SMS Improvement Champion June 2007

My children used to dread the time-honoured junior school essay question: "What does your daddy do for a living?"

Their daddy is Grant Rule, Managing Director of SMS Ltd. He does measurement-driven software process improvement.

"Put down 'postman' dear," the teacher used to say.

A lack of understanding about IT by those not directly concerned with it is a major contributor to the poor perception of IT performance. So much so that the Chartered Management Institute recently identified it as one of the top five challenges for CEOs.

IT in business is there to deliver business solutions. The business's inability to articulate its requirements in terms that can be clearly interpreted by IT, and IT's apparent inability to help the business clarify its requirements, and to understand the scope and the limitations of software solutions, all too often leads to a breakdown of communications which costs the company - or the public purse - millions.

From the perspective of the wife of the software process improvement expert - that is, Ms. Jo Public, the consumer, the taxpayer, the end customer - the one who, ultimately, pays for all this waste - this is extremely frustrating.

To say the least.

Which is the IT success story?

I suggest the biggest risk IT presents to business is that those at the bottom of the food chain find out that it doesn't have to be like this. When they start demanding that something is done about the waste and inefficiency associated with your typical software project.

Perhaps it is only when organisations start losing business to competitors whose website works, who deliver on time, and respond most effectively and efficiently to their customer's needs, that the connection between software performance, and delivered value from IT, and the business bottom line will start to become apparent.

As service industries increasingly rely on a direct IT interface with the end customer, those who have already started perfecting process performance will be ahead of the game.

And those who haven't run the risk of being found wanting.

EuroSPI²2007

Tim Davis of Serco and Jill Pritchet of SMS will be presenting "SPI and Organisational Factors: Changing Attitudes - Improving Performance" at the EuroSPI 2007 Conference which takes place in Potsdam, Germany on 27th & 28th September.

The Conference Programme Theme for 2007 is Success Factors with SPI in a Global Competitive Environment - New Research, Methods and Experiences.

EuroSPI22007

EuroSPI²2007