INFO-661-901-Fall 2018

Final Individual Assignment

Tasnim Rahman

V00516978

November 23, 2018

Virginia Commonwealth University

With a deadline of 60 days, it is absolutely essential to understand and accept the fact that

change does not happen overnight. However, it is important to make changes if and as needed in

order to increase value in an organization by establishing and building enterprise architecture for

IT to support the business. In order to clean up the mess in the technology operations in this new

position, there are multiple key points that needs to be taken into consideration and acted on

based on some major takeaway points from The Phoenix Project and the INFO 661 lectures:

The need to identify the bottlenecks- this is extremely important. I need to identify what

is holding IT operations up in terms of productivity and creating value for the business. In this

case, lack of communication and collaboration is a key reason for the bottlenecks in the

company. Business, software development and IT personnel across the board will be brought in a

meeting in order to identify these issues, provide their suggestions on how to alleviate issues and

vote on the best way to tackle these issues. This application of DevOps will essentially force

members to communicate and work towards a solution together. The decisions made in the

meetings then should be ranked and be prioritized. The teams will meet weekly for progress

updates and used the Kanban method, this will help increase productivity and accountability.

Prioritize: Not everything is number 1. Prioritizing appropriately and accordingly will

limit WIP : One of the biggest reasons IT operations struggle is simply because of due dates and

last minute assignments piling up. The need for groups to identify their number 1 priority is an

absolute must. This is because not everything is a number 1 priority. As Erik Reid mentioned in

The Phoenix Project, multiple work-in-progress (WIP) is the biggest killer of productivity.

Prioritizing projects appropriately will help the teams get a move on the extensive backlog of

projects. This list needs to be established and reassessed on a weekly basis.

We are limited on resources so we must ask if the work is absolutely necessary- do we

have solution to hold our framework in place instead of just our face value. While the company

claims to have the budget to get new iPads, their justification for needing the iPads is not

reasonable. In a situation where our current devices are falling out in terms of performance and

capability, the servers might not be able to handle an inflow of new devices being added to the

system. I also need to ask the question: will these new iPads add real value to the company and

will it add to the technology debt the company that is already accruing.

Respecting change control and management: Change is slow and time-consuming as it

should be but it must happen. We need to keep in mind the necessary steps to introduce and

manage change as we focus on implementing it. Even the introduction of DevOps in the

company is a change. It is an attempt to establish a new work culture- communicating the

urgency for a change, developing the change and empowering team members to work on it to

produce short term wins and continuing on this cycle to keep evolving. The Key Staff member

who has been overloaded with tasks from Bill Gates is a resource that is being taken advantage

of much like Brent in the book. Protecting this important member and directing his skills towards

our prioritized WIP and emergencies is also a change that I will implement.

Big bang type of releases of products must be avoided at all costs as it can be

extremely risky and expensive for the company. Agile releases and upgrades (smaller

releases) significantly increases chance of success and can save the company money and

reputation. → with a major project already over budget and behind schedule, lack of

communication, we are essentially setting ourselves up for failure with the waterfall

approach. Setting up small, accountable goals and sprints every week will increase
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productivity and allow faster problem-solving. Small wins add up very quickly and it boosts

employee engagement and morale.

Technology Debt: whenever taking a chance with technology, it is vital to make up for it

in one way or another- regardless of the size of the tech debt. Without a doubt, this company has

been in some serious technology debt. Using old backdated computers for softwares that are no

longer supported by Microsoft- the budget for iPads have to be redirected towards buying

computers that can support the tech operations in this company- this company has been accruing

technology debt for quite sometime and while it may not sound feasible immediately- getting

new computers need to be on the agenda. While technology debt is forgiving compared to a real

monetary debt, it can be unforgiving when things go south.

The cybersecurity incidents taking place in the company shed light on the serious lack of

cybersecurity awareness amongst the staff members. Compromised accounts need to be blocked

off or shut down immediately until it is confirmed that our networks and servers are safe and that

no other accounts have been compromised from the phishing attacks. There will be a mandatory

cybersecurity training session for all regarding phishing attacks and the risks of accessing

sensitive information from unencrypted networks. To be a good leader in technology, one has to

be hold the need for cybersecurity awareness in the highest regard. Meeting with the Auditing

team regarding uncontrolled access issue will be discussed and acted on as soon as possible.

While outsourcing is a viable option for this company, none of the issues the company is

facing is actually from lack of skills from IT professionals in the company- these issues have

arised from the lack of IT management in the company- I will have to focus on establishing

enterprise architecture and IT governance to derive value from IT and empower the team to
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ensure quality communication and productivity. While this is an incredible amount of work to

complete in 60 days, it is an investment towards establishing a great culture in the company.

However, this big picture can only come together by putting together small steps, sprints and

wins- The Kanban tool would highly benefit in keeping up and following through with these

goals for the next eight weeks.

References:

Kim, G., Behr, K., and Spafford, G. (2014) The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and

Helping Your Business Win. Portland, Oregon: IT Revolution Press.

Weill, P. and Ross, J.W. (2009) IT Savvy: What Top Executives Must Know to GO from Pain to
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Gain. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Press.