Book of the Month (March): 8 Things We Hate About I.T., Susan Cramm, Harvard Business Press, 2010. I blogged on a marketing email that, some weeks ago, advertized the imminent publication of this book, and due to my comments, I was offered an early copy of the book to read. I keenly accepted the offer – and just finished reading the book. Overall it is a nice, easy to read, “hand-book” that provides visibility into that strangest of relationships (not between man and woman, but between business and IT). As with the historical, “Man are from Mars, Woman are from Venus”, Cramm explains how each party views the other, and she gives examples of both views that smelled of actuality since they read a lot like my own experiences (as I figured they would on my blog). Section 8, toward the end of the book, provides a “workbook” that you could use to build the initial bridge between business and IT, starting with, of course, the business strategy and why IT even matters in the first instance. As I read this book I was reminded Marianne Broadbent’s (and Ellen Kitzis) “The New CIO: Setting the Agenda and Delivering Results, 2005, Gartner, Inc. Better though is that Cramm’s book is smaller, cheaper, and found in airports right now; but The New CIO is still recommended due to its target and breadth. I quoted from Cramm’s book a couple of weeks ago at our annual Master Data Management Summit, regarding how to view collaboration between business and IT, and in fact between any stake-holders: “Great relationships aren’t 50-50, they’re 100-100, with each party doing whatever it can to meet the needs of the other.” I thought that is a really good way to look at collaboration (as opposed to cooperation). If only we could each maintain that level of commitment with everyone and everything we do, every day. Recommended 7 out of 10.
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