Robert D. Austin - Adventures of an IT Leader

The Adventures of an IT Leader

Robert D. Austin

Richard L. Nolan

Shannon ODonnell

HARVARD BUSINESS PRESS

Boston, Massachusetts

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Copyright 2009 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to permissions@hbsp.harvard.edu, or mailed to Permissions, Harvard Business School Publishing, 60 Harvard Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02163.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Austin, Robert D. (Robert Daniel), 1962-The adventures of an IT leader / by Robert D. Austin, Richard L. Nolan, Shannon O'Donnell.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-4221-4660-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Information technology Management. 2.

Strategic planningData processing. 3. Management information systems. 4. Information resources management. I. Nolan, Richard L. II. O'Donnell, Shannon. III. Title.

HD30.2.A936 2009

004.068'4dc22

2008041014

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Publications and Documents in Libraries and Archives Z39.48-1992.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We owe thanks to a great many people who helped us conceive and execute this project.

Dean Jay Light and the Division of Research at the Harvard Business School (HBS), President Finn Junge-Jensen of Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Dean Jim Jimbalvo of the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington (UW), and the Philip M. Condit endowed chair at UW all provided financial support for this project, and we are certainly grateful for that.

A number of people provided valuable written feedback on earlier drafts. Ryan Nelson and his colleagues Peter Gray, Glenn Browne, and Stefano Grazioli on the IT faculty at the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia, and Janis Gogan, who coordinates the course on strategic information management at Bentley College, went far beyond the call of any duty and conducted a careful review and provided very detailed comments, which resulted in rather substantive changes. Thoughts provided by F. Warren McFarlan, our colleague at HBS; Bruce Rogow, who runs the IT Odyssey and Private Executive Counsel; Dan Hill, the CIO of Exelon; Jonathan Wareham and Xavier Busquets, both of ESADE in Barcelona; Lee Devin, our frequent coauthor at Swarthmore College; and Cynthia Beath, at the University of Texas at Austin, were also very helpful. Carl Strmer, a man of many talents and interests

entrepreneur, consultant, jazz musician, and author of the JazzCodehelped us immeasurably with the jazz scene in chapter 15, as did Alan Murray, a Novell vice president and computer security expert, with the chapters in which IVK appears to be under attack by

hackers; and Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez, an HBS colleague in the accounting area, helped us with the financial statements for IVK. We are grateful as well to several anonymous reviewers whose written comments we encountered along the way.

Many more people provided us with guidance in a variety of settings. Dick Nolans students at the University of Washington in the fall of 2007 experienced the earliest version of the manuscript and responded with great enthusiasm and many helpful reactions. Rob Austins students at Copenhagen Business School in the spring of 2008 were equally enthusiastic and also prompted many adjustments, as did participants at the Seattle Innovation Symposium in June of 2008 (Mike Eisenberg, Bob Mason, and Gianmario Motta deserve particular recognition), executives at a major corporation who attended an executive education program at UW in April of 2008, and the sixty-five or so senior IT managers who attended Delivering Information Services, an executive education program at HBS in July of 2008.

Numerous others deserve mention. Fellow pedagogues who offered suggestions and thoughts about teaching IT management: Eric Clemons, Wharton; Mark Cotteleer, Marquette; David Croson, SMU; Eph McLean, University of Georgia; and Ed Pritchard, Portland State. Dan Geer, also known as the dean of computer security deep thinkers, allowed us to reproduce some of his materials from a presentation, and Michael Enright, an entrepreneur and chief technology officer at World-Winner, allowed us to use one of his terrific diagrams.

Still others provided support of many kinds while we were working on this: Gary Pisano, Technology and Operations Management area head at HBS; Eva Zeuthen Bentsen, head of the department of Management, Politics, and Philosophy at CBS; Daniel Hjorth, research director and colleague at CBS; Ole Fogh Kirkeby and Mette Mnsted, both colleagues at CBS; and Henrik Hermansen, colleague and master problem solver at CBS. Subodha Kumar, from the Foster School of Business Information Systems and Operations Management department, assisted in teaching early versions of the manuscript. Niels Bjrn-Andersen and Jacob Nrberg provided invaluable advice and assistance that helped us offer the course at CBS. We are also grateful for the support of Pam McCoy, Ed Kromer, L. A. Smith, and Jocelyn Milici from the Marketing & Communications Department at the Foster School of Business.

Several people are notable because of their multifaceted and unflagging support: Karen Coburn, CEO of the Cutter Consortium, allowed us to reproduce her copyrighted material and has been supportive in more ways than we can count. Abbie Lundberg, editor-in-chief of CIO magazine, and Brian Watson, editor of CIO Insight, have been enthusiastic supporters and have provided valuable important thoughts at key moments.

At HBS, the talented Evgenia Eliseeva deserves mention. At Harvard Business Publishing, we are thankful for the exceptional work of associate editor Kathleen Carr, and a whole slate of people: Heide Abelli, Liz Baldwin, Marcy Barnes-Henrie, Todd Berman, Erin Brown, Mike De-Rocco, Julie Devoll, Stephani Finks, Sarah Green, Jeff Kehoe, Audra Longert, Carolyn Monaco, Jacque Murphy, Christine Turnier-Vallecillo, Leslie Zheutlin, and our excellent copyeditor, Monica Jainschigg. Special thanks to artist Asaf Hanuka and composer Christopher Colucci for adding their skills to the project.

Of course we must also thank our families, who endure the consequences of our scurrying to make deadlines and our long video calls across many time zones on sometimes awkward schedules, but who nevertheless provide their unqualified support.

Robert D. Austin

Copenhagen, Denmark

Richard L. Nolan

Boston, Massachusetts

Shannon ODonnell

Puget Sound area, Washington

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Robert D. Austin is a professor of managing creativity and innovation at Copenhagen Business School and an associate professor of technology and operations management at Harvard Business School (HBS). He chairs the HBS executive program for chief information officers and is coauthor (with Lynda Applegate and Deborah Soule) of the leading MBA textbook on IT management. Before becoming a professor, he was an IT manager at a major international corporation. He has written more than one hundred published papers, articles, and cases, as well as several books, some of which have received international awards. He is active on editorial and advisory boards for numerous academic organizations and companies.