This is the second in a good intentioned series of blogs detailing my experiences and uses of the tool. The first blog, SharePoint 101, provided some context and a ‘fictional use-case’ which the following blog is based on.
Continue readingMathematics can be used and presented in a manner that distorts the underlying truth or at least the underlying likelihood of a truth.
A mathematician seated at a table, working on mathematical equations
YAWWWNNNNN, who cares – Charles Seife does and tells us why you should care too in this book, “Proofiness: How You’re Being Fooled By The Numbers“.
Seife’s position is that bad math is more than being hoodwinked into buying oatmeal (see Quaker Oatmeal cholesterol numbers); bad numbers disenfranchise voters and erodes the democratic rights of Americans.
Be warned, this is a heavily American-focused book in which about half is dedicated to the challenges of the US voting systems. If you can get past this bias, some interesting terminology and underhanded methods are exposed. Here are a few:
* Named for Prince Potemkin who convinced the empress of Russia that the Crimea was populated by constructing villages that were only convincing when viewed from a distance – such as a passing royal carriage. An example of a Potemkin number was Joe McCarthy’s famous claim of 205 communists in the State Department.
** This one is worth a blog on its own so for more, read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor’s_fallacy.
These are important concepts for not only a citizen to consider when looking at dubious polling information but in the business or public policy world as well. If there is a shortcoming in Seife’s book, this is it. In my opinion he over focuses on the bad use of numbers in the public arena without touching on how CEO’s, CFOs, Boards and government-Ministers may also be hoodwinked.
Individuals being asked to make decisions based on numbers need to be able to cut through the packaging techniques discussed above. This is becoming more important as our society moves to a 144 character Twitter attention span and public policy needs to be distilled down to a simple infographic. As well, while developing a dashboard for a business is valuable, be sure that it is not filled with polished, cherry picked, Potemkin numbers based on a disestimation
Returning to the book, Seife has some advise for the US when it comes to the United States census. Written into the constitution, once-every-decade process of counting all American citizens costs about $6.5 Billion dollars. For this expenditure, it is estimate that the census misses about 2% of the United States population and double counts about 1%. While these numbers would in theory cancel each other out (more or less), the impact is that there about 10 million US voters not accounted for in the census.
This error rate can be mitigated through techniques known as statistical sampling which will smooth out the distortions. The result would be generally more people counted in poorer, racial minority areas who don’t like to fill in census forms or talk to government officials. The ‘result of the result’ would be these people would then have more politicians to vote for (larger representation) and to send to Washington.
So far sounds good except that poor, non-white folks tend to vote for the Democrats which is why there is another perspective: only a count – counts. This being America, the counting challenge has generated a lot of legal attention and two population numbers. One used by everyone who needs precise data to estimate everyday population trends and another used to reapportion the House of Representative seats. After numerous legal battles, millions of Americans are disenfranchised because only a more error prone enumeration technique is permitted (see pages 185-198 for a more thorough explanation and also some very impressive legal gymnastics by the Supreme Court).
Seife sees himself as unbiased journalist although his leftiness tends to negate this somewhat. He distrusts political polls, NASA, fluffy articles in scientific journals and the social sciences. In other words, reading Proofiness is like visiting with a self-indulgent, opinionated curmudgeon – who is also brilliant and often right. If you use numbers to make decisions in your day to day life, I would encourage you to take your ‘Proofiness-Field Guide’ with you.
Do you know someone who has just graduated from an accounting, business or finance program and is considering pursuing the new Canadian-CPA designation?
Within the ministry of Advanced Education I am recruiting my first ‘pre-CPA’ intern. I am looking for that one person (young, new-Canadian, new career) who can shine and make the program widely successful within the Government of Alberta.
I am keen to have the right person because:
Below are two key links, one an overview of the recruitment the second my philosophy on running intern programs. As time and interest permits, I will post future blogs on the value of things like:
The blog post discusses Question #2 of the SWOT+4 IM/IT Planning Model, which focuses on assessing an organization’s Information Management/Technology resources. It emphasizes the importance of inventorying existing IM/IT assets before acquiring new ones, and explores the complexities of determining what qualifies as a valuable resource, introducing the concept of a “grey zone.”
