Tips

Tips

• CIOs, the age of the algorithm takes hold -- for better and worse

  Tom Davenport and Bill Franks from the International Institute for Analytics give their expert opinions on where analytics is headed in 2018.  Continue Reading

• IT goals for 2018: Five CIO must-dos

  Niel Nickolaisen closes the books on 2017 and lays out IT objectives for 2018. Flexible architecture and bleeding-edge tech, along with building your business cred, loom large.  Continue Reading

• Your digital transformation initiative is probably not future-proof

  A digital transformation initiative will fail if you simply dump new tech into an old tech black box, says expert Dan Morris. His readiness checklist points the way forward.  Continue Reading

• Security practices don't have to hinder IT speed

  Speed-to-market strategies shouldn't be bogged down by IT security. Here are two steps that will help CISOs adapt governance practices to support IT speed.  Continue Reading

• Setting up a service automation framework

  In this third tip in a series on service automation, the global CIO searches for and finds a service automation framework.  Continue Reading

• What is IT service automation? Exceeding user expectations

  In this second tip in a series on IT service automation, the global CIO calls an urgent meeting of his executive team then gives the summer intern the floor.  Continue Reading

• IT service automation: A global CIO learns from a millennial

  In this expert column on IT service automation, a global CIO's encounter with an IT intern makes him realize it's time to ready the enterprise for the self-service generation.  Continue Reading

• Cloud computing economics: Juggling availability, performance and cost

  Companies must answer complicated questions about cloud computing economics as emerging platforms offer attractive IT capabilities that come with unexpected costs.  Continue Reading

• How to build a team that works: Focus on these three factors

  Collaboration doesn't just happen. CIOs need to understand how to build a team that performs at a high level. Three ingredients are key, explains Agile expert Joseph Flahiff.  Continue Reading

• Assemble your toolbox for distributed decision-making

  If your organization has a distributed workforce, it needs to figure out how to optimize distributed decision-making. Joseph Flahiff lays out the fundamentals.  Continue Reading

• Quest for the best security for containers: Seven steps

  Despite their name, containers are by no means impervious to threats. With their use expected to grow, the time is ripe for determining the best security for containers.  Continue Reading

• A CTO offers advice on managing acquisition risks

  An ambitious project to modernize legacy software has added IT prowess and is driving innovation. One unforeseen consequence? Acquisitions are up, and so are acquisition risks.  Continue Reading

• Compliance battle over digital ownership has begun

  Rules defining digital ownership will dictate how the data-based economy evolves. CIOs should get ahead of data asset management before competitors write rules to their advantage.  Continue Reading

• Why EA should take the lead on improving customer experience

  The business shift to digital goods and services gives IT a critical role in improving the customer experience. Here's why CIOs are assigning enterprise architecture the job.  Continue Reading

• Reshape the role of the PMO for the digital era

  The project management office needs a new mandate to be a player in digital transformation. Matt McWha offers advice on how to rethink the role of the PMO.  Continue Reading

• Loose coupling, tight data access minimize security risks of new tech

  A recent article on biological malware got Niel Nickolaisen thinking about how to minimize security risks in emerging tech. Here are two approaches that will help.  Continue Reading

• Get a grip on evaluating cloud management platforms

  Software for managing multicloud computing environments can help companies tame the tumult. An industry expert gives tips on how to assess products.  Continue Reading

• Robust DevOps trend fueled by IT's need for speed, survey says

  A survey from IT service management provider Pink Elephant pinpoints the motives and success factors driving the burgeoning DevOps trend.  Continue Reading

• Why CIOs need to control the iteration process

  The iteration process promises to save IT and the business precious time. Done wrong, however, it actually adds time, risk, disruption and confusion to projects.  Continue Reading

• Time to replace 'corral and control' with a digital data strategy

  As data volumes explode and business uses for data increase, the old "data-first" mindset no longer applies. CIOs must develop a digital data strategy. Here is what's required.  Continue Reading

