Bridging Business & IT
36 episodes - English - Latest episode: 12 months ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingMeet your hosts, Dave and Dan, a father and son team interviewing experts from around the IT ecosystem. Dave’s a serial entrepreneur, CIO, board member, author, speaker and advisor with a lifetime of frontline tech industry experience. He wants things to work—perfectly! His son and cohost Dan, is Head of Sales for PlanetScale (a Silicon Valley software company). He wants to get things done—now! While they certainly have their differences, they’re both driven to understand what business customers need so they can deliver the best possible solution. That’s why these two have joined forces (along with a lot of industry heavyweights) to help resolve the biggest challenge in business technology: How to successfully bridge the gap between what a business needs and how its IT department and vendors address that need. This podcast is for those in the trenches, for professionals with hands-on experience who are striving to overcome the multitude of challenges standing between them and the successful deployment of technology to advance business objectives. Each episode is filled not only with humor and sarcasm, but with tricks of the trade and lessons learned. Connect with their stories, experiences, shortcomings, failures, and successes. Let them be your guide on this unvarnished, irreverent and entertaining look at business and IT. Subscribe, listen, and laugh while getting a true appreciation for the fact that in your day to day tech challenges, you’re not alone and solutions are out there.
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Episodes
S3 Ep9 Brent Session 2 Part 2
April 30, 2023 16:00 - 45 minutes - 31.1 MBThese podcasts are dedicated to bridging the gap between business & IT. Each episode looks at different aspects of this relationship as we explore ways to help the two groups better communicate. We're passionate about this topic because it's a failure to communicate that causes 75% of all IT project failures and costs the US $1.8 Trillion every year—8% of US GDP! If you don't want to become one of these statistics and want to learn about an easy way to avoid it, please visit our website an...
S3 Ep8 Brent Session 2 Part 1
April 15, 2023 16:00 - 50 minutes - 35 MBThese podcasts are dedicated to bridging the gap between business & IT. Each episode looks at different aspects of this relationship as we explore ways to help the two groups better communicate. We're passionate about this topic because it's a failure to communicate that causes 75% of all IT project failures and costs the US $1.8 Trillion every year—8% of US GDP! If you don't want to become one of these statistics and want to learn about an easy way to avoid it, please visit our website an...
S3 Ep7: A Conversation with the CIOs of Marriott, IRS, FDA and JPL Part 2
March 31, 2023 13:00 - 48 minutes - 33.7 MBBut we're talking to just one man. Today is the first part of our conversation with a uniquely accomplished IT professional, Jim Rinaldi. Over Jim's long career he's been the Vice President of IT for Marriott Hotels, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and most recently, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which is managed for NASA by Caltech (the California Institute of Technology). Needless to say, he's seen his fair share of what he...
S3 Ep6: A Conversation with the CIOs of Marriott, IRS, FDA and JPL Part 1
March 16, 2023 13:00 - 48 minutes - 33.1 MBBut we're talking to just one man. Today is the first part of our conversation with a uniquely accomplished IT professional, Jim Rinaldi. Over Jim's long career he's been the Vice President of IT for Marriott Hotels, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and most recently, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which is managed for NASA by Caltech (the California Institute of Technology). Needless to say, he's seen his fair share of what he...
S3 Ep 5: Nalin Vail Part 2
February 28, 2023 14:00 - 50 minutes - 34.7 MBThis is part II of a conversation with Nalin Vahil. Nalin is a professional Sales leader who has worked at some of the biggest brands in Silicon Valley. Part I talks about some of his background and operating philosophy. Part II kicks off with some of the groups commentary on the state of the economy and the role of IT leaders during a macro economic downturn. Nalin shares more about his career evolution and the various jobs he held inside some hyper growth tech environments. He shares abo...
S3 Ep4: Nalin Vahil Part 1
February 15, 2023 14:00 - 53 minutes - 36.9 MBThis wide ranging conversation with Nalin Vahil Part 1 spans Dan and Nalin's history of friendship and Nalin's career history. With parents that wanted him to become a Doctor, Nalin forged his own path first as an Entrepreneur and then as a Sales Professional for some of Silicon Valley's hottest tech companies. Nalin has an expertise in applying the latest technology to run a highly effective sales organization. He also is a passionate student who studys the ways that new Enterprise IT inf...
