When lawmakers passed the most sweeping government IT reform legislation in nearly two decades, federal agency CIOs won significant new budgeting authorities that, along with other provisions, aim to improve efficiencies and reduce waste in the $80 billion federal technology apparatus.
If your organization has adopted an agile methodology and you're frustrated by failure, it's time for a long, hard look in the mirror: Perhaps the problem isn't agile. The problem is your management style. How can you help teams succeed? First, you have to get out of their way, says Selena Delesie, founder and principal at Delesie Solutions, an agile coaching, consulting and training firm, in a workshop held at Agile Alliance 2015 last week in Washington, D.C.
Building a successful team goes beyond hiring charismatic leaders. You need to balance strengths and weaknesses at the board room table. Kathy Harris, managing director of Harris Allied, a firms that provides executive search services, likens it to the "charismatic leaders" in the NFL. She noticed the similarities between a winning NFL team and IT team by watching her brother-in-law Franco Harris, former NFL player and Pro Football Hall of Famer, get recruited.
No two people are exactly alike, but people do they do share traits - and those traits aren't always positive. Some prefer drama or negative attention. They are everywhere, including the workplace. They might be on your team or sit in a nearby cubicle. It could be your boss, a vendor, direct report or a coworker. They're combative, critical or nonproductive.
Most CIOs have an inkling that employees in their enterprise have snuck a few applications past the IT department, but a new study by Cisco indicates that they are vastly underestimating the extent that unauthorized apps and services have infiltrated the network.
Zappos made headlines in 2013 when it announced plans to transition to holacracy -- a management-free corporate structure. One of the biggest motivating factors behind Zappos' decision to restructure isn't that different from what plenty of other well-established companies are seeking: cultivating a startup culture.
Rogue IT, a term used to describe something as commonplace as an employee bringing a smartphone to work or using a cloud-based service to back up files, exists for many reasons. Sometimes it's because the software offered by a company doesn't offer enough features -- maybe an employee can't send an attachment to a client so they turn to Gmail or Dropbox. Other times, it's simply a result of technology's place in our everyday lives -- most people don't think twice about using their smartphone on the company Wi-Fi.
It seems the debate about the IT skills gap has reached a consensus -- both IT leaders and IT workers believe the IT skills gap exists and that it negatively impacts IT operations. But debate remains about the root causes of the skills gap and how best to address them, according to a recent IT Skills Gap Survey released by staffing solutions, IT talent management expertise and IT services provider TEKsystems.
The average tenure of CIOs has reached 5.8 years, according to CIO's 2015 State of the CIO study, but CIOs are still known for moving around a fair bit. When CIOs transition from one company to another, it's a great time to look into the future, reflect on the past and consider how the CIO's role is changing.
Apple's products and platforms have been bona fide game changers in the enterprise, but the company still doesn't give many CIOs the time of day. Unless they commit to buying 10,000 iPads or other Apple devices, enterprises are essentially on their own when it comes to support, according to a group of IT executives who spoke at this week's MacIT Conference in Santa Clara, Calif. All of the CIOs said they hope Apple will do more to embrace the needs of small-to-midsize businesses ... but none are holding their breath.
Benefits are an important part of any IT worker's compensation package, and while the 2015 Computerworld IT Salary Survey revealed that base salaries have risen over the last year, more and more organizations have eliminated at least some benefits from their compensation packages.
"We've always been reluctant to publish numbers about the diversity of our workforce at Google. We now realize we were wrong, and that it's time to be candid about the issues."
How long would you stay at a job, or in a career field, in which --regardless of your passion for the work and your talent, skills and achievements -- you were consistently bombarded with both overt and subliminal messages that you just did not belong?
The good news is that more businesses are planning to boost their IT hiring in 2015. The bad news? Many are struggling to find talent to fill vacant or newly created roles, especially for software developers and data analytics pros, according to a recent survey from HackerRank, which matches IT talent with hiring companies using custom coding challenges.
Among marketers, the drum beat to "personalize" messages and offers to customers is growing louder and faster. Personalization sounds nice, but truth is, it's really a long ways off.