Breakthrough IT: Supercharging Organizational Value Through Technology

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Breakthrough IT: Supercharging Organizational Value Through Technology
Patrick Gray | 2007-11-02 00:00:00 | Wiley | 240 | Management
Unlock the secret to creating maximum business value from technology

Filled with case studies from leading C-level executives to illustrate concepts discussed, Breakthrough IT is a revolutionary approach to reshaping the corporate information technology function. This innovative, step-by-step guide provides concrete methods every business can implement to yield maximum value and competitive advantage from their IT organization.

Patrick Gray (Harrison, NY) is the founder and President of the Prevoyance Group, an IT strategy consultancy that combines project management and process improvement to ensure large IT departments deliver maximum organizational value.
Reviews
Really like what he has to say. Definitely a must read for new and experienced IT managers. Great perspective with lessons that cannot but help us improve our IT organizations.
Reviews
If you're looking for a book that codifies the traditional role of IT, then keep looking. Gray asks much needed questions about IT's traditional role. Rather than relegating IT to providing core services, Gray paints a picture of a future IT organization that truly contributes to the long-term success of the organization. Rife with examples of companies that "get it", Gray's book will certainly ruffle some feathers. I have seen some of my clients very comfortable with the state of IT. To survive, much less thrive, IT will have to take it to the next level. The principles in Breakthrough IT allow them to do just that.
Reviews
Each year CIO Magazine's top IT initiatives lists "Aligning IT with Business Units" as one of CIO's readers' top goals. It's clear that IT management is hungry to work hand-in-hand with business units -- but it's not at all clear how to accomplish that goal. Some people recommend "using business language instead of technology jargon." Others propose playing golf with colleagues from business units. Still others recommend getting an MBA. While each of these is valuable in its own right, none of them really get to the heart of the matter: how do you manage IT *as* a business unit and infuse the company's objectives in every day processes and planning? "Breakthrough IT" addresses this with practical methods of moving IT from an operations focus to a strategy focus.



The book contains sections on creating the right employee base, applying portfolio analysis to your project list, implementing project budgeting discipline, and (as a last resort) how to kill a project.



If you want to move away from being a harried order-taker and become a peer of the other departments in your company, you owe it to yourself to read "Breakthrough IT."




Reviews
This book does a great job of taking several broad areas and tying them together. Most other IT books dig deeply into a single subject, whether its portfolio management or governance, and they don't always show how that area relates to others, or to an IT organization as a whole. They also tend to stray into such esoteric aspects of the topic they cover that they would not help the average executive. This book took all the key areas for a excellent IT organization: strategy, portfolio management, human resources, etc. and tied them together, showing how all the "moving parts" relate to get IT aligned with the business.
Reviews
Breakthrough IT captures the essence of what your IT organization should be doing. The first few chapters break down the operating modes of most IT organizations, allowing the reader to identify their starting point, and contrast that with the author's concept of what IT should look like. The remaining chapters provide a fairly detailed "blueprint" of how to migrate towards this new IT organization. What I liked about this book is that unlike many other IT management books, it is not targeted exclusively towards techies. A CEO would be very comfortable reading the book and using to evaluate how their CIO and IT shop are performing, and using the book to trigger discussions and changes in both to make IT a stronger contributor to the company.

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