Cultural Adoption A Hot Issue for Today's CIOs

IT management interacts with peers to address issues and share best practices

AUSTIN, Texas — May 18, 2005 — Planview, the leading provider of comprehensive IT Portfolio Management solutions today announced the outcome of the company's CIO Advisory Council. Thirty IT executives from 27 companies attended the two-day meeting in Dallas, Texas to share top management challenges as well as best practices.

The number one impediment to effective IT management, according to the executives, is cultural adoption. All agreed that preparation is key - no organization should expect cultural adoption to be seamless. They voiced the top five tips to leading cultural change:

• Have a formal process to communicate with business stakeholders
• Establish baselines and continually assess progress
• Translate objectives into something meaningful for lower staff levels so that they, as well as the business stakeholders, are on board
• Make training timely and convenient
• Listen to your staff's feedback - Let them know you've heard them, even if you decide not to take action

"The cultural climate is definitely the biggest hurdle," said Cheryl Randle, Project Office, process and capability manager at Hallmark. "If your organization is culturally averse to change, it will be difficult to impact positive change through IT, whether it be through performance management or prioritizing projects."

Other topics of discussion at the Council included Performance Management, Benefit Realization and Rationalizing the Delivery of IT Services. Mark Smith, senior vice president of research at Ventana Research delivered the keynote presentation entitled, "Applying Performance Management to IT".

"Facilitating change management and organizational adoption to achieve best practices is a universal concern for today's CIOs and forums like this allow them to share successful strategies," said Smith. "IT management is looking for validation and guidance from their peers."

At the end of the Council, the general consensus was that there are no "IT" projects. Every project within IT must track back to a business objective within the organization and communication with that organization's executive team is key. They must be in agreement before a major project is initiated as well as provided a continuous feedback loop to ensure that IT is aligned with overall business objectives and every member of the organization is on board throughout.

In addition to Smith, other speakers included IT executives from the Canadian Government, Reuters and Wells Fargo. Attendees encompassed top IT management from several of the world's largest financial institutions as well as from the publishing, oil and gas, healthcare and retail industries.

The event was sponsored by Planview, following the company's successful 2004 Financial Services Executive Forum, as a way to facilitate an interchange between senior IT executives from different companies and industries to share their best practices in an open, round-table setting. The company's ongoing leadership in enabling cultural change through a combination of Planview PRISMS IT management best practices, implementation assurance methodology and the Planview Direct customer community maximizes the ability to achieve improved IT performance.

The next CIO Advisory Council meeting is planned for Fall 2005. Contact market@planview.com for more information.

About Planview

Since 1989, Planview has been a market leader and trusted partner in software for comprehensive IT management. Our flagship product, Planview Enteprise, brings the most comprehensive IT management solution to the market, combining adaptive IT management best practices, best of breed resource management and portfolio management software. Planview enables business leaders to integrate the decision-making process to improve alignment of IT resources with business strategies. We serve an active and growing global customer community of over 400 organizations in financial, insurance, healthcare, government and other industries. Planview is privately held and has been profitable for over a decade. For more information, visit www.Planview.com.

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