The Three-Legged Stool of IT Business Value

Once during a meeting I attended while visiting an affiliate organization in the San Francisco area, the CEO shared his vision of business success as a three-legged stool of margin, sales and net profit. If any of the three legs of this stool are out of balance, revenues suffer and shareholder value declines. In “Principles for Maturing Your System Development Life Cycle: The Ultimate Guide to the SDLC,” I present my own theory of a similar three-legged stool that applies to the business value IT provides to an organization. In my thesis, the three-legged stool of IT business value is comprised of IT Governance, the Program/Project Management Method and the SDLC. The three are inextricably linked and together form a trilogy that are foundational to IT success and the business value IT provides.

 
In the corporate world, a truly effective IT group can help increase revenues, develop and hold market share, gather mission-critical employees, view mission-critical processes and plan niche creation strategies. An ineffective IT Governance crushes an organization. It leaves senior leaders with a bad taste in their mouth. They lose confidence and trust in the IT group to deliver what they’ve promised. A poor project management method leads to project failures, cost overruns and delays. An immature SDLC results in poorer quality products, increased defects and lower customer satisfaction. All three must work in concert and all three must be effective to produce the desired results. Effectiveness is measurable and can be continuously improved. If any one component is out of balance, our projects may topple and fall; and like Humpty-Dumpty, we may not be able to put all the pieces back together again.

Leadership is My Calling

Leadership is my calling. That’s what Mrs. Levi told me when I was about four years old. Mrs. Levi was a neighbor who lived in the same apartment building as us in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Most people don’t remember much from when they were four years old, but I do remember things that people said or did that were impactful. I remember Mrs. Levi as the kindly, gray-haired, stoop shouldered, grandmotherly neighbor who regularly brought my family home-made Gefilte fish and matzo ball soup. Mom crocheted gifts for her to thank her for her kindness. I remember one evening she brought over a jar of her freshly made fish. I was walking around the house barefooted and when she looked at my feet, her eyes opened wide and she said, with a bit of wonder in her voice, “You are a natural-born leader. Your second toe is longer than your big toe and that means leadership.” At that young age, I remember smiling and just taking in what she said. I don’t remember responding, but if I did say something, it was probably something silly.

Now I don’t know if there’s any correlation between the length of our second toe and leadership but I do know that Mrs. Levi’s proclamation that evening stuck with me. It’s something I’ve never forgotten. And as life has turned out, leadership is my calling. I am passionate about leadership development and believe that anyone can learn the skills required to become an effective leader. Doing so however requires an embarkation upon a life-long journey. It’s a journey that is as personal and individual to each of us as is the color of our hair or eyes. It’s a journey filled with hills and valleys. Sometimes the going is smooth. Sometimes, we stumble and fall.

The goal of the journey is to achieve a walk of authentic leadership. When I speak on this topic, I am often asked, “What is ‘authentic’ leadership?” Two of the definitions that we find in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition) for authentic are “not false or imitation” and “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.” Authenticity in leadership is the integration of persona and character. Persona is our outward manifestation. It includes our appearance, manners, verbal ability, revealed competence and titles. Character is our essence. It is the core of who we are. Essence is about our purpose, values, beliefs and visions. When persona and character integrate so as to express our own true personality, spirit or character, this is integrity or authenticity. The journey to authentic leadership is a path finding mission to discover our essence and manifest it through our persona.

Book is Complete, Time to Reenter the Human Race

For the past 3 ½ months I’ve been writing a book called “Principles for Maturing Your System Development Life Cycle: The Ultimate Guide to the SDLC.” It’s a collection of best practices, activities and processes gathered from leading industrial nations and the minds of some of the greatest thought leaders in Information Technology in the latter half of the 20th and the 21st centuries. Its details incorporate a history and comparison of a dozen systems development methods and philosophies, from waterfall through agile, and many of today’s recognized best practices and standards all the way to continuous improvement and performance metrics. Its concepts, principles, practices, disciplines, guidelines and models are demonstrated to help deliver successful Information Technology projects and mature organizational practices from ability to capability.

Many authors say their books are a labor of love, but I’ll only admit to the labor part. Writing a book is an arduous task and one of the hardest projects I’ve ever undertaken. In all, I’ve invested over thirteen months bringing this project to fruition. This includes over ten months researching, reading and studying and about three and half months writing eight to ten hours a day, six days a week; all the while keeping up with family and parental responsibilities and service to the community. Believe me, it is labor! And it’s a labor undertaken with absolutely no assurance of financial reward. So why did I do it? I did it because there is a great need in the Information Technology world for this kind of book. I saw the need and had the availability, wherewithal, passion and drive to fulfill the need; and as far as I can tell, there isn’t anything else like it on the market. And even though it’s a labor, it is a labor well worth the effort and one that provides a deep satisfaction in knowing this is a job well done.

I’ve spoken to other authors who describe the experience as bringing a baby into the world. I’ll never know what it’s like to give birth and can’t compare the two, although I suspect writing a book is much easier. But now the book is done, the baby is born and I can wake up from my long hibernation to move forward on the job search. For the most part, I’m taking today off (okay, so I’m working about half the day). On Monday, I’ll emerge from my man-cave, stretch my legs and and reenter the human race.