Boiling the IT Frog: 
How to Make Your Business Information Technology Wildly Successful
Without Having to Learn Anything Technical

I've always believed that IT is more about people than about technology, and that most IT problems come from misunderstandings between business and technology people. Wouldn't it be great if there was a book that IT people could give to their business customers to help explain the issues faced by IT organizations? I've always thought so, but I couldn't find such a book, so I wrote one myself.

I've put some of the most important things I've learned during my thirty-plus years of IT experience into a 183-page book that's written in business language (no technical gibberish). It doesn't explain the technology itself — there are lots of books that do that — it instead describes the critical aspects of IT management that business people need to understand, including answers to questions like:

• Why does software – which doesn't wear out – have to be maintained?
• Why does IT infrastructure cost so much?
• Why can't I specify a project's scope, cost and schedule?
• How do we select the best projects for the business?
• How can we assure project success?
• How can we better define business requirements?
• How should IT be measured?
• Why do we need an IT strategy, and how do we create one?
• Should our IT be outsourced? Offshored?
• What responsibilities should IT have? Should business have?
• Why can't I understand what my IT people tell me?
• Why isn't Information Technology simple?

This book explains all of the things about IT that business people really need to know. This isn't the technical stuff; it's the IT issues caused by various factors outside the control of the IT group — the things that tend to make IT unsuccessful no matter who the people are in the IT or business roles. Take these factors into account in your planning, and your business IT will become wildly successful.

And as an added benefit, IT people reading the book can find out why their jobs are so difficult and unappreciated, and how to make those jobs more enjoyable.