• Data asset curation: The guidelines to determine information usability

  Keeping track of existing data assets is increasingly difficult, but detailed curation of this vital company information can help streamline evolving digital governance processes.  Continue Reading

• CIO strives to tie cloud metrics to business value

  As CIOs gain experience in cloud computing, the cloud metrics they use are changing. Read how one CIO makes business value a priority in deciding which cloud services make sense.  Continue Reading

• App development teams need to adapt to business-led IT

  App development teams are at an inflection point: They can act as sole producers -- and fail to meet digital demands -- or enable business-led IT with application building blocks.  Continue Reading

• A cloud implementation methodology for legacy apps

  Maximizing the benefits of cloud while minimizing risk requires a fine-tuned migration strategy. Here, Scott Lowe lays out a cloud implementation methodology for legacy apps.  Continue Reading

• Turn tech laggards into learners -- adopt the flipped classroom model

  What if you could improve tech training and save money at the same time? The flipped classroom model can do that, and more, for tech education, Joseph Flahiff says.  Continue Reading

• Executing strategies: Close the gap between vision and implementation

  That vision thing won't do CIOs much good if they fail to execute on strategy, management experts say. Here's how to overcome the hurdles that can get in the way of success.  Continue Reading

• BPMS tools as hub of software development architecture

  A business process management suite can deliver speed, flexibility and cost savings to a software development environment. For the greatest return, make the BPMS the focal point.  Continue Reading

• Engineering compliance, legal rules into mobile technology development

  Legal concerns can hinder the mobility strategy of companies, but designing compliance into the front end of mobile technology development will keep both regulators and CIOs satisfied.  Continue Reading

• Running Agile at scale: Three challenges

  CEB: To implement Agile at scale, CIOs will need to educate product managers, seek nontraditional sources of funding and become Agile ambassadors.  Continue Reading

• In a post-Agile world, it's time for a new manifesto

  Joseph Flahiff laments the current state of Agile, explains how to make improvements and challenges his fellow Agilists to search for the next new way to work.  Continue Reading

• How to create an enterprise transformation roadmap

  The rapidly evolving techno-society is increasing competition for all kinds of businesses and forcing them to create a plan for enterprise transformation. Here's advice to help.  Continue Reading

• Two IT leadership strategies that made me a successful CIO

  A new way to prioritize IT activities and an epiphany about leadership made all the difference in Niel Nickolaisen's career as an IT leader. Read about these two IT leadership strategies.  Continue Reading

• Agile contracting: How to ensure speedy development and accountability

  Looking for legal advice on how to best craft Agile contracts to ensure both project flexibility and outsourced-developer accountability? Look no further.  Continue Reading

• OpenStack platform deployments: Not every app is a candidate

  In deployments of OpenStack in the enterprise, CIOs need to choose which applications will make the cut. Experts offer advice.  Continue Reading

• Break the bottleneck with this new IT/business engagement model

  CIO teams need to interact more directly with business stakeholders -- from the digital sophisticates to the digital naïfs. Here are five elements of a new business engagement model.  Continue Reading

• The power of positive four-letter words to unlock employee potential

  Four-letter words like can't and don't crush an employee's potential and quash creativity. Have the courage to use positive four-letter words and watch what happens.  Continue Reading

• Modern information asset management present new rules for CIOs, others

  Information asset management has fallen lower on CIOs' list of priorities, but other departments and roles are stepping in as high-quality data drives business decisions.  Continue Reading

• Function as a service, or serverless computing: Cloud's next big act?

