3 Reasons Why Your Company Needs A Part-Time CIO

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Published: Wednesday, May 13, 2015 09:20

A part-time CIO for SMBs offers many advantagesBy Rocky Vienna
Principal

A witch’s brew of globalization, disruptive technology, and regulatory compliance has created a new set of challenges for business executives. Never before has Information Technology – and the knowledge and experience of a seasoned CIO – been so integral to a company’s success and outright survival.

Whether yours is an emerging company, a small company or a mid-size company, having a part-time or fractional CIO serve on your Executive Management Team is the most effective way to get the benefits of having an experienced CIO without taking on the expense of having a CIO on staff full time.

Why a part-time CIO will complete your team

It’s common for small and mid-size businesses to have an infrastructure-centric IT manager who doesn’t yet have the business acumen of a seasoned CIO. This IT manager is vital for day-to-day IT management, but just isn’t capable of guiding the executive management team through strategic IT-related issues and opportunities. In addition, this junior team member does not have the experience to ensure that you have the proper business processes and related business systems in place to support growth.

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Do the Hardest Parts of Your IT Project First

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Published: Wednesday, April 29, 2015 08:00

An important part of the project risk management puzzleBy Ken Norland
Associate

Many project managers have a tendency to do the easy pieces first and save the hardest parts for the end. This is just basic human nature. However, project risk management for increasing the chances of IT project success means planning for the earliest possible problem detection. If your project has complexities (i.e. “hard parts”) that you can identify early, attacking them first will improve predictability and give you time to recover when the inevitable problems occur.

Turn “3 Miracle” Projects into “Doable” Projects

Years ago I worked at an organization where we would look at a project and say “it will take X number of miracles for us to pull this off in the time allotted.” Those “miracles” referred to the events where we got to a point and said “a miracle is needed here.” And I learned that tackling those gaps in understanding can eliminate most of the need for miracles. Which, of course, makes for good project management.

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Include Time in Your IT Project Plan for Changes

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Published: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 08:00

Include time in your IT project plan for changesBy Ken Norland
Associate

If you’ve been in the IT world for any length of time, you know that large IT projects often go awry. Luckily, there are many ways to improve the chances that your IT project will succeed. In my last article I discussed the importance of getting an iteration of your project into end users’ hands as early in the process as possible. This gives you time to adjust mid-stream if necessary (and it usually is). Today I’d like to discuss a closely related topic: Allowing time in your IT project plans to actually make these adjustments.

Most Projects Need Multiple Iterations

Especially when creating IT project plans for large development projects, you need to assume that the project will require multiple iterations. Why? Because:

  • End users need to see early iterations, so they can provide much-needed feedback (as discussed in my last article)
  • Testers need to see early iterations, so they can de-bug their tests while the project is being developed
  • The project team might run into unforeseen technical difficulties, which can require additional iterations to resolve

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More Articles ...

  1. Don’t Wait to Get Your IT Project Into End Users’ Hands
  2. How to Help Your Project Manager Succeed
  3. Picking the Right Project Manager for Your IT Project
  4. 5 Ways to Improve the Chances of IT Project Success

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