Bob Lewis

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About Bob Lewis
Since the 1996 launch of his "Survival Guide" column in InfoWorld, Robert Lewis has been in the forefront of a guerilla consulting movement that rejects the orthodoxy of "running IT as a business" that has "internal customers." Instead, he advocates integrating IT into the enterprise, where it actively collaborates to improve how the business functions.
The award-winning author of 12 books and more than 1,700 articles, Mr. Lewis is one of the most respected advisers and commentators in the IT industry. He has held a wide variety of executive, management, and staff positions in information technology, manufacturing, product development, and business planning ... he was a practitioner before becoming an author and adviser, one source of his reputation for providing a unique blend of vision and pragmatism.
In 2001, Mr. Lewis founded IT Catalysts, a consultancy specializing in business change, IT organizational effectiveness, and IT/business integration.
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Blog postWhen I was a teenager, many households had to add a phone line because my fellow teens and I spent so much time talking to each other in the evenings. Housewives stereotypically (we are talking about stereotypes) spent hours during the day gossiping with friends over the phone. Now that we’re old enough that geezingYesterday Read more
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Blog post“My mother always told me I wouldn’t amount to anything because I procrastinate. I said, ‘just wait.’” – Judy Tenuta1 week ago Read more
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Blog postRunning IT is hard enough when all the CIO has to contend with are changing business demands. But these are far from the only “condition fluxes” IT has to deal with. Take an example: Imagine some aspects of the business you support depend on a reliable, predictable, and immutable definition of the second. No, not1 week ago Read more
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Blog postWe haven’t talked about common sense recently. Especially, you might have wondered why, when devoting two full columns to gun control (don’t worry – this isn’t a third), I didn’t propose measures about which the popular, adjectival form … “commonsense” … apply. I didn’t because I couldn’t – not after having published this way back2 weeks ago Read more
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Blog postThe scenario: Your boss (“Brad”) assigns you to lead a solution design team. The team’s purpose is to perform an opportunity analysis for creating an augmented reality app that leapfrogs competitors’ YouTube DIY product support. The result: Your analysis shows the opportunity is large. Not so much for the app itself, which would be profitable3 weeks ago Read more
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Blog post“Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power, that is not easy.” – Aristotle1 month ago Read more
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Blog postA week ago, the then-one-week-old shooting in Buffalo, New York was appalling. It’s been superseded by this week’s shooting in Uvalde, Texas. In Buffalo the victims were targeted because of their race. More people died In Uvalde than in Buffalo, and all but one were school children. Who targets school children? Last week I cited1 month ago Read more
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Blog post“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” – Philip K. Dick1 month ago Read more
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Blog postWhat can we do about it? Brace yourself. What follows is one of my dreaded Public Affairs columns. Bear with me. It does directly bear on your responsibilities and obligations as a business leader and manager. I’m talking about the recent Buffalo mass shooting, because how can I not? That’s the Buffalo, New York mass1 month ago Read more
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Blog post“It seems this does not work in theory, only in practice.” – David Reeves Bogg, about Ethernet, which he co-invented.1 month ago Read more
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Blog postIt’s official, to the extent these things become official: The new magic buzzword for the old magic “people” third of the PROCESS / Technology / people magic triangle is “hybrid workforce.” Arguing by analogy has its limits, primary among them being that it has no virtues. But still, it’s worth remembering that the archetypal hybrid,1 month ago Read more
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Blog post“A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.” – Benjamin Franklin2 months ago Read more
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Blog postBefore we get started, a correction. Last week, due to too many re-writes, I ended up posting backward logic, as several correspondents pointed out. You’ll find a corrected version here, near the bottom, in the Bob’s Last Word segment. # # # Speaking of bad metrics (we weren’t, but I couldn’t come up with a2 months ago Read more
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Blog postThere once was a feller named Elon For Twitter he just made a deal on Is he free speech’s savior Or is his behavior Just something we’ll never agree on? Social media are the best source of accurate news for Russians trying to understand what’s really going on in Ukraine. Social media are also the2 months ago Read more
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Blog post“The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, he was a genius.” – Sid Caesar2 months ago Read more
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Blog postSpeaking of thinking about thinking, it’s time to talk about systems thinking – a topic spotlighted in Peter Senge’s groundbreaking The Fifth Discipline (1990). Systems thinking is about breaking any whole into not only its component parts, sub-parts, and sub-sub-parts ad infinitum, but also their sub-parts’ interrelationships. It’s a big subject – so big there’s2 months ago Read more
Titles By Bob Lewis
The first edition of "Leading IT: The toughest job in the world" gave you specific, proven techniques for all eight tasks of leadership. The Second Edition adds more. A lot more.