  Function as a service, or serverless computing, aims to unshackle developers from the work of provisioning and managing servers. What role will it play in IT's quest for agility?  Continue Reading

• IT career advancement: The move to management

  As businesses increasingly embrace technology as a strategic advantage, IT career advancement will rely on tech professionals' untapped skills as they strive for management roles.  Continue Reading

• Product line management is fundamental to the new IT operating model

  Digital transformation requires CIOs to rethink the way IT operates. At the center of the new IT operating model is product line management, explains CEB's Matt McWha.  Continue Reading

• How to monetize data

  CIOs are increasingly being tasked with capitalizing on company information. Learn how to monetize data in this report from Outsell's DataMoney Conference.  Continue Reading

• CTO: Our quest for agility led us to the OpenStack framework

  Niel Nickolaisen's abiding mission is to make IT a nimble partner to the business. The OpenStack framework has helped.  Continue Reading

• Clear goals, patience required for successful IT automation strategy

  More companies are investing in automation to streamline processes. But for an IT automation strategy to be successful, it's important to start with clear, well defined goals.  Continue Reading

• How to use artificial intelligence for business benefit

  AI expert Josh Sutton lays out the three main ways that companies can use artificial intelligence systems for business advantage.  Continue Reading

• Selling the value of cloud computing to the C-suite

  Selling the value of cloud computing to business leaders requires more than the usual bromides about cost savings and speed-to-market.  Continue Reading

• Principles to guide your DevOps adoption

  Adopting DevOps doesn't simply mean taking up a few practices. It also requires embracing the attitude, culture and philosophy. Learn seven pointers for your journey.  Continue Reading

• Three cloud roles CIOs can't ignore

  Gartner: To fully realize cloud benefits, CIOs need to fill three cloud roles -- one for forming strategy, one for implementing strategy and one for budgeting.  Continue Reading

• Social movements offer CIOs a model for sustaining innovation

  How to sustain innovation is a challenge for startups and large companies alike. Studying the ties that bind social and political movements could help.  Continue Reading

• Transitioning to a DevOps environment? Don't make these four mistakes

  Weak project management skills, missed timelines, thin-skinned staff -- any one of these could torpedo your fledgling DevOps environment.  Continue Reading

• Digital labor: What forward-looking CIOs should know

  In this Q&A, ISG Insights analyst Stanton Jones describes the various types of digital labor and offers pointers for CIOs on how to start deploying it.  Continue Reading

• 2017 CIO priorities: If you do anything next year, do this

  Analytics, security, data privacy and IT specialization loom large for 2017. Here is my CIO guide for surviving another whirlwind year.  Continue Reading

• CIO outlook 2017: Five elements of the new IT operating model

  CIO outlook 2017: Jettison the plan-build-run model, form fusion teams, hire agile learners, double down on IT risk and spearhead a plan to maximize the value of data. Here's how.  Continue Reading

• Crushed by the pace of technology change? Do these two things

  Is complexity killing your ability to keep up with the pace of technology change? Niel Nickolaisen offers a path forward.  Continue Reading

• Achieve digital success: Takeaways from CEB's Summit for IT Leaders

  Faster IT operating models, companywide change, new hires: The CEB Summit for IT Leaders maps out the steps to digital success.  Continue Reading

• Radical changes in IT are masked by sluggish information technology budgets

  Far from stagnant, corporate IT budgets are actually highly dynamic. Growth is tied to digitization efforts which, in turn, are driving big changes in IT.  Continue Reading

• Become a change agent: Stop procrastinating

  Don't be like the white-haired bride and groom who put off the big event until they could afford it. Now is the time for action, says organizational agility expert Joseph Flahiff.  Continue Reading

• Changes in CISO responsibilities call for new reporting structure

  CISO responsibilities are both expanding and shifting to other departments. CEB's Jeremy Bergsman sorts out the future state of IS, privacy and the risk ecosystem.  Continue Reading

• The new vendor governance model: Challenges, best practices

  How do leading IT vendor governance offices successfully adapt to a rapidly changing business environment?  Continue Reading

• IT vendor governance expands to business functions

  In the first of this two-part tip on IT vendor governance, Pace Harmon Director Dan McMahon lays out how vendor governance responsibilities are changing at leading companies.  Continue Reading

