or simply a vision for how you can handle a major incident in your organization more effectively, the fundamental process is the same.

Doing this will almost certainly make some people unhappy. Change can be ugly and uprooting people from their comfortable and set ways is never a pretty sight. But this is the price to pay if you want to be a true agent of change.

So ask yourself this question. Does everyone like me? If the answer is yes, you probably need to get out there and shake things up.

What To Do When It All Falls Apart

2011-05-04T04:00:00-07:00

I have written before about my attitude on becoming a "yes man" - meaning that I try to say yes to everything that I can. I believe that this attitude has made a huge difference in my life, but when you become a "yes man" you run the risk that you reach a breaking point when everything falls apart.

It's a risk worth taking, but it can leave a very bad taste in your mouth. So here's what you should do when everything comes to a breaking point and starts to fall apart:

Give Yourself Permission to Take a Break
The first thing you must realize is that this was bound to happen. If you push yourself and try to continually step out and step up, you are going to eventually hit a breaking point. You need to know that this is ok and that it doesn't represent a failure. It is a natural part of finding that right balance and you need to give yourself permission to take a break and re-evaluate.

At this point, you have probably been committing a large chunk of your time and energy into working for other people. Take some time for yourself. Cancel some meetings, clear your calendar and pick up that book you have been meaning to read. Do whatever it is that you need to recharge and clear your mind. You will be spinning with everything that you have committed to and you need to just give yourself permission to let it all go for a little bit.

Re-evaluate and Re-prioritize
Once you've taken a little time and have your feet back under you, it is time to take a hard look at what got you here. Have you, in fact, over-committed? Or did the "perfect storm" just hit that sent you to the breaking point? The answer may be a little bit of both. In either case, a re-evaluation of everything you have said "yes" to is in order.

Part of saying "yes" is about exploration and experimentation. Rather than say "no" because you are afraid of the commitment, you have said yes out of a willingness to give it a try. Some of the things you have said "yes" to, however, may not have actually been a good fit. Perhaps you didn't connect with others you are working with. Perhaps you aren't able to apply your skills as you thought you might and don't feel that you're really contributing. Maybe it just doesn't feel right. Whatever it is, you need to know that it is ok to tell some person or group that it just isn't working. Saying "yes" isn't forever.

Don't leave anyone in a lurch, but not only is it ok - I think you have a duty to re-evaluate and re-prioritize the projects, non-profits, etc. that you have taken on. While you may have some nagging guilt about pulling back, remember that in the end it only works for both parties if everyone is fully committed. If you are not, get out of the way so that someone else can step in.

Get Back At It
While re-evaluation and re-prioritization is healthy and needed, here is what you simply cannot do - just stop. It is sometimes a natural reaction when you hit that breaking point: just shut it all down. Say "no" to everything and just walk away.

First, this really isn't fair to either you or the groups/projects you are working with. While it is ok to take a break, abruptly quitting "cold turkey" is another story. In truth, you are at a stressful point in the cycle and you probably don't want to walk away from everything. You need to give yourself time to take that break and then re-evaluate everything once you're back on solid footing.

The other reason why you shouldn't just stop and walk away is that you started saying "yes" for a reason. Unless you have achieved everything that you set out to do, you will have left a large hole unfilled. If you stop and think about it for a minute, you will see how much value you have created through your contributions and the difference it has made in your own life. You don't want to give all that up, do you?

So after you have taken some time and gone through the re-evaluation and re-prioritization process, you need to get back at it. You will be glad you did.

Remember that reaching a breaking point is actually a good sign. It means that you're pushing yourself and that you are making a real difference in lives around you. I guarantee that the world is better off because you have said "yes."

Reaching the breaking point is never fun or easy, but it is a clear sign that you are someone who is giving their all. And for that we are all grateful.

Why You Need to Practice Daydreaming

2011-05-02T04:00:00-07:00

I have a secret. I love to daydream.

Daydreaming has a bad name. It implies aimless and useless wandering of the mind. It conjures images of a wistful soul more interested in dreaming about things rather than doing them.

But I think that daydreaming has got a bad rap. Used properly, daydreaming can be a very powerful tool as you endeavor to transform both your IT organization and your career.

First, let's think about what it means to daydream. Daydreaming is really just imagining a potential future for yourself. Daydreams can range from the fanciful to the almost practical, but in either case it is really just allowing your mind the freedom to imagine possible futures. And that is very good.

THE MIND IS A POWERFUL THING
When you allow your mind the freedom to imagine future possibilities without being constrained by all of today's practical realities, amazing things can start to happen. For me, I enjoy taking the time to play out future possibilities in my head - normally 2-3 years out. Mind you, I am not "planning" per se. I am just letting my mind wander down the roads that I foresee playing out in front of me. I imagine where they may lead and what I might do should that circumstance materialize.

The vast majority of these imagined futures never become reality. But two things tend to happen when I do this. First, it conditions my mind to "think big" and imagine possibilities without constraint. This translates into creative and unique solutions because I have been training my mind to explore.

Second, every once in a while, a situation that I have imagined - or at least something close to it - actually occurs. When it does, I am well prepared to respond because I gave my mind the chance to explore the options and plan a response long before the decision was required.

