The Digital Organization: AlliedSignal's Success with Business Technology

by James D. Best

A detailed road map for integrating technology into your organization's core structure

In this one-of-a-kind book, James Best--former Vice President of AlliedSignal's Computing and Network Operations--shows you how to turn your company into a successful digital organization. With clear explanations of technical trends and their applicability to specific business scenarios, Best provides an easy-to-follow, seven-step program that will help get your organization on the right track--incorporating it into the company's operations.

Best's Laws of Computing

Technology breakthroughs require a surrounding infrastructure
* Enterprise solutions must be managed on an enterprise basis
* Things break!
* Change causes downtime
* Industry standards inhibit innovation
* Market share wins, not technical eloquence
* Competitive advantage is hard to sustain
* The scope of every computer project grows
* New computer technologies unveil additional layers of applications that suddenly become feasible and cost-effective
* Size is the great determinant of implementation difficulty
* Serendipity does not apply to computer systems
* If data resides in two places, it will be inconsistent


Companies who strive to become digital organizations are faced with the challenge of turning the promise of technology into actual payoffs within their organizations. In this unique book, author James Best helps you bring your corporation up to speed by showing you how to develop--and implement--a business strategy that will transform your company into a successful digital organization.

Formerly responsible for AlliedSignal's Computing and Network Operations, James Best knows what it takes to turn a company into a first-rate digital organization. Originally responsible for melding the three companies--Bendix, Garrett, Allied Chemical--that made up Allied's foundation into one, Best was charged with creating a stronger communications and networking system between the triad of business sectors. Adapting available technology to the needs and objectives of his company, Best helped develop a solid strategy that--in effect--combined Allied's parts and made them into a unified whole. This strategy has made AlliedSignal one of the most successful digital organizations around.

Best delivers the blueprint you need to make IT initiatives a vital--and effective--part of your company's infrastructure. Offering clear explanations and straightforward advice, he takes you through the details of designing a game plan that integrates your people, processes, and computer systems. With real-world examples from a variety of high-tech companies, Best shows you how to incorporate the computer culture into your organization, and effectively manage and align your computer operations with the rest of your organization.

To get you on the right track--and to help you stay there--Best provides an easy-to-follow, seven-step program that offers invaluable details on building and managing an IT department, identifying technologies that will support your company's overall purpose, and funding IT initiatives effectively. And with Best's expert recommendations, you'll learn how to manage technology initiatives and diverse cultures, as well as the application development process.

Clear, comprehensive, and essential, The Digital Organization is the guide that will help your corporation pursue an effective technology strategy.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

James Best is the author of the bestselling Steve Dancy Tales: The Shopkeeper, Leadville, Murder at Thumb Butte, The Return, Jenny's Revenge, Crossing the Animas, and No Peace. His contemporary Best Thrillers series includes The Shut Mouth Society, Deluge, and The Templar Reprisals. Tempest at Dawn is a classic novelization of the United States Constitutional Convention. Principled Action and The Digital Organization are nonfiction books. James has ghost written three books, authored two regular magazine columns, and published numerous journal articles. As a conference speaker, he has made presentations throughout North America and Europe. He is a member of Western Writers of America, Western Literature Association, and the Pacific Beach Surf Club. James enjoys writing, film, surfing, skiing, and watching his grandchildren play sports and cavort.

His blog address and contact information can be found at http://jamesdbest.blogspot.com/

James and his wife Diane live in Omaha, San Diego, and New York City. (Close to all the things he loves except skiing. Invitations to a mountain cabins gladly accepted.)

Reviews

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is an obsolete nonfiction book about managing computer technology. I'm not sure why Wiley continues to market it. I would not recommend this book ... and I'm the author.

[Tony Lawrence]

I have no idea why this book floated to the top of my to-be-read pile; an IT book written a [digital] lifetime ago (1997) and withdrawn from Suffolk library and somehow into my possession, but I am glad I did! Best is writing from a period in history just before I embarked on my own career in IT, although for him he was coming to the end (more about that later). He has to steer a careful line between too much technical detail that will age a book, but enough relevant anecdotes and specific examples to make the book relevant at the time … he almost carries is off! In this period Big Blue and ‘big iron’ seemed to be coming to an end, replaced by Client/Server, desktop and network computing, and the new kid in town ‘internet/web’. Ignoring the obvious, and some of his hit-and-miss predictions for the future, I really enjoyed this. Best selectively examines themes and steps required to make a ‘Digital Organisation’, essentially managing IT and large change programmes. For example, tips on strategy, budgets, infrastructure, selecting technologies, people, change, suppliers etc. This may only appeal to a small group of geeks of a certain age, which is a shame, because hidden in the slightly inelegant language is a lot of sound advice and good practices, even in tech-savvy 2020. To paraphrase, those who ignore history (and wise people who were there and earned the T-shirt!) are doomed to repeat its mistakes. To take one section title for example, the culture clash between mainframe and network technologies and their respective champions, ‘Dinosaurs and Whippersnappers’, there is, and probably will always be, newer sexier tech stuff, and the need to reconcile different perspectives, individuals and their passions & motivations, compromise is king (in most cases, except where it’s not!), but a big dollop of agnostic awareness, discipline and sensitive management is also called for.

ps. I found James D Best, who is still writing, but has moved on from IT into other non-fiction and a successful career as a fiction writing. I found him still there on Twitter, embracing the new, but with a wary and slightly cynical eye on the old.

[TK Keanini · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book made much more sense in 1998 than it does today.