If you like metrics, it's nearly twice as long. If you like useful metrics, it isn't just longer - it has twice as much useful, practical advice, covering a broader range of topics than the first edition.
If you prefer specifics to metrics, here are just some of the new topics covered in the second edition:
> The importance of focus and alignment.
> Why leaders have to control their time - and how.
> The Edison Ratio and why it matters (yes, this is a teaser).
> Why employees who can't fail can't succeed.
> Why 'Holding Employees Accountable' is a terrible idea.
> When and how to terminate an employee.
> The role of achievement in employee motivation.
> Why money is a terrible motivator but a terrific communication channel.
> How to measure the size of a team (hint: It isn't the number of members).
> Culture clashes and what to do about them.
> Lots and lots of new guidance on persuasion and facilitation.
> Leadership challenges new to the 21st century.
If you're tired of clichés and inspiring-sounding but empty rhetoric that's devoid of concrete guidance, this is what you're looking for: A relentlessly pragmatic book, designed to help you become a more effective leader.
Too many businesses miss opportunity after opportunity to design, plan, and achieve intentional business change. Why? Because they charter projects focused on delivering software products: IT projects. But as this groundbreaking book points out, there's no such thing as an IT project—or at least there shouldn't be. It's always about intentional business change, or what's the point?
It's time to stop providing simplistic, one-dimensional, all-you-gotta-do panaceas. When the only constant in business is change, truly useful IT has to help you change instead of build solutions that are obsolete even before they are completed.
IT consultant Bob Lewis, author of the bestselling Bare Bones Project Management, has joined forces with seasoned CIO Dave Kaiser to give you the tools you need. It's a multidimensional, relentlessly practical guide. Condensed to handbook length and seasoned with Lewis's trademark sardonic humor, it's an enjoyable and digestible read as well.
Lewis and Kaiser take you step by step through the process of building a collaboration between IT and the rest of the business that really works. Insisting on intentional business change takes patience, communication, and courage, but it has a huge payoff. More to the point, insist on anything else and every penny you spend will be a wasted dime and a waste of time.
But crushed by an elephant?
It really happened, and one of the author’s fathers found the corpse. This is the true story that inspired Bob Lewis and Dave Kaiser to write about:
>The fanatical priest who accidentally caused the elephant to crush its victim, and then, inspired by the result, went on to become a serial (and highly inventive) killer.
>The detectives … one the self-described “only black person in Wisconsin Rapids,” the other the only Jew … who didn’t realize the priests’ victims were anything more than a series of unusual, accidental deaths until it was nearly too late.
>The sexy nun who coached high school basketball, had an illicit affair with a failed businessman, and ultimately caught the priest in the act.
>A colorful assortment of victims who were killed by (in addition to the elephant): cheese, an explosion, turbines, bowling balls, and a tainted communion wafer.
>A bunch of other Wisconsin Rapids characters who found themselves drawn into the melee.
The town is real. An elephant really did kill someone there. Everything else is satire, “inspired by” a true story but otherwise far better than what actually happened.
By turns dark, brooding, whimsical, dramatic, and sometimes out-and-out hilarious, this entertaining thriller starts with an irresistible premise and finishes with a nail-biting confrontation between an insane cleric and the implacable Sister who won’t rest until he’s brought to justice.
Her justice.