Continue readingThank you to those who provided comments on my previous IM/IT Lifecycle Model. Your collective whacks on the side of my digital head identified a number of areas of improvement. Thus, this is a Re-Do blog with what I think is a much better model. Thanks again for your comments!
The previous blog introduced the SWOT+4 Planning Model. The value of the model is the ability to focus on specific elements of IM/IT planning. Once an organization is successful with one part of the model, it can move on to other areas needing improvement. This blog will introduce a tool to evaluate the robustness of an organization’s IM/IT lifecycle. Intended to be an introduction, future blogs will drill down further.
One of the first areas of model to evaluate is internally focused on the IM/IT needs and capabilities of the organization. In the SWOT+4 model these are represented by the organization’s IM/IT strengths and weaknesses and specifically questions 2 and 3:
The IM/IT Lifecycle Model is an adaptation of the Asset Lifecycle Model. While the Asset Lifecycle Model focuses on the management of tangible assets, the IM/IT variation is concerned with the acquisition of things like computers and technology systems. The governance, system and audit functions at the bottom of the model answer questions #3, what is an organization’s IM/IT capacity? All the other steps answer question #2, what are the organization’s IM/IT needs and are (or when/how will) these needs to be fulfilled or they support the accounting and reporting functions.
Information Management/ Techology Lifecycle Model (revised March 1 2014)
IM/IT resources move through the model from left to right and may use more or less of each step depending upon the nature of the IM/IT system. In theory the model applies equally well to both technology (infrastructure, applications) as to information itself (data, reporting, data standards, etc.).
Two steps of note are Step 03 and 13. Step 03, the Project Management Office (PMO) replaces the requirements specification in the Asset Lifecycle Model but is broader and ideally encompasses other steps. For example, a good PMO methodology incorporates procurement processes such as issuing requests for proposals (Step 04), managing resulting vendor contracts (Step 05) and managing the vendor provision of assets, software, licenses or consulting services (Step 07).
Step 13 replaces the asset management function in the Asset Lifecycle Model. It includes in or outsourced functions such as application maintenance or technology production management. In an ideal world, these processes and systems drive the accounting of IM/IT. For example, an application built, capitalized but then abandoned is identified in this Step and communicated to the accounting system for de-recognition or conversely adjustments to the amortization schedule. Step 13 also straddles the central corporate IT and business area functions as it should be a partnership between the two.
Direct Attribute Costs (Step 09) and System Business Operations (Step 10) are purposely overlapped. Direct Attribute costs are the resources the organization brings to bear to implement a system. Examples can include the dedicated project staffing or costs to retrofit a data centre to accommodate new servers supporting an application. System Business Operations by contrast are the costs and effort to commission the system and bring it online. From an organizational perspective, Step 10 asks (and answers) the question, does the IM/IT resource meet the business needs identified for the asset?
Included in each step are possible metrics as well as the information system such as the organization’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tool or Information Technology System that may support the step. For brevity, the following ERP components are used:
The purpose of this blog was to introduce the IM/IT Lifecycle Framework and place it in context to the SWOT+4 Model. In future blogs, I plan to drill down on each of the Steps and provide examples of systems, standards and best practices across organizations.
What do you think? Does your organization use a systematic method such as the IM/IT Lifecycle to plan, implement and manage your IM/IT investments? Where do your systems potentially lie within the model? For example, does your organization have a systematic PMO function or do you even know what is in your application fleet? Drop me a note and send me a comment with your perspectives.
Note to the Reader, this Blog was superceded by this Re-Do Blog on the IM/IT Lifecycle.
The previous blog introduced the SWOT+4 Planning Model. The value of the model is the ability to focus on specific elements of IM/IT planning. Once an organization is successful with one part of the model, it can move on to other areas needing improvement. This blog will introduce a tool to evaluate the robustness of an organization’s IM/IT lifecycle. Intended to be an introduction, future blogs will drill down further.
The Role the IM/IT Lifecycle Model plays in the SWOT+4 Model
One of the first areas of model to evaluate is internally focused on the IM/IT needs and capabilities of the organization. In the SWOT+4 model these are represented by the organization’s IM/IT strengths and weaknesses and specifically questions 2 and 3:
The IM/IT Lifecycle Model is an adaptation of the Asset Lifecycle Model (source pending). While the Asset Lifecycle Model focuses on the management of tangible assets, the IM/IT variation is concerned with the acquisition of things like computers and technology systems. The governance, system and audit functions at the bottom of the model are used to answer questions #3, what is an organization’s IM/IT capacity? All the other steps answer question #2, what are the organization’s IM/IT needs and are (or when/how will) these needs to be fulfilled.
