IMIS
The Institute for the Management of Information Systems
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The IMIS Blog
Ratings agencies to emerge for cloud computing?
David Bicknell
1 day ago 0 Comments
The forecasts of ratings agencies have dominated the financial world in recent months. Now a similar idea could be targeted at Cloud computing.
According to a report in the Australian newspaper, the research group Gartner's vice-president Brian Prentice believes there is a need for credible external ratings agencies to develop for cloud service providers.
Prentice suggests current industry performance contracts or service level agreements lack the scope to be able to quantify, or be accountable for, any costly and potentially devastating indirect effects that service failures have on businesses.
Trying to mitigate that risk using service level agreements will ultimately prove unwieldy for companies, which means that a new service model must emerge.
"The issue here is that it's very hard to expect the vendors to have a set of impacts on t....Read More
Tracking the energy efficiency of software
David Bicknell
5 days ago 0 Comments
One of the areas that is going to be interesting in coming years is the energy efficiency of software, because the quality of your software could have implications for your energy costs. This week I visited a company in Amsterdam to speak with a Dutch company about its work examining the energy efficiency of software.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
The Software Improvement Group (SIG) has partnered with the local Hogeschool van Amsterdam (HvA) to create the Software Energy Footprint Lab (SEFL), which will enable researchers to ask such questions as:
How do different database management systems compare with each other in terms of energy consum....Read More
IMIS students - a call to action!
Keri Allan
5 days ago 0 Comments
I will soon be starting work on a new feature for the IMIS Journal and I need input from you - IMIS' student members.
The feature will be looking at how IS and IT students can be prepared for the world of work so I would like to hear your views and concerns on this. If you're willing to spare five or so minutes to offer your comments on this topic (and you're happy to possibly appear in an upcoming issue of the IMIS Journal) please can I ask you to email your answers to the following questions to marketing@imis.org.uk.
Thank you in advance for your help and I look forward to hearing your points of view on the topic!
The Questions
Do you feel prepared for the world of work? Why so?
What are you doing to make yourself more employable?
Are you undertaking any work e....Read More
New BSc launched specifically for IMIS graduates
Keri Allan
6 days ago 0 Comments
I thought it would be good to share this news from IMIS - a new degree course has been launched at Staffordshire University designed specifically for IMIS graduates.
A distance learning BSc in Information Systems Management, the course is open only to IMIS Higher Dimplomates and is fully accredited by and in association with IMIS. On completion of the course you will have a BSc (Hons) qualification and be eligible for full membership of IMIS - designated MIMIS.
Read our news story on the course in our student section of the site for further details.
35% of IT expenditure to be managed outside IT departments by 2015
David Bicknell
7 days ago 0 Comments
The Gartner research group has predicted that by 2015, 35% of enterprise IT expenditure will be managed outside the IT department's budget. But that may not be a bad thing.
Speaking at an event in Singapore, Brian Prentice, Research Vice President at Gartner suggested that the involvement of other organisation functions such as marketing in the purchase of IT solutions can improve collaboration between them and IT. Meanwhile the key role for IT managers is to focus on connecting business solutions together. Prentice argued that CIOs and IT managers should not focus so much on the technology but should recognise that the new digital enterprise thrives on information and collaboration. IT managers need to become the coordinators or brokers of IT-related activities across the business and to share IT budget management across it.
At the sam....Read More
Managing IT in a disruptive world
David Bicknell
11 days ago 0 Comments
It's a challenging time for CIOs and IT managers. What has been labelled a perfect storm of disruptive technologies: virtualisation, cloud computing, social media, and mobile technologies is creating disruption within organisations which somehow the IT manager has to pilot his or her way through. The problem is, as one blog put it this week, "the velocity of change is so fast that uncharted risks make navigating today’s IT environment more challenging than ever."
What is happening it that the CIO’s role has evolved from providing tactical support for the business to becoming a strategic partner, and so aligning IT’s priorities to those of the business is of paramount importance. At the same time, the CIO must turn information into insight when the business is seeking to implement new technology solutions to achieve competitive advantage. At the same time, and often this s....Read More
Considering the human factor in IT project management
David Bicknell
13 days ago 0 Comments
I was recently reading an article on a management blog which was commenting on the poor track record of IT projects.
It cited a study by the management consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers, which reviewed 10,640 projects from 200 companies in 30 countries and across various industries, and found that only 2.5% of the companies successfully completed 100% of their projects. A similar study published in the Harvard Business Review, found that the average overrun was 27%, but one in six projects had a cost overrun of 200% on average and a schedule overrun of almost 70%.
The point that the blog made was that when it comes to project management, organisations tend to put their practices before their people. They put more emphasis on factors such as the process itself and less focus on emotional drivers that ....Read More
Adopting an engineering-based approach to IT
David Bicknell
16 days ago 0 Comments
I was recently chatting with a software testing company in the UK all about the challenges involved in delivering IT projects.
We came to the conclusion that establishing and maintaining control of an outsourced project is the single, most important part of IT development; it is imperative for the purchaser to remain in full control at all times, because when that control disappears, often so does the project.
The nature of the procurement process and inevitable time pressures means that the requirements of a new software system aren’t always well-defined at project inception. Typically, specifications are incomplete or ambiguous and put together from a range of disparate sources, with non-existent internal process and control. The “silo” attitude that is often encountered across departmental organisations is usually a key factor. Requirements that ar....Read More
IT managers must drive business change 'from the inside out'
David Bicknell
19 days ago 0 Comments
The management consultancy PwC has argued that top-performing organisations show greater mastery in how they leverage digital technologies by the way they embrace consumerisation, the Cloud and social media.
The management company’s this week published its Digital IQ survey which says that these top performers are already offering mobile tools for customers, measuring data through social media, mobilising applications to the public Cloud and are applying innovative use of business intelligence. It also finds that most enterprises are still playing catch-up on the consumerisation of IT.
It points to an increasingly critical role for the CIO. PwC argues that CIOs must be excellent at managing the internal factory, but also excel at mobilising new plans into action.
Government IT managers suffer Cloud concerns
David Bicknell
22 days ago 0 Comments
IT managers working in government in the US are being urged to adopt Cloud computing as their first choice for federal computer systems. But a new survey has suggested that concerns over security and a lack of clarity over cost savings means those managers are reluctant to jump into the Cloud until they are ready.
Initiatives from the Office of Management and Budget such as 'Cloud First' have encouraged those responsible for managing IT systems to move three services to the Cloud over 18 months in a bid to reduce costs and increase flexibility.
Yet according to the survey by the Ponemon Institute research group, although 91% of federal IT workers are familiar with the Office of Management and Budget's Cloud First initiative, 69% believe that the plan to move the three services to the Cloud is too fast. 71% went further and said that government pressur....Read More