Keystones and Rivets

Auditing IT systems

“Yip, I’ve been promoted and I’m off to New York in a few weeks”, said Big D.

The other day I was chatting online with a former colleague who now works for a business process outsourcing company specialising in corporate information solutions.  He told me he is going to be a new Director for the US, focussing on Strategic Solutions for the Americas.

I made the critical mistake of shouting this news down the corridor to my business partner Fergus.

“Start spreeeeading the nyoooosss, Haaam leevin’ tooodaaaaaayyy...”, he wailed.

Throughout my career, in each office or location, there has always been at least one person who was convinced, despite the reactions of their ‘audience’, that they are a good singer.

Fergus is very convinced.  And very loud. 

The window in my office was open.  Outside, I could see squirrels throwing themselves off the oak trees.

The Pebble grimaced, and, above the racket, cried that it sounded like, “someone smothering a crow with a whoopee cushion.”  Mercifully, he forced shut a couple of doors and calm was restored.

“The guys say ‘well done Big D’”, I typed back.  Our chat continued.

“Thanks to all...what are you up to today...when’s the next blog coming out, what’s it going to be about?”

“I’m working on it now.  It’s about systems... how traditional functional systems don’t fit with the business process view of an organisation.”

“Really?  I was just in a meeting about that very subject.  We take a look from the business process perspective, and it always spans lots of IT systems. The boundaries round processes are completely different to the demarcation between IT Systems...So why are you doing that one?”

I went on to explain that I’d been following a series of posts by bloggers Dennis Howlett and Francine McKenna about IT systems, auditing and the Big Four…

The Companies Act and IT

How often has your business committed to an initiative and made announcements in the press about it, only to find that IT hasn’t managed to get its house in order in time for you to deliver?

Hopefully not very often.

Unfortunately, that was the situation that faced the UK Minister of State for Competitiveness, Stephen Timms, last November.

Significant parts of the new UK Companies Act were due to come into force on 1st October 2008.  However, Timms was forced to announce that the starting date has been put back by 12 months to 1st October 2009 because the government IT systems at Companies House needed to implement the changes would not be ready in time.

As you might expect this did not go down very well in some sections of the business community.

Governance and Government

We weren’t sure whose chin hit the floor first.

“He did say 25 million, didn’t he?” asked The Pebble.

“Yip”, I replied.

We had just begun watching a news broadcast about the latest data security breach by a British government department, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

25 million personal records, including the banking information for every family in the UK with a child under the age of 16, had been written with only password protection onto two CDs which were subsequently “lost in transit”.

The UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said that the security breach was down to “Failure in implementing the proper procedures.”

He went on to explain that:

1. “Only authorised staff should have access to protectively marked information”
2. “Information must not be removed without appropriate authorisation”
3. “Encryption should be used whenever information is being sent”

Succession Planning

A company I worked for a while ago had a novel approach to managing “indispensible” staff.

“It’s better for them to leave on our terms rather than theirs,” one of the senior personnel managers enthused.  “You never know when they might leave, and it could be at the worst possible time for the company, so better to just let them go during a quiet spell”.

Well, every department has a lynch pin, a person who can deliver to clients with consistency and who can be relied upon when the chips are down.  Surely, sacking them can’t possibly be the answer?

Trying to cross No Man's Land

The Pebble and I work well together.

But he is an Arts graduate, so I have to humour him from time to time.

This entails having to listen every so often to one of his “stories” about history or politics. 

Today, for some reason, he decided to explain why the Red Army initially collapsed during the German invasion of Russia during 1941. 

“Barbarossa”, “Lebensraum”, “OKW”,  “Timoshenko”, “Smolensk”, “Stavka”…

The Pebble often talks about interesting things but occasionally he uses too much terminology.  As is sometimes the case, after a few minutes I felt my eyes glazing over.  My mind started to drift into that strange state where you feel conscious and unconscious at the same time.  The lights were on, but there was definitely nobody home.   

His talk about matters military must have had some impact though.  Through the haze I began asking myself - when did IT last go into battle with a genuine understanding of what the business was trying to do?

When did Business and IT last plan together strategically, agree tactics, and march together with clear objectives?

How about ten years ago...?