[This is the third in a three-part series designed to provide a high-level understanding of the 12 Principles of War, and how they can be applied to create a set of unifying Principles of IT that can be used as a guide in strategic planning, operational control, and resource management efforts. For more information, view Part 1 and Part 2.]
In the final part of the series, we will cover the last three principles of IT: Perseverance, Legitimacy, and Focus. What I hope to see is a call to action for the industry to find its own codified and universal set of rules for how to engage with the business, manage projects and priorities, and ensure value to all stakeholders of their services and solutions.
Perseverance
Military definition: Ensure the necessary commitment to attain the objective. The patient, resolute, and persistent pursuit of objectives is essential to success.
IT definition: Ensure the commitment necessary to achieve the objectives of the organization. The patient, resolute, and persistent pursuit of objectives is essential to success.
Perseverance is needed to ensure the commitment necessary to attain the end-state of the national strategy, and while the underlying causes of a geopolitical and/or military crisis may be elusive, success can be achieved through the patient, resolute, and persistent pursuit of identified objectives. All organizations, whether they are fighting a war or deploying a major new technology solution, will find their endurance tested. Only perseverance will see the team through to the completion of the mission. A decisive and swift operation may create conditions for success on short-term objectives, but it takes long-term operations — with a keen eye toward creating stability — to achieve the strategic objective. Many “Big Bang” organizational changes fail because there is no will to continue the change beyond the initial offensive campaign, or the guiding coalition focuses too much on the high from a series of small wins without ever building the conditions for organizational determination to see the change through to the end when the real barriers of cultural resistance come into play.
Legitimacy
Military definition: Maintain legal and moral authority in the conduct of operations.
IT definition: Maintain legal and moral authority, and rightness of actions from the various perspectives of interested stakeholders.
The principle of Legitimacy recognizes that legitimacy — or legal and moral authority in conduct — can be a decisive factor in operations, and that it is based on the actual or perceived legality, morality, and rightness of actions from the myriad perspectives of interested audiences. For the US Armed Forces, this means that all actions undertaken in a campaign must be conducted in accordance with: the laws of the United States; international laws and treaties recognized by the United States; and with the acceptance of the governed host-nation and the international community. For the IT professional, this means actions must be undertaken and conducted in accordance with the: mission, vision, and values of the organization; all legal obligations and regulations associated with the activity; and with the acceptance of the stakeholders of the organization to include the Board and employees.
Restraint becomes Precision
Military definition: Limit collateral damage and prevent unnecessary use of force.
IT definition: Limit the potential for harm or abuse, and prevent the inappropriate use of resources in balance with the needs for security, the conduct of Information Technology operations, and achievement of the strategic objectives of the organization.
Restraint acknowledges the moral imperative to limit collateral damage in operations and to prevent unnecessary use of force. This requires a tightrope balancing act in an asymmetrical conflict between the need for security, the conduct of operations, and the desired strategic end state. Replace force with mandate for the IT leader and it becomes more about remembering to be precise in the use of policy and procedure, formal clout, or informal political capital. Just as excessive force can antagonize friendly and neutral parties, the same can happen when regulation or policy and procedure are used too heavy-handedly. The policies and procedure that define the rules of engagement should always be known and consistently applied across the organization. They should also be flexible enough to address a range of plausible situations that a may arise, and be regularly reviewed and revised as necessary by the most senior levels of leadership.
Conclusion
In planning a successful strategic plan, the Principles of IT are not intended to be a prescriptive formula, recipe, or checklist. They provide no canned answers to the many challenges and dilemmas you will encounter. Rather, they are guidelines for how to apply critical-thinking and decision-making to the entire spectrum of IT and business operations. I hope that you will join me in accepting these 12 Principles of IT as the guidelines they are, and find them useful in your professional career.
Reviewing The 12 Principles of Information Technology
- Objective:Direct every IT operation towards a clearly defined, decisive, and attainable objective.
- Initiative:Provide the means to seize, retain, and utilize the parameters, tempo, and methods of the business environment.
- Focus:Concentrate technology services and solutions at the place and time which best further pursuit of the primary objective.
- Economy of Effort:Allocate minimum essential resources to subordinate priorities.
- Orchestration:Apply resources at the times, places, and means which best further the accomplishment of the objective.
- Unity of Effort:Coordinate all activities to achieve unity of effort for every objective.
- Security:Minimize the vulnerability of strategic plans, activities, relationships, and systems to manipulation and interference.
- Surprise:Gain a disproportionate advantage through action for which a competitors is not prepared.
- Clarity:Prepare clear strategies that do not exceed the abilities of the organization responsible for implementation.
- Perseverance:Ensure the commitment necessary to achieve the objectives of the organization.
- Legitimacy:Maintain legal and moral authority, and rightness of action, from the various perspectives of interested stakeholders.
- Precision:Limit the potential for harm and abuse, and prevent the inappropriate use of resources in balance with the needs for security, operations, and the achievement of strategic objectives.
[This piece was originally published on LinkedIn Pulse by Jonathan Etheridge, Director of IS and CIO at Cullman Regional Medical Center.]
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