Dispatches from The Ideosphere

Recently, someone asked me why I decided to work in IT way back in the early 1980s. Great question! There were two primary reasons.

First, when I was conducting research for my master’s report at The University of Texas at Austin, an Economist article speculated that the global IT consulting industry would grow to $4 billion in annual revenue by 1985. Figured I could survive on one percent of $4 billion! This projection now seems laughable given just one global IT consulting company, Accenture had revenue of $61.6 billion in fiscal year 2022.

Second, while working full time at the IRS while studying at the University part time, we decided to replace the punch card driven payroll system with an on-line data entry system. As manager of the timekeeping unit, I represented the “end users.” Once a week, a programmer would meet with me to discuss the project progress. He wore black rimmed glasses with thick lenses, a short-sleeve white shirt, skinny black tie, black pants–and yes–a plastic shirt pocket protector stuffed with pens.

Whenever I asked for some function that would improve the productivity of the timekeeping team, he would say “no.” More often than not at the next meeting, he would say, “OK, I can do it.” I realized that he was trained to say “no” to all my requests and check-in with his boss before committing to do anything. I also learned that I would be held hostage my entire career by someone like him, if I did not get some IT training. And given the growing importance of computers in the workplace, IT training was exactly what I needed.

There was another part-time student at the University whose husband worked in the management consulting division of Arthur Andersen & Co. She introduced us and I discovered that the firm had an outstanding training program. Thankfully, I was invited to join Andersen and over the course of 22 years received a wide-range of training and hands-on experiences in coding, functional and technical design, all phases of testing, change management, software applications, systems development methodologies, and project management at scale. The management consulting division became Andersen Consulting, and in 2001, was rechristened Accenture.

IT has changed a lot over the years, yet many of the concepts, methodologies, and project management approaches endure. I will always be grateful to that guy with the pocket protector and Arthur Andersen & Co.

Barbara Jordan was my favorite teacher at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. She was a Texas senator, U.S. congresswoman, and a distinguished professor. Her class on political values and ethics was inspiring. It was her hope that “participation in this course will enable you to develop a clearer notion of your personal ethics…”

The questions for discussion were fundamental: What is the nature of man? Are humans inherently good or inherently evil?

We read widely and discussed the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, deTocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” Rousseau’s “The Social Contract,” Aristotle’s “Ethics,” the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Articles of Impeachment of Richard Nixon, and Rawls’ “Theory of Justice.”

I’ll never forget the class when she pounded her fist on a copy of Rawls’ “Theory of Justice” and thundered this question to me: “Brad, what IS justice?!?”

She wanted us to become ethically sensitive to our own—and to other’s—behavior. Her definition of ethical behavior is simple: “…being honest, telling the truth, and doing what you said you were going to do.”

We all have worked with people who are inherently evil and who are comfortable with not telling the truth. You cannot fight them in kind because they are very good at what they have learned to do. Non-violence is the best course of action. We have to fight evil with the truth, courage, fairness, and yes, even kindness.

One time, a sales rep tried to get one of my directors to approve a contract knowing they did not have the authority to do so. I reported this ethical lapse to his company and he was justly fired.

Large organizations can also become comfortable with not telling the truth and not doing what they say they would do. One company did not assign the proposed personnel for our project—not one. Turns out that these resources were already dedicated to another client. Later the same company tried to bill us for work that had not yet started. Soon after, the company was dismissed.

Be ethical. Be honest. Tell the truth. Do what you say you are going to do. Thank you for this simple creed Professor Jordan.

We have all heard about runaway IT projects and all the reasons things go bad. In Edward Yourdon’s outstanding book, “Death March,” he says data and metrics “suggest that the average project is likely to be six to 12 months behind schedule and 50 to 100 percent over budget.”

There is one project in my 30 years of IT experience that was completed six months early and under budget. Happy memories of this project came flooding back a couple of weeks ago when Liz contacted me out of the blue. She was in Austin for a conference, and we had not talked since I was in Columbus, Ohio more than 10 years ago.