S3 Ep3: 2022 PMI Global Summit Presentation - The Biggest Constraint in IT Projects is the Human Brain
February 01, 2023 14:00 - 1 hour - 45.1 MBIn December, 2022 the Project Management Institute held their Global Summit Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada . Of the more than 250 talks and break out sessions, about 10% were featured live. These were selected to showcase the most important issues in project management. As fate would have it, Dave was asked to give one of those live talks. It's widely known that IT projects fail at an alarming rate. What's not widely known is that the cause of 75% of those failures is our inability to comm...
S3 Ep2: A Candid Look at the Road from College to Tech VC and PE Partner: Part II
January 31, 2023 17:00 - 53 minutes - 36.4 MBIf you're in the tech sector and looking for investment funding, it a good idea to understand a little bit about the people you're pitching. Today’s conversation is a continuation of our last episode with one such investor, Brent Granado. Brent's a JD, MBA who started out as a corporate attorney working on deals, moved in-house running corporate development and M&A doing deals, then jumped over to the funding/investment side. He's currently Managing Partner at Sweetwater Private Equity. Pri...
A Candid Look at the Road from College to Tech VC and PE Partner: Part I
January 15, 2023 19:00 - 1 hour - 49.5 MBAfter an unexpected hiatus, we’re back at it. If you're in the tech sector and looking for investment funding, it really helps to understand a little bit about the people you're pitching to. That's why today’s conversation is with an old and very close friend, Brent Granado. Brent's a JD, MBA who started out as a corporate attorney working on deals, moved in-house running corporate development and M&A doing deals, then jumped over to the funding/investment side. He's currently Managing Par...
S3 Ep1: A Candid Look at the Road from College to Tech VC and PE Partner: Part I
January 15, 2023 19:00 - 1 hour - 49.5 MBAfter an unexpected hiatus, we’re back at it. If you're in the tech sector and looking for investment funding, it really helps to understand a little bit about the people you're pitching to. That's why today’s conversation is with an old and very close friend, Brent Granado. Brent's a JD, MBA who started out as a corporate attorney working on deals, moved in-house running corporate development and M&A doing deals, then jumped over to the funding/investment side. He's currently Managing Par...
S2 Ep 4 - Society for Information Management Seminar
May 02, 2022 20:00 - 1 hour - 49.6 MBThis episode is a little different. In late 2021 Dave was asked to conduct a seminar for the New Jersey chapter of the Society of Information Management to talk about the findings and focus of Bridging Business & IT. A small group of senior IT executives were invited and this is the recording of that roundtable. SIM New Jersey Website: https://njsim.org/ These podcasts are dedicated to bridging the gap between business & IT. Each episode looks at different aspects of this relationship as...
S2 Ep 3 Agile Epiphanies at a $41B Company
May 02, 2022 18:00 - 1 hour - 69.5 MBWe were very fortunate today to have Barb Mastrianni, AVP and Senior Program Manager for the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, Inc. Barb shares the lessons that Chubb has learned about what it takes to do Agile "right" and how they've gone from a somewhat shaky start to an exponential growth in successful project outcomes. The secret is all about determining where you want to go before you try to go there, and putting governance guardrails in place to be sure that everyone (the business, ...
S2 E2: IT Product Management
March 31, 2022 19:00 - 1 hour - 61.4 MBOur guest today is Jeffrey Sherow. Jeff has spent a long career at the intersection of business and technology. He started out with Andersen Consulting, rose through the ranks to become an Accenture partner, and stayed there for several years. Jeff has become extremely interested in the role of the product manager. The primary reason for this interest is his belief that the product manager needs to be someone who intimately understands the customer and what a business needs to do to deligh...
