TABLE OF CONTENTS He had been 8 years upon a project for extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, which were to be put into phials hermetically sealed and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers.
Jonathan Swift Gulliver s Travels
I particularly like the quote above because it summarizes beautifully the pursuit of a valiant, not to say quixotic, quest founded on hopelessly flawed assumptions. That, I m afraid is the way many grandiose IT transformation programmes are conducted. This is why I am strongly advocating that you focus simply on transforming those practices that will add optimum value, rather than try to solve world poverty .
In this final chapter I want to set out the charter for creating a value-driven IT function. But before I do that I feel I have to address a key question that I am repeatedly asked, namely, is it not just the case that your value-driven IT function simply has to act like an ESP?
I have spent some time in this book comparing (generally pejoratively) internal IT functions with external service providers (ESPs), driving home the need to commercialize (and de-corporatize ) the former. Indeed, the whole thrust of this book has been to establish practices that will help engender dynamic, entrepreneurial behaviours into organizations that are often beset by internal politics, conservatism and risk avoidance. So, should our value-driven IT function just look like an IT ESP? This is (generally) the currently accepted wisdom (but certainly not mine, as I hope...