POSSIBILITIES WITHOUT CONSTRAINT
I believe that allowing your mind to daydream - to explore future possibilities without constraint - makes you a better leader, a better manager and even a better person. Because you are training your mind to explore and to free itself from the fear of why something cannot be done, you will make better decisions, you make them more quickly and you will make them with more conviction and confidence. People around you will "see something" in you - they may say that you seem to have "vision" or that you "know exactly where you want to go."

The truth will not be that you have necessarily created this grand vision for your life, but rather that you have created a mental environment for yourself in which your future is something that you are constantly imagining and therefore feel that you can control. You will be constantly imagining what those futures may be, which will give you the ability to react and respond to whatever life throws at you because you will have lived this future - or something close to it - once already in your mind.

It is a powerful tool that will serve your career, your transformation effort and your life, very well.

What might your possible futures look like? Let your mind wander down those roads and see where they may lead you.

Forget What You Do. Who Do You Influence?

2011-04-26T04:00:00-07:00

Call me an old, sentimental fool, but It's a Wonderful Life may be my favorite movie of all time. It is a classic story that has a timeless message for each of us. In the movie, there's a pivotal scene in which Clarence the angel utters the line that brings the entire movie to a point: "Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

Each Christmas when I watch this movie it serves as a reminder to me that I need to be focused on people - not on things. It helps me to focus my gaze on those things that really matter and to gain perspective on everything else.

While during Christmas my focus is decidedly non-business, the fundamental principle applies to all areas of our lives - including our work.

Have you ever taken a moment to think about who your professional life touches? It is probably a lot more people than you think.

We spend a lot of our professional lives thinking and talking about "what we do." It is the most common question that you ask when you meet someone new. We spend our entire careers filling resume pages about what we have done. We obsess about what we will do next and we reminisce about what we did in the "old days."

But the message of It's a Wonderful Life is that it isn't what we do that matters as much as who we touch. If what we do isn't impacting someone's life in a positive way, then does it matter?

IS IT TIME FOR A DIFFERENT QUESTION?
So rather than asking "What do you do?" I think that we should start asking a different question: "Who do you influence?"

I think that it is an interesting way to look at our professional lives: What we do is less important than who we influence. Who we influence can create significant and lasting impact on what we do to a much greater degree than by merely doing it.

Perhaps most interesting, by shifting your focus from doing to influencing you create a fundamental shift in the way you look at both your job and your career.

While it may not seem it at first glance, it is actually a lot harder to influence than it is to simple do something. It requires that you understand someone else's point of view and that you develop empathy for their situation. It requires that you understand motivators and why people resist change. Most importantly, it means that we must go into each day with a purpose - some vision, whether big or small, that we want to see become reality and which requires others to share in it.

Above all else, influencing others means first caring about them. It is only once they believe that you care that you will be able to have any influence over them at all.

What you do may be important. But who you influence is vital.

So, who do you influence?

Designing a Curious Team

2011-04-21T03:00:00-07:00

It is always a bit gratifying to find others talking about some of the things we do and explaining why they work.

In this article from FastCompany, founder of design firm IDEO and Stanford Professor, David Kelley discusses his view on creating "curious employees." It is a great primer on how to build engagement amongst a team and the benefits realized from this approach. If you have worked with us, you will see a lot of what we do in this article. Hope you enjoy it.

Click here to read David Kelley on Designing Curious Employees.

How to Get Your Head OUT of the Game

2011-04-19T03:00:00-07:00

In the battle to transform your organization you have one great enemy and one great weapon - and they are one and the same: yourself.

So much of the time, we are our own worst enemy. We make things more complicated than they need to be and we let ourselves get in the way of our own success. The reason is that it is easy to forget why we are doing what we do and we end up putting too much focus on the wrong things.

As I have written about before, I spend an hour an a half each week with my tennis coach. He loves to laugh at me and tell me that I must be self-employed...because I am miserable at taking direction. But in truth, I see a lot of similarity between what he does with me and what I do with my clients.

Essentially, he helps me build a process, a routine and a rhythm that leads me to be in the right place to strike the ball and a consistent form with which to do it. It is not unlike what we do when we work with clients to institute a new or improved process. The purpose of the process is to provide us with the "step-by-step" so that we can develop a rhythm that will help us deliver a better service.

But there is always this point when my coach is working me on a drill when I have to put all of the "step-by-step" aside and just play the ball. It is an important step that we often forget when we are talking about process improvement - the purpose is not to go through the steps. The purpose is to play the ball well.

While the step-by-step creates muscle memory and teaches me where I should be ending up and helps me practice the rhythm, there is a point when the process stops becoming a help and becomes a burden. It takes too much energy to think about every step and I start messing up my strokes. It is at that point that I must stop thinking about the process and just play the ball - trusting that my practice will have paid off.

The same is true when we are working with IT processes. The process is important. While we are learning the new way to operate, we need to rely on the process to guide us. But we can never let the process become our crutch. Our purpose is not to go through the process. Our purpose is to deliver a great service. The goal is that the process simply becomes how we operate and it ceases to be something that we must spend too much time thinking about.

Instead, we just play the ball.

So if you are wondering what is going wrong with your process improvement effort, it might be that you need to get your head out of the game a bit. Spend a lot of energy getting you and your team to understand what you need to do and the purpose behind every step.

Then stop thinking, get your head out of the way, and just play the ball. That is, after all, why you went through all of this trouble in the first place.