Customer Reviews

CIO Wisdom II: More Best Practices

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

[Well, I haven't read "CIO Wisdom", so I can't compare it to this book.]

The text spans a fairly wide variety of topics, all of which are germane to you if you are a CIO. Or CTO for that matter. Try not to take the title too literally. The book is worth reading even if you are not at a CIO or CTO rank. If you have any managerial responsibility for IT, then the material covered here has relevance.

Having said this, not every chapter is likely to be of use to a given reader. There is a nice discussion on using RFID tags in a collaborative supply chain. RFID is certainly a hot topic in some circles. But if you are not involved with supply chain management, this chapter is moot.

Overall, the chapters are fairly introductory about their topics. For instance, one chapter pertains to securing (protecting) an IT facility. But it is a short chapter that does not go into much detail. Another chapter talks about how to measure the return on investment on software development. It delineates various metrics like Earned Value Analysis and net present value. It differs from the rest of the book in that it is probably meant for a manager who hails from a technical background and is unfamiliar with financial terms. While the other chapters are likely targeted towards managers from nontechnical backgrounds.

Perhaps it is best if you treat this book as an overview of its topics, and as a lead-in into more specialised and comprehensive texts.

Real-world CIOs working in IT leadership positions know best what works, and their collective wisdom in CIO Wisdom II: More Best Practices offers solutions not only for IT professionals, but for any involved in business systems management. CIO Wisdom II can be used as both a business and computer classroom text and as a IT professional's reference: it covers everything from quantifying software return on investment to understanding how successful IT outsourcing works and how to secure IT facilities. A highly recommended pick based on practical experience in the IT management world.

The book is written by a number of CIO's and is broken into a wide breath of topics, one per chapter. Not every chapter will be appropriate for everyone; the best read will come from picking the top five areas of interest and start there.

The points made in the book are good; however, a narrowing of topics and more detailed examples of how to implement the suggestions / strategies would have added punch to the book's overall impact.

For me, the best outcome was refining my list of the top ten metrics by which I judge my effectiveness.

This book basically contains discussions with various CIOs about their changing roles within organizations. The authors examine not only how their roles have changed, but also how they have remained the same, and how the importance of marketing or persuading management, subordinates, and board members has changed their roles. Of course they also examine hardware and software issues that CIOs face and issues like securing the IT facility, running applications over the Internet, information management, models for evaluating Return On Investment, making sure that technology is user-driven without becoming controlled by those users, outsourcing and architecture, and IT governance and procurement. CIO Wisdom II is recommended for CIOs and those who wish to understand the internal and external pressures on them in the current business environment.

I purchased "CIO Wisdom" and found it to be excellent. Based on that, I bought this book thinking it was an update. I am disappointed to find that none of the authors from CIO Wisdom are involved in this poorly done counterfeit. This imitation is just that, and does not approach the level of quality that CIO Wisdom brought to the table. If I could get my money back, I would donate directly to the CIO Scholarship Fund mentioned on the back cover of the first book.

I just finished slogging through the book CIO Wisdom 2: More Best Practices by Phillip Laplante and Thomas Costello. In my opinion, this is a book that you'll either love because it was just what you needed, or you'll think it as being too much stuff that you don't care about.

Contents: The Changing Role of the CIO; Scope of the CIO; It's All About the Marketing; Creating a Community of Practice for CIOs; Securing the IT Facility; Running Business-Critical Applications Over the Internet - "The Middle Mile"; Information Management - What's Next?; Enterprise Integration - Methods and Technologies; Toward Collaborative Supply Chains Using RFID; Real-Time, Mission-Critical Business Intelligence - Lessons from the Military and Intelligence Community; Software Return on Investment (ROI); Starting with the Users; Business Process Improvement; The Five Ws of IT Outsourcing; Outsourced Environments; Enterprise Information Architecture; Adaptive and Aware - Strategy, Architecture, and IT Leadership in an Age of Commoditization; Open Source - Time for a Plan; IT Governance - Toward a Unified Framework Linked to and Driven by Corporate Governance; E-Government; Compliance; Navigating the IT Procurement and Outsourcing Process; Index

Compiliation books like this one always drive me a bit batty when it comes to reviewing. On one hand, they are a good way to get a broad view of many varying slants on a given topic. On the other hand, the quality and style of each chapter can be frustratingly erratic. A solid chapter on one aspect can be followed by one that leaves you scratching your head. In CIO Wisdom 2, we have a number of topics covered, some of which are specific to CIO effectiveness, and others of which seem to be "technology du jour 101" chapters. For instance, the 5 Ws of IT Outsourcing is pretty specific to issues that CIOs deal with now. But the RFID chapter seems to be more along the lines of introducing a technology for someone who doesn't know what it is. Granted, if you were a CIO looking to implement something like that, you'd find it timely and invaluable. But there's a good chance you'd end up skipping over that chapter because RFID isn't on your radar screen. Same with Internet applications... If you're doing that already, you probably already know the information. I guess I just found the range of information covered in this book a bit too broad to recommend it as a complete book. Maybe certain chapters...

If you're a CIO or a high-level technologist and you see a chapter (or chapters) here that interests you, by all means get the book. You'll find value there. But if you're looking for something that delivers insight and information all the way through, you might end up disappointed.

This book is a complete fraud. It claims to have been written by CIOs and describe real life experiences but only 2 of the many authors have CIO titles or CIO experience, so how can this be?

Most of book itself is pretty boring so it is best avoided.

I think this is an attempt to cash in on the CIO Wisdom book which was written by actual CIOs and was interesting.

Reviewed by a CIO