Adventures of an IT Leader Quotes

“IT—especially with its role so greatly enlarged by the arrival of the Internet—has changed not only how we work and conduct business, but also how we (and our customers) play, how we consume, and how we educate our next generations. And yet the IT phenomenon, so evident in the expenditures of every organization, has not yet achieved management attention equal to other areas, such as finance, marketing, operations, and human resources. In far too many companies, IT remains a black box that business managers rarely try to see inside. When business managers do engage in IT discussions, often they bring little expertise to bear. Few feel apologetic about their IT inadequacies. But the time is coming when “I’m not an IT person” will be no more adequate as a manager’s defense in the aftermath of a major corporate problem than Jeff Skilling’s now notorious “I’m not an accountant”—that CEOs effort to explain his failure to foresee or prevent Enron’s spectacular implosion.”
― Robert D. Austin, Adventures of an IT Leader

“He knew that some believed that standardization would impede innovation; that was one of the arguments people who resisted standardization were most inclined to make. But Barton was not so sure of that.”
― Robert D. Austin, Adventures of an IT Leader

“Easily. It’s pretty common in this kind of job to see significant disparities in ability. It’s not like other kinds of work, where the guy who does it best might be one and a half times faster or better than the next person. In IT, especially in an area like software development, some people work a lot faster and a lot better than others.”
― Robert D. Austin, Adventures of an IT Leader

“Iterative, adaptive approach that recognized the importance of developing prototypes or else manually walking through how the system would work in great detail, to discover problems that could not be foreseen any other way, and to make midcourse adjustments”
― Robert D. Austin, Adventures of an IT Leader

“Assigning best people to the project (“If they’re easy to give up, they’re the wrong people.”)”
― Robert D. Austin, Adventures of an IT Leader

“So the best project management policies are those that promote open flow of information up and down the project hierarchy.”
― Robert D. Austin, Adventures of an IT Leader

“Type 1 leadership was about functional requirements and individual systems; the focus was operational. Type 2 was less about managing individual projects and systems, more about managing portfolios of projects and infrastructures, as well as playing a senior team leadership role; Type 2 leaders left the details of managing operational functions and individual systems to others, though they remained accountable for it all working. Type 3 evolved into a job of managing strategy and resources, leaving the details of management of portfolios and infrastructure to others.”
― Robert D. Austin, Adventures of an IT Leader

“Good CIOs are hard to find. Even if you can find one, it may take as much as a year for a CIO new to the company to learn the company environment and become an effective leader.”
― Robert D. Austin, Adventures of an IT Leader

“Oh, I see. I think. I don’t have to actually know things I don’t know, I just have to know what they are and realize that they’re in the don’t-know category.” The kid drained the last of a mug of Coke and slammed it down hard on the bar. “That’s it!” Despite himself, Barton felt proud. He took”
― Robert D. Austin, Adventures of an IT Leader

“Oh, I see. I think. I don’t have to actually know things I don’t know, I just have to know what they are and realize that they’re in the don’t-know category.” The kid drained the last of a mug of Coke and slammed it down hard on the bar. “That’s it!”
― Robert D. Austin, Adventures of an IT Leader