Stories by Owen McCall

Owen McCall lifts the lid on which entries will stand out in upcoming ICT awards.

Lack of a ‘21st century leadership’ is hampering innovation across industries today, writes Owen McCall.

...And if by chance you do become digital in the face of little agreement on what it means, what's the chance it will actually add value to your organisation?

Perhaps Mike Tyson summarised this best (or at least most brutally) when he said, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

In my previous column, I wrote, when it comes to digital, always start with ‘why’! But what if your organisation doesn't have a clearly defined purpose?

When considering the impact of new and emerging technology on our business, we need to start our enquiry from a deep understanding of why our organisation exists in the first place.

Most commentators report that 50 per cent of our projects fail. Until we change these statistics, we will continue to struggle to deliver to our organisations and we will struggle to be taken seriously in the executive room.

What to do when IT is seen as 'the department of no'

The CIO role is complex and difficult, and if you hope to be successful in the long-term you need to look after yourself, writes Owen McCall.

Owen McCall illustrates how Stephen Covey's classic work can help CIOs with the task of creating value from IT.

There are a lot of parallels between the California gold rush and what is going on today in the rush to digital, writes Owen McCall.

You are unlikely to create greatness simply by replicating others. It's the business equivalent of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’.

It is very difficult if not impossible to design a jigsaw puzzle by getting independent actors to design certain pieces only and then expect them to work together - yet that is what a lot of organisations today are doing with their business technology systems.

...and when the system goes live users are expected to perform flawlessly.

“Here is a technology, it's really cool, now, let's identify a problem that we might be able to ‘hit’ with this technology.” Sounds familiar?