White Papers

• "Your Major Project Conundrum"
• "An IT Effectiveness Assessment is the health-check your IT organization needs"
• "Into the Cloud for Faster, Cheaper Computing!
  Fact or Fiction?"
• "Preparing
  for the Future: a Critical Imperative for Hospitals"
• "Managing
  Information Technology Costs: Effective Disciplines and Processes"
• "Can Business Survive a Major Technology Disruption?…The
  Overlooked Achilles Heel"
• "The Effective CIO: Success
  Criteria in the 21st Century"
• "Enterprise
  Systems: Vision, Reality and Management Approach"
• "How to Achieve a Well-Managed Desktop-Server-Local
  Area Network"
• "Outsourcing: The Decision Process"
  
• "Today’s Business Continuity Planning"
• "Today’s Program Management Office"

"Your Major Project Conundrum"
Information Technology spending reductions have been the hallmark of prudent business operations
through the recent recession. Staffing cutbacks, aggressive expense reviews, competitive outsourcing,
delayed maintenance, elongated replacement cycles and IT capital investment holds have all been part
of the business playbook. Not scrutinizing expenses and investments has led to business failure, so all
firms have employed these and other methods to reduce costs.

Check here to download

 

"An IT Effectiveness Assessment is the health-check your IT organization needs"
Today’s IT department is challenged with competing tasks of introducing innovation versus maintaining the legacy systems; and the legacy systems get priority when there are problems. Why? Because the legacy systems are usually running human resources, finance and other essential applications. Executives expect IT to help their business, but is it? Is IT benefiting their bottom line? Is technology helping produce products or services better, faster or cheaper? Will IT help firms achieve growth or business goals?

Check here to download

"Into
the Cloud for Faster, Cheaper Computing! Fact or Fiction?"
Today many companies use both public and private clouds for mission-critical applications
and vendors are scrambling to provide new offerings and capabilities. Top management
is extremely interested in the promise of lower capital cost and faster response;
and many IT practitioners are moving from skepticism to belief that, within 12-
24 months, the cloud will have some, if not a major role in their technology
portfolio.

Check here to download

"Preparing
for the Future: a Critical Imperative for Hospitals"
A recent case
study detailing a Transition Partners’ IT
assessment and transformation performed for a large hospital
system. The engagement enabled the hospital to successfully
resolve issues and deficiencies and position themselves for
efficiency, growth, and implementation of Electronic Health
Records (EHR).

Check here to download

"Managing
Information Technology Costs: Effective Disciplines and Processes"
Effective
cost management of information and communications technology
is especially important during times of reduced economic
activity, when top-line revenues are depressed, margin pressures
increase, and all spending must be scrutinized and contained.
And effective IT cost management is equally essential to
long-term competitiveness. Business leaders can drive cost-effective
IT management by requiring that essential IT management disciplines
are in place, and these disciplines facilitate use of proven
IT management processes that support development and implementation
of cost-effective IT investment decisions and action plans.
This paper briefly addresses requisite IT management disciplines
and processes with a focus on proven actions to improve the
cost-effectiveness of the IT organization. Together, these
disciplines and processes can increase IT efficiencies, leverage
economies, realize cost avoidances and reduce costs — many,
if desired, within six months.

Check here to download

"Can
Business Survive a Major Technology Disruption?…The Overlooked
Achilles Heel"
Historically, businesses have delegated or relegated Information
Technology infrastructure disruption response planning to the
IT management team without an overall corporate view of the "damage" a disruption could cause. As IT becomes more
integrated into business processes and critical to the bottom
line, Business Unit managers — directed by executive management
— must assume responsibility for understanding the damage
from possible disruptions, and develop appropriate response
or risk acceptance plans. A Business Impact Analysis is a critical
tool for developing an understanding of possible damage and
defining required response / repair constraints for the business
as an entity.

Check here to download

"The
Effective CIO: Success Criteria in the 21st Century"
Change is the only constant in the development of Information
Technology. Suggesting the success criteria for the Chief Information
Officer in the 21st Century involves understanding: How Information
Technology has changed the past 40 to 50 years. Evolution from
the "Head of Data Processing" to CIO during this period.
Various forces at work. Key strategies now required. Successful
traits for the CIO. And a brief peek into the future.

Check here to download

"Enterprise
Systems: Vision, Reality and Management Approach"
This paper addresses Enterprise Systems in terms of their potential
benefits — and problems in realizing that potential — and recommends a management approach to Enterprise System initiatives
that treats vision, planning, implementation and maintenance
as a continuum. The focus is on vision and planning, where most
ES initiative problems begin.

Check here to download

"How
to Achieve a Well-Managed Desktop-Server-Local Area Network"
A well-managed Desktop-Server-Local Area Network (DSL) environment
has certain aspects or characteristics that seem to exist in
all such installations. Although tools and procedures may differ,
these successful characteristics remain the same. This paper
summarizes what these aspects are, how they are important to
the environment, and how they can be used as a scorecard by
which the DSL environment — as well as the supporting organization
— can be measured. Finally, steps are given that will get
you from here to there.

Check here to download

"Outsourcing:
The Decision Process"
For many companies, an outsourcing decision represents the longest
and largest financial commitment the company will make. The
selection of an outsourcing partner will directly impact the
company’s growth and future performance. In short, the outsourcing
decision is critical to the company’s future success. Many articles
have been written on why to outsource, but few
have addressed how to outsource. After 10 years
of working with organizations reaching outsourcing decisions,
we have learned that unique characteristics of the decision
process result from the "personality" of the organization.
The following factors will impact the success of your outsourcing
decision.

Check here to download

"Today’s Business Continuity
Planning"
We all know we should have Disaster Recovery Plans and many
of us think we do, but how many companies have complete plans
that include consideration of operations, suppliers and customers?
Business Continuity Planning is a major step forward from Disaster
Recovery, and focused on real potentials and realistic recovery
strategies.

Check here to download

"Today’s
Program Management Office"
Everyone in the IT profession recognizes the critical need for
Quality Initiative and Project Management. We also recognize
that really great Project Managers are a rare breed, more "born"
than made. For many of us the question of "How best to
impact IT performance?" boils down to "How do we best
focus our best people on our most important initiatives?"
and "How do we best support those resources once we have
them there?" The Program Management Office is the IT tool
of choice when it comes to accomplishing these very important
goals.

Check here to download