Podcast tags Archives: Standardization

In this interview, June Drewry, Former Global Chief Information Officer of Chubb Insurance and Aon Corporation, discusses principle one, People, principle three, Project and Portfolio Management, and principle four, IT-Business Partnerships, of World Class IT with Metis Strategy. Some of the topics discussed include:

• First steps when becoming a global CIO
• The need for careful decisions on standardization and centralization with a dilligent exceptions process
• The value of focusing more on streamlining architecture, reuse, data sharing, and portfolio management
• The usefulness of an Office of the CIO
• Pushing leaders to operate at a level higher than one’s position
• Eye on the trends: Ubiquitous access to data, consumerization of IT and the empowerment and pressure from executives outside of IT that is creates, the balance of leveraging cloud computing and maintain a secure environment, and the emerging ability to turn big data into information

This interview is the third in a special series of five eSeminars covering the Five Principles of World Class IT. The five interviews will be broadcast in sequential weeks, and in this conversation on P3-Project & Portfolio Management, Randy Spratt discusses the following ideas:

• The governance improvements that he undertook upon ascending to be the head of technology for the world’s largest healthcare company
• The councils that he has assembled to vet and prioritize work across IT related to the many massive business units that his team supports
• The methods he has used to develop process standards where relevant and appropriate across IT
• The processes that he and his team use to find ideas in one part of the organization that have broader implications for McKesson as a whole, as well as the means by which he spreads them
• The methods Randy uses to communicate the efficacy of his portfolio of projects both internally (within IT) and externally (with his colleagues outside of IT)

In this interview, Dave Smoley discusses two principles of World Class IT with Metis Strategy. Some of the topics discussed include

• Using technology to enable people to work better and to make smarter and faster decisions
• How cost-cutting needs to become part of IT’s culture in order to be effective
• Standardizing core tools to drive low costs
• How mature IT organizations eventually move toward a lean model
• The value of having business unit IT leads with domain expertise

In this interview, Jane Landon discusses two principles of World Class IT with Metis Strategy. Some of the topics discussed include

• How Jane was able to bring disparate IT entities together to create efficiencies across the organization
• The cultural challenges faced when joining an organization that is not accustomed to change in IT
• The importance of team support for change in order to avoid a backward transition once external help is no longer present to support the organization
• The unique role of working in government IT; while business divisions are the primary customers, there is still a responsibility to the citizens
• How Jane’s experience in the corporate sector has prepared her for her transition to the government sector