Information Management/ Techology Lifecycle MOdel
IM/IT resources move through the model from left to right and may use more or less of each step depending upon the nature of the system being acquired. Of note is step 03, the Project Management Office (PMO). This replaces the requirements specification in the Asset Lifecycle Model but is broader and ideally encompasses other steps. For example, a good PMO methodology incorporates procurement processes such as issuing requests for proposals (Step 04), managing resulting vendor contracts (Step 05) and managing the vendor provision of assets, software, licenses or consulting services (Step 07).
Direct Attribute Costs (Step 09) and System Business Operations (Step 10) are purposely overlapped. Direct Attribute costs are the resources the organization brings to bear to implement a system. Examples can include the dedicated project staffing or costs to retrofit a data centre to accommodate new servers supporting an application. System Business Operations by contrast are the costs and effort to commission the system and bring it online. From an organizational perspective, Step 10 asks (and answers) the question, does the IM/IT resource meet the business needs identified for the asset?
Included in each step are possible metrics as well as the information system such as the organization’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tool that may support the step. For brevity, the following ERP components are used:
The purpose of this blog was to introduce the IM/IT Lifecycle Framework and place it in context to the SWOT+4 Model. In future blogs, I plan to drill down on each of the Steps and provide examples of systems, standards and best practices across organizations.
What do you think? Does your organization use a systematic method such as the IM/IT Lifecycle to plan, implement and manage your IM/IT investments? Where do your systems potentially lie within the model? For example, does your organization have a systematic PMO function or do you even know what is in your application fleet? Drop me a note and send me a comment with your perspectives.
Information Management/Technology (IM/IT) is expensive. As well, the advantages it provides are fleeting and easy to imitate (or worse steal). An organization must strategically and operationally plan for its investments in IM/IT. The problem is, what exactly should be in the Strategic or Operational plan, and what are the questions the plans are trying to answer?
Over the past 20+ years I have being pondering these questions. Being a visual person, I have developed what I am calling the SWOT+4 IM/IT Planning Model. It is a bit busy but here it goes. At the centre is the SWOT matrix. Overlaying the SWOT matrix are the four-central IM/IT questions and on top of the questions are the respective planning tools to answer the questions.
SWOT+4 Planning Model
At the core of the SWOT+4 model are the organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This 2×2 matrix is a mainstay of strategic analysis. Although familiar to virtually everyone, in brief it is a method to view a situation from two key dimensions: internal versus external and positive versus negative. For example, Strengths are internal-positive attributes whereas Threats represents the external-negative possibilities.
Unfortunately, the SWOT tool is incomplete when it comes to evaluating an organization’s IM/IT. For example, is a change of technology an opportunity or a threat? Are the existing IM/IT systems a strength or a weakness? The answer to both questions is – it depends. As a result, I have used a Four Question Model for IM/IT Planning over the years as an analysis checklist. In order of priority the questions are:
Finally two typical planning tools are overlaid on the SWOT and 4 questions. The bottom and foundation is the organization’s business or strategic plan. IM/IT may have its own strategic plan or it may piggy back on a larger corporate plan. Irrespective, the plan should be able to answer the questions of (q1) what is important and (q4) what is on the horizon for the organization? The IM/IT operational plan focuses on the questions of (q3) current capacity and (q2) near term organizational IM/IT activities.
The delineation between the plans is not clear and ideally they should overlap each other rather than having a gap. The operational plan purposely extends into the Threat quadrant of the organization and the Business Plan relies on organizational strengths to capitalize on opportunities in the environment.
What do you think? Is the SWOT+4 Planning Model a muddled mess or does it provide a conceptual basis in which your organization can begin to structure its IM/IT planning. What is the value proposition to understanding and using the model well? I believe the model can support faster technology adoption, lower cost of implementation and ownership and better leveraging of IM/IT assets. Stay tuned as I am hoping to drill in a bit more into the model in future blogs. For example:
