Stories by Bart Perkins

Is social connectivity friend or foe to corporations?

In 1929, Frigyes Karinthy conjectured that anyone on Earth was connected to anyone else, on average, through just six people. Social networking may be increasing connectedness. Facebook recently studied connectedness among its 721 million active users, concluding that the average distance between any two Facebook users is now only 4.74 "hops" (down from 5.28 in 2008).

Ensuring project success

Project plans sometimes go off the rails. That's always been the case, and with the perfection of the human race nowhere on the horizon, it will remain true. But we can reduce the number of projects that fail.

Bart Perkins: Wise managers don't block workplace Web access

A few years ago, companies regularly blocked access to Amazon, Facebook, eBay, World of Warcraft and other sites , which they claimed distracted employees and wasted time. Some people indeed overdid Internet usage or abused social media privileges (remember Goldman Sachs' Charlie ?), and many organizations severely restricted Web access.

The Fortune 500's disappearing CIOs

Save the CIO, save the enterprise! It might not be the catchiest slogan, but there's more than a little truth in it.

Project Management: No horsing around

IT organizations are expected to complete projects on time, on budget and with high quality -- but often don't.

Cloudy, with a chance of trouble

Many organizations are considering shutting down their data centers and migrating most IT functions to the cloud. Beware, though: Not all clouds are soft and fluffy .

Infrastructure: IT's stepchild

Every enterprise needs a robust IT infrastructure in order to function effectively. Infrastructure is the foundation of corporate productivity and success. Many IT groups, however, don't have enough skilled infrastructure staffers to provide the solid foundation required.

Make a statement with your mission statement

Mission statements help define an organization's direction and inspire employees to achieve corporate goals. Unfortunately, countless mission statements are meaningless, forgettable and totally ineffective. Many are merely an uninspiring collection of buzzwords that could have been written by Dilbert's boss. If that describes yours, you have work to do!

IT full of 'ducks'? Declare open season

Every organization has some "ducks." Ducks are employees who have a detrimental effect on productivity. Their work is consistently substandard, they rarely meet deadlines, and their skills are out of date. They hate change, resist taking responsibility, and blame their failures on co-workers. They constantly complain about their projects, their teammates, their workloads and their managers. They stifle innovation by shooting down new proposals, claiming that changes "just can't be done."

Pulling the plug on a project

Few organisations want to admit that a large project is failing. But some projects will never meet their deadlines or deliver the expected benefits. When the possibility of success is gone, these projects often must be terminated for the health of the corporation.

The broken process dilemma

Fixing a broken process is often difficult, expensive and thankless. IT executives are divided on whether to outsource a broken process (e.g., payroll, help desk, accounting) or fix it in-house first. Some feel that outsourcers specialize in specific processes and therefore prefer to let the outsourcer fix what's broken. Others claim that after a broken process is outsourced, it often remains broken.

Assessments Are Opportunities

Many corporations periodically commission external assessments of their IT organizations. IT staffers usually look forward to these assessments (also known as baselines, reviews and the dreaded "audit") with the same enthusiasm they exhibit for root canals. Assessments are often perceived as witch hunts with hidden agendas whose primary purpose is finding fault and punishing (or firing) the guilty.

Budget busters are looming

Over the past few years, Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance, as well as privacy and security regulations, have wreaked havoc on IT budgets. Despite the difficulties, many companies have made good progress in these areas, and their CIOs are looking forward to more budget flexibility in the next few years. Unfortunately, new budget busters looming on the horizon will continue to affect IT spending.

Bad news gets worse when inaction rules

Bad news comes in many forms: when $17 million goes missing, a failed Sarbanes-Oxley audit, project delays, records compromised, bugs in new technology products and more.

Stifling IT innovation

When the board says, "Be more innovative", many CEOs turn to their CIOs. Requests for innovation also come from other departments after they hear about new technologies from vendors or trade magazines. As a result, many IT organizations are being told to be more creative, and articles stating that the CIO should become the "chief innovation officer" abound.