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CIO Executive Council

A Peer-Advisory Service and Professional Association for CIOs

Webcast: In the Google Apps Cloud: How to Achieve Your Business Objectives

Dec 3rd, '09, 1 - 2 pm US/Eastern (GMT-5)

Join Council member Brent Hoag, Director, Global IT, at JohnsonDiversey, as he discusses the adoption of Google Apps which has helped meet four corporate goals; sustainability, simplification, increased employee productivity and global collaboration.

Webcast: Collaboration Initiatives: Benchmarks & Best Practices

Dec 15th, '09, 4 - 5 pm US/Eastern (GMT-5)

Join Council members Ruth Thorpe, VP & CIO at the U.S. Pharmaceutical Operations of Sanofi-Aventis, and Gary Kuyper, CIO at Bethany Christian Services, as they speak about their collaboration initiatives and experiences in how and why they chose the social networking and collaboration tools they are using and their business goals for collaboration, and facing culture change challenges.

Data Overview: Collaboration Initiatives Field Guide: Benchmarks & Best Practices

This appendix to the Council Field Guide provides an analysis which discusses benchmarks for collaboration IT implementation costs, adoption rates and payoffs. The overview identifies top IT and business goals and satisfaction rates for collaboration initiatives as well as best practices and lessons learned for implementing collaboration IT.

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Project Management Definition and Solutions

IT Project Management topics covering definition, objectives, systems and solutions.

How can I ensure that my projects are successful?

Organizations should create or adapt a standard approach to managing projects. Managers can quickly determine which ones are proceeding smoothly and which are not when all projects follow the same processes and approaches, and use the same metrics for measuring project performance. A standard approach to project management establishes ground rules and expectations for the project team. It also provides project managers, functional managers and the operational staff with a common language around project management that eases communication and helps ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Using a mishmash of project-management techniques makes it impossible for an organization to measure the success of its projects. And if they can't measure their projects, they can't determine which processes and methodologies are working and which ones need to be improved.

What are some common project-management methodologies, and which work best for various kinds of IT projects?

There are three leading approaches for managing IT projects. The first is based on traditional project management. It works with any IT project regardless of the technology involved or the duration of the project work.

The second approach is called Extreme Programming. It's sometimes abbreviated as XP (not to be confused with the Windows operating system.) Extreme Programming is a project-management approach designed specifically for software development. XP uses a software development model that involves the users, customers and programmers in four iterative phases: planning, coding, designing and testing.

Scrum is the final leader in IT project management. This approach, named after a rugby term, also uses iterations of planning, coding, executing and testing software. Scrum employs its own vernacular and has some rigid rules about meetings, hitting milestones and the duration of planning activities.