In 2011 PMI and Forrester jointly published a report – “State of PMO”. Although the report was targeting specifically problems that Project Management Offices face, the interesting thing is that the findings are very much relevant to information management implementations. One of the measured factors in the study was the perception of value that PMO brings to organizations and its correlation to the organizational reporting lines. The surprising outcome of the report was that while organizations perceived the PMOs as of high value where they reported to CEO (38%) or CFO (36%), the approval rate dramatically dropped down when PMOs reported to CIO (22%) and VP IS/IT (15%). This could lead to conclusion that the lines of business either:
- distrust IS/IT departments,
- perceive IS/IT as detached from the business and not addressing their real problems, or
- benefits from IT/IS initiatives are potentially intangible and/or never measured after projects are completed
I do not have specific numbers for information management initiatives, but experience seems to confirm similar correlation. When information management projects are not driven by the business but rather by IT, they are often observed with distrust, little confidence and support. Indeed, some of the IT/IS information management initiatives focus on technology, with poor understanding of the business processes, goals and operations. If this is true, to improve the odds, they should be conceptualized and driven by the business groups rather than by IT. Using Pareto principle, maybe 80% of focus should be on business transformation and knowledge management, and 20% on technology. Delivery should still reside within IS but the business should be firmly in the driver’s seat. The recent explosion in collaboration methods, are blurring the boundaries between the external and internal, business and social, stationary and mobile collaboration, bringing new opportunities and challenges. There is no doubt – the cloud computing is going to revolutionize the way how IS and IT departments work today. IT is becoming increasingly a commodity, and some jobs are quickly disappearing, although recent IDC study brought news that cloud services are going to generate 14 million new jobs by 2015. Too bad that they are going to be in some other, cheaper part of the world. This trend will also force redefinition of the role of the CIO – maybe putting ‘Information’ back into the title – changing the focus from the infrastructure and technology to identification, valuation, definition of metrics and the management of the information as any other enterprise asset. I believe that both – shifting of the responsibility for information management initiatives to the business, as well as recognizing that information is the asset will increase success rates of IM initiatives within organizations, leading to improved profits, reduced risks internally and better service to customers externally.
