8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent guidepost for motivated senior IT managers., August 16, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Bob Lewis's IS Survival Guide (Paperback)
I rate this book 5 stars because it's the first text I've come across that accurately maps out the IS landscape (also known as IT or MIS or EDP). IS should always be about providing process automation - and that requires technical leadership. Most people in IS have forgotten that objective.
Bob has done his homework and writes with a confidence born of experience, taking you through the phases of exploration, planning and tracking. I have especially enjoyed the chapter on decision making.
Bob's writing style was interesting enough to hold my attention, though I could only handle a chapter at a time. Overall, an excellent reference work if you're an IS/IT manager looking to move up. It can help you build the skills and understandings for your next promotion.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent material for would-be CIOs, June 6, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Bob Lewis's IS Survival Guide (Paperback)
I'm a huge fan of Bob's weekly Infoworld column, and eagerly anticipated the arrival of this book. As expected, I am impressed by both the quality and quantity of what Bob covers in the IS Survival Guide.
In what I think is a first-of-its-kind book, Bob Lewis lays down the "law of the land" with regards to the IS department's tasks, practices, and responsibilities. It is broad in its scope and could be compared in intent to Peter Drucker's omnibus book "Management": this is the bare minimum stuff that you need to know as a CIO.
A couple of notes that may detract certain readers from this book: it is not very technical, although it can be "jargony" at times. "Playing the political game" is also a theme that permeates this book, which means it may be of more use to CIO's in a large company vs. a smaller startup. Bob's tell-it-like-it-is attitude may catch some of the more naive would-be-CIO's off guard (and even anger them at times). Finally, my own personal nit - Bob writes in a very casual, conversational style. There's nothing particuarily wrong with this - it works well when reading his weekly articles in Infoworld. It is, however, also very hard to do WELL when writing a book. Bob's writing can be distracting at times because of this.
Overall, this book is was a pleasure to read, and will make the "real job" of a CIO very clear to the next generation of aspiring IS managers.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A "must have" for anyone in the technology business., May 10, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Bob Lewis's IS Survival Guide (Paperback)
I read and used Bob's book to aid in my transition to a new company. Coming from the programming world into project management was a scary and risky (new company and new position) venture for me. I reread and applied his sections on project management and hiring new employees (I used the topic to "see" how my boss would view hiring me). It has been very successful for me to date.
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