• Mobile security issues and solutions

  Mobile technology usage is growing just as the number of threats facing mobile data is growing. CIOs must combat mobile security issues to stay ahead in the mobile-dominated world.  Continue Reading

• Agile organizations still need project status reports

  A worrisome trend is emerging as more organizations adopt agile practices -- disavowal of project status reports.  Continue Reading

• Mulling cloud email services? Ask two questions first

  Before moving productivity software to the cloud, think about what you might lose -- and what you might gain, says Gartner's Guy Creese.  Continue Reading

• Mobile app development skills: How to meet enterprise demand

  How should CIOs gain access to mobile app development skills? That will depend on the scope, complexity, duration and urgency of the work.  Continue Reading

• Advice for IT leaders: How to tell the cloud story

  The case for cloud computing is less about the technical fine points and more about telling a compelling story to your IT team and business peers. Here are four essential elements.  Continue Reading

• Be smart, prepared on cloud service agreements

  Cloud service agreements can be difficult to understand; therefore negotiations with cloud providers can be thorny. A customer advocacy group has several tips.  Continue Reading

• Concerned about mobile vulnerabilities, CIOs add security layers

  IT leaders are adding more security layers in an effort to protect against mobility threats. What tools are in their portfolios?  Continue Reading

• Scaling a business doesn't mean just getting bigger

  Don't blow a fuse when scaling your business. Culture, leadership and organizational structure need to change as your startup grows.  Continue Reading

• The best mobile security plans examine risks first, then prescribe

  How do CIOs deliver the best mobile security? Take a cue from the great psychologist Abraham Maslow, says CTO Niel Nickolaisen.  Continue Reading

• The pivotal role of CIOs in digital readiness: Three principles

  Putting one person in charge of digital readiness won't work, says CEB's Andrew Horne, but that doesn't mean CIOs don't play a pivotal role in digital transformation.  Continue Reading

• Delegator vs. micromanager: What kind of boss are you?

  Being a delegator is one of the hardest jobs for a leader. Joseph Flahiff explains.  Continue Reading

• Board presentations on IT risk: Don't make these five mistakes

  CIO and CISO board presentations on cybersecurity are on the rise. Jeremy Bergsman of consultancy CEB explains what not to do.  Continue Reading

• Three questions for IBM blockchain expert Arvind Krishna

  How many nodes is enough for consensus? Who owns blockchain data? IBM blockchain expert Arvind Krishna addresses these and other burning blockchain issues in this SearchCIO tip.  Continue Reading

• Remote and collocated teams: How to make them better

  Joseph Flahiff pinpoints problems associated with two more types of remote teams and explains why collocated teams may not be all they're cracked up to be.  Continue Reading

• How to optimize the performance of remote teams: Three variations

  Remote teams may not be the ideal, but they are a fact of the modern workplace. Here are three types of remote teams and tips on how to help them work better.  Continue Reading

• Eight best practices for optimizing a distributed team

  Having all your team members under one roof is the exception today rather than the rule. How can you ensure your distributed teams are successful?  Continue Reading

• Six shifts that define enterprise digitization in 2020

  Before business leaders get dragged into conversations about how their company can be the "Uber of their industry," they need to agree on the IT and business trends driving enterprise digitization.  Continue Reading

• Mobile backend as a service: Features and deployment options

  Mobile apps are constantly connected, which makes mobile backend as a service ideal for running business logic and data analysis. Here's what you need to know about cloud back-end services.  Continue Reading

• A CTO's vetting process for hyper-converged architectures

  Hyper-converged architectures: CTO and SearchCIO columnist Niel Nickolaisen lays out the five critical questions he asked before taking the plunge.  Continue Reading

• Without IT process documentation, companies risk being held 'hostage' by IT

  As cybersecurity breaches surge, it's important that company leadership know what IT is up to. Kevin McDonald explains why IT process documentation is a must-have best practice.  Continue Reading

• Evaluating hyper-converged architectures: Five key CIO considerations

  Simplicity and cost savings are among the benefits of hyper-converged architectures, but the biggest draw for CIOs may be how these systems make IT teams more business-ready.  Continue Reading