Liz was the senior project manager on the statewide electronic medical records (EMR) implementation for all the department of human services inpatient facilities in the State of West Virginia.

We reminisced about the balancing act needed to achieve success. Yes, we had a realistic work plan and schedule based on two similar statewide, public sector EMR implementations. Budget and schedule contingencies were factored in. The software we deployed had a proven track record. The client executives were very supportive and remained engaged throughout. Liz maintained tight control of the plans and schedules and expertly guided the team. The team had a perfect balance of healthcare, state government, change management, and EMR skills and experience. And a knowledgeable partner performed independent risk analyses all along the way.

The real secret of our success came from the medical records leaders from every facility who actively participated in the design, configuration, testing, and procedures and training development in Huntington. After a smooth go-live at the Huntington pilot, these  leaders all said that they were ready to deploy and asked to accelerate the rollout across the state. Executive management enthusiastically embraced the new approach, and we finished six months early and under budget. No death march required.

Believe it or not!

Brad Englert Advisory is proud to announce sponsorship of the Austin Forum On Technology and Society (Austin Forum).

The Austin Forum explores the impact of technology on society and stimulates discussions, collaborations, and partnerships on new technology opportunities.

Each month, Austin Forum guest speakers address cutting edge technology topics in health and medicine, business and industry, science and research, education, government, entertainment, and social good. Upcoming topics are: Artificial Intelligence, Drones, Internet of Things, Clean Energy, Blockchain, Educational Tech, Cybersecurity, Smart Cities, Social Media, and Making More and Better Food with Technology. The cutting edge programming is modeled after SXSW Interactive, and in fact SXSW is also a proud sponsor.

The Austin Forum is presented in partnership with the Austin Public Library in the beautiful, newly opened Central Library. No worries for those of you who live elsewhere. The Austin Forum website posts all the presentations and blogs: https://austinforum.org

If you are visiting Austin, please join us at an Austin Forum event to connect, collaborate, and contribute. Admission is FREE and open to the public. Presentations begin at 6:15 p.m., followed by Q&A. The fun networking reception begins at 7:45 p.m.  Hope to see you all there!

After serving for the past seven years as the Chief Information Officer at The University of Texas at Austin, I’m often asked about the evolving role of the CIO.

This will be the first of two dispatches because there is a lot to share.

Information Security Leadership

Own it, lead by example, set high IT staff expectations and accountability, and communicate to your constituents the urgent need to be continually vigilant and uncompromising. Information security threats are 24x7x365. Someone is always trying to break in. State sponsored hacking has mushroomed over the past few years, as evidenced in the probe of Russian election hacking. Russia, North Korea, China, Iran, and eastern European criminal gangs are always probing for weaknesses. Ask your Chief Information Security Officer to test your IT organization, practices, and facilities to be sure you are leading the way by example.

Focus on IT Workforce Hiring and Retention

In academia, we actually can commit to real work/life balance to our IT workforce. Being able to offer work/life balance is a definite competitive edge in a booming high tech city like Austin, Texas.  And serving 52,000 students and 4,000 faculty members at one of the top 25 public universities in the world is meaningful work. Add working in a fun environment with cool colleagues, training on the latest technologies, having plenty of stretch opportunities to build skills, flexible work schedules, and telecommuting is a winning proposition which speaks to all generations, especially the Millennials. The prime directive should always be: Family First!

Moving IT Services to the Cloud

It’s inevitable. Focus has shifted dramatically from buying and managing infrastructure and technical resources to managing vendors and the services they provide.  UT Austin has moved to a number of cloud services: UT branded Gmail for students and alumni, Canvas learning management system, Box for file sharing, Qualtrics survey tool, Office 365 for staff email. Workday HR/Payroll implementation is in flight. The most successful cloud offerings are designed for the web from the beginning. The dark side of the cloud is when companies try to move services designed for servers in your data center to the cloud. This panicked short cut to catch up by traditional product vendors simply does not work.

Let me know what you think. More to come!