S2 E1: Four IT Perspectives: Public, Private, Customer & Vendor
January 15, 2022 14:00 - 1 hour - 66.4 MBToday we’re talking to Joyce Hunter, former CIO of the USDA and currently CEO of Vulcan Enterprises. Joyce brings a long and storied career full of insights from both the public and private sectors, from both sides of the fence—she’s been both customer and vendor. We discuss the similarities between the public and private sector, talk about some terrible project failures and some great successes, and explore the key reasons behind each. Guest LinkedIn Profile: Joyce Hunter These podcasts a...
S1 E10: Negotiating IT Agreements
December 15, 2021 14:00 - 1 hour - 59.2 MBThis episode is with Dan Kelly, founder and CEO of The Negotiator Guru. Dan is the person we have to thank for our podcast as he was the one who originally invited Dave to be on his, “The State of the CIO”. The feedback from that show was so good it convinced us to launch our own. As the title implies we’ll be talking about (among other things) the tricks of the trade when negotiating large enterprise software licenses. Dan shares some very frank observations about the predatory behavior of ...
S1 E9: Data, Analytics & Reporting
December 01, 2021 14:00 - 1 hour - 64.8 MBRoger Moore (no, not 007) is our guest today. Roger currently teaches Analytics at the University of Chicago where he’s also an alum of their MBA program. Over his 30-plus year career he’s been with a number of major consulting groups such as BCG, Gartner, Booze and PWC. He’s currently running his own Data and Analytics firm. This conversation is foundational. Roger helps us unpack the critical components and structures of a good data, analytics and reporting organization / strategy. Unfortu...
Episode Eight: Ethical EQ in IT Project Management
November 15, 2021 15:00 - 1 hour - 52.3 MBOur guest in this episode is Jomo Starke, Director of Innovation at Canton & Company. Jomo’s 30-plus year tech career started with developing video games—which he almost sold to Atari before they realized he was twelve. From his early days as a 17 year old wunderkind analyst to his years in project management, sales and biz dev, Jomo shares his insights into what makes tech enabled business projects successful and the simple, yet critical oversights that so often cause them to fail.
S1 E8: Ethical EQ in IT Project Management
November 15, 2021 15:00 - 1 hour - 52.3 MBOur guest in this episode is Jomo Starke, Director of Innovation at Canton & Company. Jomo’s 30-plus year tech career started with developing video games—which he almost sold to Atari before they realized he was twelve. From his early days as a 17 year old wunderkind analyst to his years in project management, sales and biz dev, Jomo shares his insights into what makes tech enabled business projects successful and the simple, yet critical oversights that so often cause them to fail. Guest ...
Episode Seven: Nestles, SAP & the Greater Good
November 01, 2021 14:00 - 1 hour - 62.3 MBWe’re joined today by Ray Weale, currently COO of IDMerit and formerly Director of Digital Innovation at Nestle. Ray helped lead the global unification of literally thousands of Nestles processes and systems on to 34 standard processes on SAP—realizing staggering benefits along the way. Our conversation starts with Ray’s background and carries into how Nestle accomplished this remarkable global integration and unification. Personal note: I must confess to feeling a bit sycophant-ish as we...
S1 E7: Nestles, SAP & the Greater Good
November 01, 2021 14:00 - 1 hour - 62.3 MBWe’re joined today by Ray Weale, currently COO of IDMerit and formerly Director of Digital Innovation at Nestle. Ray helped lead the global unification of literally thousands of Nestles processes and systems on to 34 standard processes on SAP—realizing staggering benefits along the way. Our conversation starts with Ray’s background and carries into how Nestle accomplished this remarkable global integration and unification. Personal note: I must confess to feeling a bit sycophant-ish as we...
Episode Six: Five Ground Rules for Every Tech Team
October 15, 2021 14:00 - 1 hour - 55.4 MBIn the last episode we talked about how a CIO (or IT leader) needs to prepare their business counterparts for their roles and responsibilities in an upcoming tech-enabled business project. In this episode we talk about IT department leadership, expectations and accountability. We share five “ground rules” that tech leaders need to share with their teams to position them for project success and to provide better service to their business counterparts. We are again joined by our CIO guest, Joh...
