Creative Destruction
In our last post, we discussed an opportunity to conduct an assessment of Portfolio Management suites featured from the Gartner Magic Quadrant. This was from a user point of view. Although there were many customer interviews already conducted, there is always another side to the story.
Before we start that PM Suites discussion, I want to introduce an excellent speech I heard just this morning. The topic was compelling because it deals with right now, at this moment and the changes and troubles we “appear” to be facing. The speaker focused the attention on an Alan Greenspan book, “The Age of Turbulence.” Mr Greenspan talks about the single most significant event in our [meaning the world] history was the fall of the Great Wall. The Berlin Wall. The reason why this was so significant to Greenspan, to the speaker, to me and hopefully now to you, is the idea of “Creative Destruction.” This concept is a natural phenomenon, but was termed by Joseph Schumpeter. What was learned from the Great Wall falling was that the East was actually producing 35% of what the West was able to produce. They learned that while the West was advancing in technology, engineering and management, the East was very stagnant, producing at the same capacity for the same amount of time. This is significant and not natural.
The Gartner Symposium
For IT Management, the Gartner Symposium is a big deal. This years focus will be no exception. In fact, because of current national events, it may be a bigger deal than years past. To highlight a few of the intended topics:
- Cost Cutting, with about 16 topics for a “lean” IT organization
- Process Improvements and Productivity
- Economic downturns can be a benefit. They will have a topic dedicated to being Innovative during rough financial times
- Customer Service and Retention
- Risk and Change Management. This is certainly a time of increase changes!
For Enterprise Portfolio Management software companies, this symposium is the “mothership.” Gartner is the owner and creater of the Magic Quadrant. If you work for a IT software company, you are certainly familiar with this quadrant. It is an important tool to review application support and usage prior to purchasing and maintaining. For more information on this event, go to the Gartner Symposium website.
In a future discussion, PM Majik will do a full scale review of its own, for these Magic Quadrant participants. More important than Gartners technical assessment, may be the assessment of the users.
Reality Check: Organizational Capacity
For organizations that have already developed and roll out an enterprise project management methodology, the next item to tackle may be the organizational portfolio. It is very common to have projects neatly organized and the visibility and focus on project success based upon on-time, on budget and schedule metrics.
Following an integrated process where the strategy and budget precede the lifecycle of project work, organizations and managers find solace in the operating model. What is slowly realized is, that while everything is flowing smoothly, there are recognizable gaps at a much higher level. Lower level impacts are usually hidden by managers who are simply surviving, using whatever archaic method to maintain independence and freedom from corporate intervention. What is this gap? Where are my people, who are my people and why can’t I deliver on my corporate strategies?
