Twitter

Full Disclosure, A Favourited Tweet Does Not Mean I Read It … Yet

Jan 202012

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of Twitter.

Twitter provides the medium for my tailored news source (I find out about world events on Twitter faster than any of the regular news outlets), my 24×7 global support base (see my post The Evolution of My Global Network) and my notetaker (this attempt failed as it was too verbose for a Twitter feed). Finally, Twitter is a deep mine of refined precious metal harvested by the brilliant people I follow. Here are a few examples of posts I wrote because of Twitter:

All of these posts were triggered by a tweet that I read or a tweet to me about a topic that made me think and then share something with all of you. Powerful stuff for me and hopefully for you too!

I have been getting @replies and mentions for favouriting certain tweets. Twitter recently enabled a notification to the original tweeter if someone favourites a tweet they posted.

In the interest of full transparency to those who thank me, I have a confession. Just because I favourited your tweet does not always mean that I have read the link in your tweet.

I have taken to spending 15 minutes each morning scanning my Twitter feed (mostly to see what went on in the world while I was asleep in Vancouver) and look for interesting tweets (usually ones with links to articles). I favourite them (my Twitter bookmarking method) so that I can look at them at a later date. I do most of this scanning on my Blackberry Mobile Twitter app.

One ask I would have is if you have a website, think about huge shift to the mobile world and enable a mobile theme please! I would be more inclined to browse to the link and read it if the content presented was for a mobile experience (especially now that I am getting middle aged eyes!).

So, it is really me who needs to thank all of you for sharing all the great content. Keep tweeting and sharing because I for one, am listening and learning from you! Thank you!

Response to: The Progressive CIO’s Model for Project Success

enterprise architecture, it governance, leadership, management No Responses »

May 172011

I scanned my Twitter feed on Monday May 16th and found a post by Todd Williams called The Progressive CIO’s Model for Project Success. After the last couple of months of having to put our IT Services PMO team in place to rescue “business” led projects, I am compelled to question approach proposed by Todd.

Todd makes the point that IT organizations have been unsuccessful in building systems that meet their customer’s needs and fail in schedule, usability and scope. This is a true statement as long as it is taken in context. These symptoms of project failure (note: I did not say IT failure!) represent organizations that have a low levels of IT and Project Governance in their IT departments and in the rest of their organization. Todd suggests that “progressive CIOs” need a new approach which is opposite to today’s practices.

I disagree … progressive CIOs need to recognize that IT touches all parts of the organization and that IT is one of the only places in a company where a broad enterprise view can be well understood and supported. Growing and maturing a PMO (project,program,portfolio mgmt) in IT is the first step. Then moving that mature PMO out of IT to serve the entire organization should be the mission of a progressive CIO.

Next Todd suggests that because a business unit can use MS Office tools like Excel and Access to build small departmental applications on time, schedule and budget that we in IT should consider handing this work back to the business and concentrate on infrastructure.

If the user is better at creating useful applications and IT builds better infrastructure, then create an organization to mimic that model.

This is a huge generalization and does not come close to the complexity and scope of what an enterprise system project can entail. I will have to write a different post about the massive technical debt that our organizations carry due to all these departmental systems built with Microsoft Office tools!

There is a reason for having specific departments in organizations and that is to deliver on their specialized services. Human Resources should deliver HR services. Finance should deliver financial services. IT should deliver IT services. PMOs should deliver project services. Creating redundant Project Management services and IT implementation services in multiple departments adds cost, complexity and creates silos within organizations. Another big problem is this approach causes issues in departments that end up relying on individual experts who get sick, go on vacation, on training or leave the company. This makes the department vulnerable to not being able to deliver on service commitments to the organization. The level of risk of not being able to deliver a key departmental service is not something any senior leader should accept for their organization. Read more...

Finding Time …

leadership, management, personal 2 Responses »

May 122011

I found two great articles in my Twitter feed this week that really struck home for me.

Over the past decade, I have prided myself on how busy I am multi-tasking and having a calendar booked solid. My hard work has paid off as I successfully progressed in my career, learned many new things and served my team and customers to the best of my ability.

But … with this self imposed hectic/chaotic pace, I have seen my commitment to fitness deteriorate, my personal and family life being compromised all for the sake of working harder (not necessarily smarter).

The first article I came across was retweeted by the American Management Association (@AMAnet):

#Leadership & White Space. (RT @mikemyatt) #Management | http://ow.ly/4Rn8i

Mike Myatt (@MikeMyatt) started the article Leadership and Whitespace with a great quote:

I don’t care how busy you are, but I do care about what you accomplish – the former doesn’t always lead to the latter.

After reading the article about creating “white space” in my calendar, I took some time to think about how I could go about doing this. It’s not easy when you have grown up in a management culture of “do more with less” and “deliver, deliver, deliver”. When I started the management role of my team of 22 analysts, I deliberately chose to take a “servant leadership” approach that focused on setting direction, empowering my team and then managing the inevitable roadblocks, politics and priority changes that come along the way. So do I have an answer today … no but I am committed to work on it.

The first reader comment on Mike’s post was from Tanveer Naseer (@TanveerNaseer) who wrote the second article I mentioned – Learning to Appreciate the White Spaces. Tanveer provided four reasons to create white spaces:

Provides opportunities for contemplation and review

Shifts our decision making from reflexive reactions to measured, deliberate responses

Allows you to address those unanticipated issues without penalizing other tasks

Even machines need maintenance/repair

These are great guides and really challenge me to rethink my approach to work. Thank you @MikeMyatt and @TanveerNaseer, you both have given me new insights on how to be a better leader and manager.

ps: For the social media naysayers, this is yet another powerful reason that I believe Twitter is an essential part of my professional and personal development!