FraCIOnal News

Welcome Wisler & Associates

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 13:31:08 GMT

Fracional is pleased to announce a strategic alliance with Wisler & Associates

FraCIOnal is proud to announce a strategic alliance with Wisler & Associates , a firm dedicated to providing IT leadership services to Higher Education.

Bob Wisler, Principal of Wisler & Associates has over two decades of experience as the senior IT leader at three private and public colleges and universities. Ready to transform a technology organization, provide interim IT leadership, or develop Esports facilities, his team is equipped to make an immediate impact to the higher education community.

We are happy to partner with Wisler & Associates and look forward to sharing their expertise with our clients.

Improving Technology, Where to Begin

Sun, 16 Feb 2020 22:43:20 GMT

What is the cause for concern?

So, you feel like your company could be doing more with technology, or that technology could be doing more for your company. Now what? There are multiple technology maturity models available to help identify where you are and where you might want to go with technology, but how to begin?

Start with that gut feeling. Is your IT support chaotic and reactive? Does it take to long to pull information out of your systems and make sense of it? Does it seem like you could be missing opportunities? Before jumping into whatever fix a model, article, or colleague may recommend, try to figure out what is causing that feeling. Drill down to the root cause and find a way to quantify or measure it. That's the only way you will really know what to change and whether or not those changes will have the desired outcome.

The problems or opportunities you identify will fall into one or more of three categories.

People: Do you have the optimal number of staff? Does your staff have the optimal attitude, skills, and/or knowledge?
Processes: Do you have appropriate processes in place? Do they need improving?
Technology: Do you have the appropriate technology?

Of course the answers to those questions depend not only on where you are, but where you want to go. Most maturity models have five levels. Level 1 is typically represented by reactive, firefighting technical support with low customer satisfaction. Level 5 typically represents technology as a strategic partner to the organization. Your people, processes, and technology will likely be at different levels to start. Perhaps you have a managed service provider who has implemented level 3 (proactive) or 4 (aligned) technology, but your people and processes are still at a level 1 or 2 (committed). Regardless, identifying where you are in each of the three categories will help you decide what to improve first.

Finally, don't try to jump directly to level 5. Make your improvements one step at a time, at a pace your organization can handle. Some organizations will be perfectly happy and successful at levels 3 or 4.

Technology Leadership

Mon, 20 Jan 2020 16:18:19 GMT

Technology Leadership Drives Useful Change

In my last post I talked about the difference between leadership and management and how both, performed well, are necessary for the success of an organization. How does that pertain to technology within small to medium-sized organizations? Most, either through permanent full-time staff or managed services providers, are "getting stuff done," that is they have found a way to manage technology. Most however, without technology leadership, struggle to create meaningful change.

The role of Chief Information Officer (CIO) is to provide that technology leadership, levering technology to help the organization implement meaningful change. As such, their responsibility is two-fold. First, the CIO, as part of the executive team, can help shape the organizational goals and objects, the meaningful desired change, based on their knowledge of technology capabilities. Second, they help lead that meaningful change through communication and interaction with their staff and colleagues, through education, coaching, and all those things good Leaders do.

Given that almost every (if not every) organizational goal and objective now involves some aspect of technology, a technology leader, if only part-time, is becoming necessary for all organizations. In a small to medium-sized organization however that role does not have to be full-time. Fractional marketing and financial leaders have been available to these organizations for years. The last few years have seen the growth in the availability of fractional technology leaders. Reach out to one to see what they can do for you.

The real Manager/Boss/Leader relationship

Fri, 06 Dec 2019 19:12:30 GMT

Management and Leadership skills are complementary

Reading most posts and info-graphics about management and leadership today and you are led to believe that leadership is good, management is bad. This is like comparing a perfect orange to a rotten apple, and completely wrong. Management and Leadership can each be good or bad. They are completely different skills sets in which you can be skilled or unskilled, be effective or ineffective, apply appropriately or inappropriately.

Management is not, as Simon Sinek has said, "the practice of manipulating people for personal gain." Management is, as Sinek has also said, about "getting stuff done." John Kotter has been writing and speaking about the difference between management and leadership since the '80s. He defines management as "as set of well know processes . . . which help an organization predictably do what it knows how to do well." Good, effective, appropriate management is hard. It is necessary for the success of all organizations. It is not leadership.

Kotter has said "Leadership is about vision, about people buying in, about empowerment and, most of all, about producing useful change." Sinek has promoted and expanded on this idea of leadership at least since his book It Starts with Why , a must read. I agree that good, effective, appropriate leadership is just that, but leadership too can be bad, ineffective, and inappropriate. Leadership is, simply, having followers.

A leader has followers because they either enforce accepted group norms, the status quo, or they inspire others toward that useful change. If you are an executive of an organization, are in a supervisory role, or head a team and are struggling with leading your team, department, or organization in producing that useful change, even though you have shared your vision, your Why, and done everything else you learned were the key attributes of a leader, then look for the person in your group who is a better, more effective leader, enforcing the status quo.

Oh, and the boss? That is just someone put in an organizational position of having supervisory responsibility for others. I've had good bosses and bad. The best was a great manager and a great leader.

Small Business Can Save Big on Technology

Wed, 06 Nov 2019 19:31:53 GMT

Learn how small businesses can save money on technology

It is no secret that Information Technology (IT) can be expensive, and with all of the suppliers fighting for your technology budget it makes everything that much more difficult.

Many small businesses have some level of IT support on site or a call away, but most do not have a senior level technology officer. Those who are able to have this type of employee benefit from their expertise in setting technology strategy that aligns with business strategy, recommending the right technology solutions for your business that will be most efficient at helping you meet your overall goals.

Small businesses can save a large amount of money by leveraging the expertise of a Chief Information Officer (CIO) to make sure they are not overpaying for what they buy, buying more than they need, or otherwise operating inefficiently. This is no easy task, but a CIO has been through all of this, knows how to negotiate with vendors, knows how to translate business needs into technology solutions, and has a track record of doing it before.

Knowing that most small businesses do not have the budget to hire a full time CIO, companies like FraCIOnal come in to help. An opportunity to have an on site CIO, on an as needed basis, is a good solution for most small businesses. You may only need that level of expertise occasionally, or maybe a few days a month. This is what fractional CIOs do. They spend a percentage of their time at several different companies to accomplish the task of CIO without those companies bearing the expense of a full time CIO.

This model has been well integrated into other C-suite positions for several years and has proven to be very successful. Fractional CIOs are growing in popularity because of the low cost and improved technology efficiencies available by leveraging their expertise. FraCIOnal is here to help small businesses in Michigan benefit from this new senior level consulting service.