• Tenets of value-sensitive design: Batya Friedman

  A lot of technology gets made without ever taking human values into account. That's what got Batya Friedman thinking about value-sensitive design.  Continue Reading

• Enterprise 3D Printing Guide: Great opportunity, tough challenges

  SearchCIO's Enterprise 3D Printing Guide infographic alerts CIOs to 3D printing's chief technical challenges and explains why this emerging technology also offers CIOs an extraordinary career opportunity.  Continue Reading

• Three keys to a good business reorganization

  The typical reorg evokes fear, stress and suspicion -- and kills productivity. Here's how to change that.  Continue Reading

• Can an old-school vertical business operate as a platform?

  SearchCIO columnist and CTO Niel Nickolaisen talks about his journey to take a vertical business horizontal in a quest to transform employee and customer connections.  Continue Reading

• Free IT budget plan templates for CIOs

  A solid IT budget is key to both managing tech spending and facilitating collaboration. Check out these free IT budget plan templates to help craft yours.  Continue Reading

• 3D printing strategy a litmus test for CIO leadership

  Your company may never need a 3D printing strategy, but it does need a CIO who can test, validate and scale emerging tech.  Continue Reading

• Bimodal IT strategy opens up opportunities for innovation

  Mode 2 of a bimodal IT strategy can help organizations act more like a startup and tackle some high-risk, high-reward digital business moonshots.  Continue Reading

• Bloomberg: Six gotchas that will upend your data science team

  CIOs, take a note: The head of data science at Bloomberg lays out six gotchas that could sink your big data project.  Continue Reading

• A disaster recovery/business continuity plan for the data breach age

  As we become 'digital by nature,' a good enterprise disaster recovery/business continuity plan must put data first, says Harvey Koeppel. He lays out 10 tips.  Continue Reading

• Eight-step data breach plan for the IT organization

  A data breach plan that addresses the many variations a hack can take should consider these eight points.  Continue Reading

• How to test your DR/BC plan

  Woe to the IT organization that hasn't taken its DR/BC plan out for a spin. The right kind of testing will close the gaps and save IT and the business a lot of grief.  Continue Reading

• How to handle a data breach: Managing public perception

  When your organization plans out how to handle a data breach, managing public perception should be given special consideration. One piece of advice: Don't play the victim.  Continue Reading

• Writing a statement of work? Here's what you should include

  A project's success can hinge on having clear and specific details about it. Download this free checklist to see critical elements of a statement of work.  Continue Reading

• Data monetization success begins with three key concepts

  Companies are eyeing data assets as the new cash cow, but monetizing data is hard to do, warn data monetization experts Lydia Jones and Karl Urich. Here's what you need to know.  Continue Reading

• Free statement of work template examples for CIOs

  Statements of work are critical in helping CIOs keep projects on track and meet business goals. Check out these free statement of work template examples.  Continue Reading

• Without an ITSM strategy, there is no digital transformation

  If digital transformation is on your CIO agenda, then a top-of-class ITSM strategy had better be also. CTO Niel Nickolaisen speaks from experience.  Continue Reading

• Seven CIO tips for the ITSM roadmap ahead

  Harvey Koeppel understands how hard it is to deliver ITSM support for a digital business world. Here are seven ways to ensure you can follow the new ITSM roadmap.  Continue Reading

• How organizational agility will save and destroy your company

  Aiming for organizational agility? Prepare to change how you scope work, structure teams, develop talent, practice leadership, and deliver and sell your products.  Continue Reading

• Government agency puts cloud computing references to effective use

  Free guides from cloud customer advocacy groups fit nicely into Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.'s structured approach to cloud.  Continue Reading

• 3D printing technology: Strategic advice for CIOs

  What is 3D printing? And how can CIOs prepare for its introduction to the workplace? Find out in this SearchCIO tip.  Continue Reading