Sample Essay On The Adventures Of An It Leader

The book tells about the struggles of Jim Barton, a new Chief Information Officer at the IVK Corporation. In the world of Information Technology, Jim had to manage relationships with employees, other managers, and vendors. Most especially, he had to anticipate emerging technology. In the chapter entitled Emerging Technology, all of these concerns were brought up and greatly challenged Barton’s IT leadership (Austin, Nolan, & O’Donnell, 2009).
Barton received information about a security breach from Fenton, the Infrastructure and Operations head. It meant that the company’s confidential database could be accessed. It was unknown how such a problem occurred. They suspect that it was picked up from network consolidation that happened years ago, during the merger of IVK and People. The other company certainly had a different technology. It was likely where the hole thrived. Nonetheless, the IT department where Jim has been leading was responsible for comprehending and maintaining the system. It became the department that attempted to solve the problem. Unfortunately, funding was a hindrance (Austin, Nolan, & O’Donnell, 2009).
Funding in the IT world follows a project-approval process. It was relatively easier to get funding when the direct customer benefit would be provided. In the case of IVK, however, it was a preventive measure. Investors would find such project unattractive. Furthermore, its proposal has been shot down in the previous years. It was due to highly technical content. In fact, it was Jim who made the criticism, resulting in resentment from the people in the department. Consequently, it made Jim’s life in the CIO position even more difficult (Austin, Nolan, & O’Donnell, 2009).
Here, we learned from about the importance of scanning and analyzing emerging technologies from Jim. He backtracked to what happened at the time and wished to have responded differently. Jim could have taken advantage of the time and effort allotted for the project in order to succeed. It is important to note that years were involved in establishing a project. In measuring the time and effort we must render for scanning and analyzing emerging technologies, we infer that it would take as long as it takes for the project to be understood clearly. Jim himself shot down proposals because he did not understand them (Austin, Nolan, & O’Donnell, 2009; O’Brien, 2012).
The problem got worse when the blog issue emerged. The technical service group director Ruben posed three questions. The first is about concrete responses. The response was that they must not do anything, as it would only get worse. The second is on the general policy on blogging. Implications included legal and propriety information. The third is the process for spotting emerging technologies. Jim stated that a restrictive policy must be placed on blogging. Prior to this, however, they thought of taking down the blog entry (Austin, Nolan, & O’Donnell, 2009).
Their response has been a tool in social media. There are many others nonetheless. With this, we would opt to proceed with the idea of taking down the blog entry. Yet, we would suggest executing it through burying the issue. When the company’s reputation is at stake, any negative association must be drowned through flooding the Web with good content (Neidlinger, 2013).
The answers to the rest of the questions were agreeable. We would only want to add confidentiality as well as copyright on the general policies to consider. This is because these policies would be able to protect the company from future similar instances as they regulate internal operations. Copyright, on the other hand, would at least enable the company to claim rights that may be violated through external factors such as blogging sites (University of Wyoming, 2015). On spotting emerging technologies, the company has to keep itself updated and should adjust accordingly as opposed to merely putting restrictions. This is because emerging technologies essentially demand change and innovation that may be overlooked with restrictions (Franks, 2013).
The company then envisioned standardization. There were three proposed systems. The first option is called the “do nothing” or voluntary compliance. Business units are called to consider infrastructure concerns necessary in running a tool or system they want to acquire. The second option is called the strict enforcement. The IT department decides the standards. It has absolute enforcement authority. The third option is called the gradual migration. The previous two proposals belong to the opposite ends of the spectrum. This option is positioned in between them. It included categorizing recognized technology platforms into three sets. These are the emerging, declining, and standard. As what the labels imply, the ones in the emerging technologies are new and prospective future standards. The declining technologies, on the other hand, are its opposite. The standard category designates what the company can support (Austin, Nolan, & O’Donnell, 2009; O’Brien, 2012).
Among the proposals, it is the second option that the company must sue for enforcing infrastructure technology standards. Nonetheless, we infer that the company rethink a particular option. Perhaps, they must consider all of them. As discussed, the world of IT changes every time and the company having a particular system may not be able to catch up to it. Jim encountered these two cents from a kid and his toolkit approach to management. The kid stated that a certain framework might turn bad when circumstances change. With this, the company loses its ability to handle new situations. We recommend that a company be driven with eyes on the road as it comes by. There are various ways to arrive in a destination just as many roadblocks exist. The driver of the company must be able to maneuver and take alternate routes.

References

Austin, R. D., Nolan, R. L., & O’Donnell, S. (2009). The adventures of an IT leader. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
Franks, P. C. (2013). Records and information management. USA: American Library Association.
Neidlinger, J. (2013). How to respond to and manage negative feedback. Retrieved from http://todaymade.com/blog/how-to-respond-and-manage-negative-feedback/
O’Brien, J. (2012). Top ten mistakes to avoid when adopting emerging technologies in BI. Retrieved from http://radiantadvisors.com/2012/12/17/top10mistakes_emergingtechnology/