Making I/T Work: An Executive's Guide to Implementing Information Technology Systems

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0470397837 ISBN 13: 9780470397831

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 2002

A Framework for the Strategic Use of I/T to Transform Business Projects

Making I/T Work offers managers basic guidance and an effective model for making the right choices when considering implementing information-based business projects. In this book, Dennis Severance and Jacque Passino provide business leaders with a framework of organizational change that places the problems of change into a context so that they can be effectively addressed and outlines a proven framework that can be adapted to a variety of situations.

Making I/T Work offers managers

• A framework for managing I/T investment opportunities
• Fifty helpful questions for leading a program of strategic change
• Guidance for overcoming the powerful blocks to changes in infrastructure
• Suggestions for formulating a winning strategy
• A model for preparing and implementing a project
• Information on how to assess the success of a program

Making I/T Work can help managers guide a strategic I/T transformation with a plan that is based on a strong sense of objective and a credible assessment of current realities.

From the Inside Flap:

Each year billions of dollars are wasted on ill-conceived or poorly executed plans to incorporate information technology into business practices. Often there is a wide gap between the visionary strategies a company aspires to and the operating performance an enterprise actually attains.
In this much-needed book, Dennis Severance and Jacque Passino-- two of the country's foremost experts in the field of information technology-- show how information-based business transformation projects are actually major organizational change events. To help managers meet the challenge of these events, the book outlines an innovative framework of organizational change that places the obstacles to change into a context that can be effectively addressed. The authors describe the dimensions in which a business and its operations might change as a result of strategic choices and then define the sequence of activities that can be put in place to accomplish these dramatic changes. The authors also offer solid advice for general managers who must get at and eliminate the root causes of implementation failures.
Throughout the book, Severance and Passino use a hypothetical case study (GMI) in which actual facts and events from ten corporate research sites have been blended together. This case offers a succinct presentation of situations, issues, and dilemmas that businesses have uncovered on a recurrent basis when implementing information technology systems.

About the Author:

Dennis G. Severance is the Accenture Professor of Computer and Information Systems in the University of Michigan Business School, where he has served as the chairman of the computer and information systems faculty and the director of the Information Systems Executive Forum. Severance serves on the board of directors of Tenneco Automotive. He has lectured in executive development seminars throughout the United States and internationally and has consulted on issues of information technology implementation with more than fifty corporations.

Jacque Passino is the first director to lead the state of Michigan's Department of Information Technology. Formerly he was a partner with Accenture. His expertise includes extensive experience with large-scale change programs, which included global responsibilities in the chemical, utility and energy industry sectors.