S1 E6: Five Ground Rules for Every Tech Team
October 15, 2021 14:00 - 1 hour - 55.4 MBIn the last episode we talked about how a CIO (or IT leader) needs to prepare their business counterparts for their roles and responsibilities in an upcoming tech-enabled business project. In this episode we talk about IT department leadership, expectations and accountability. We share five “ground rules” that tech leaders need to share with their teams to position them for project success and to provide better service to their business counterparts. We are again joined by our CIO guest, Joh...
S1 E5: Five Things to Share With the Business Before the Project Starts
October 01, 2021 23:00 - 1 hour - 49.8 MBThis episode shares five things that the tech team needs to share with business executives, project sponsor(s), process owners and subject matter experts to set their expectations and explain their obligations before a project kicks off. We’re joined on this episode by an old friend and colleague, John Fisher, who has held multiple CIO positions over his 35+ year career and currently teaches at DePaul University. Guest LinkedIn Profile: John Fisher These podcasts are dedicated to bridging ...
Episode 5: Five Things to Share With the Business Before the Project Starts
October 01, 2021 23:00 - 1 hour - 49.8 MBThis episode shares five things that the tech team needs to share with business executives, project sponsor(s), process owners and subject matter experts to set their expectations and explain their obligations before a project kicks off. We’re joined on this episode by an old friend and colleague, John Fisher, who has held multiple CIO positions over his 35+ year career and currently teaches at DePaul University.
S1 E4 Part 2: The Solution - The Business Execution Lifecycle
September 15, 2021 10:00 - 1 hour - 41.6 MBPart 2 of this episode builds on the foundation of part 1 and is dedicated to examining the details within each of the four stages and twelve steps of the Business Execution Lifecycle (“BEL”). Suggested readings: “The Checklist Manifesto” by Atul Gawande “Thinking Fast & Slow” by Daniel Kahneman “Incognito” by David Eagleman “The paradox of human expertise: why experts get it wrong” by Itiel E. Dror “The Coming Software Apocalypse” by James Somers in the Atlantic “The Lost Language of...
Episode 4 Part 2: The Solution - The Business Execution Lifecycle
September 15, 2021 10:00 - 1 hour - 41.6 MBPart 2 of this episode builds on the foundation of part 1 and is dedicated to examining the details within each of the four stages and twelve steps of the Business Execution Lifecycle (“BEL”). Suggested readings: “The Checklist Manifesto” by Atul Gawande “Thinking Fast & Slow” by Daniel Kahneman “Incognito” by David Eagleman “The paradox of human expertise: why experts get it wrong” by Itiel E. Dror “The Coming Software Apocalypse” by James Somers in the Atlantic “The Lost Language of...
S1 E4 Part 1: The Solution - The Business Execution Lifecycle
September 01, 2021 10:00 - 47 minutes - 33 MBThis episode introduces a simple solution to bridge the gap between everything the business knows and what they communicate to the IT project team. We propose a checklist of questions to cover each step in the Business Execution Lifecycle (“BEL”). Execution is not a one-off, linear exercise, but rather a continuous cycle with four distinct stages (Do, Manage, Assess, Refine) that is common to every business process. If you understand the BEL framework, you can create a checklist to unpack th...
Episode 4 Part 1: The Solution - The Business Execution Lifecycle
September 01, 2021 10:00 - 47 minutes - 33 MBThis episode introduces a simple solution to bridge the gap between everything the business knows and what they communicate to the IT project team. We propose a checklist of questions to cover each step in the Business Execution Lifecycle (“BEL”). Execution is not a one-off, linear exercise, but rather a continuous cycle with four distinct stages (Do, Manage, Assess, Refine) that is common to every business process. If you understand the BEL framework, you can create a checklist to unpack th...
Episode 2: The Biggest Problem with IT Projects
August 21, 2021 01:00 - 52 minutes - 36.3 MBWe take a deep dive into the nature of the divide between business and IT. We lay out our research on the frequency, costs and cause of roughly 75% of all enterprise IT failures. The primary cause is usually labeled a communications issue. It’s actually a function of silence. It’s the sum total of all the details the business forgets to share, all the questions IT never knows to ask, and all the assumptions they both make but never confirm.
S1 E2: The Biggest Problem with IT Projects
August 21, 2021 01:00 - 52 minutes - 36.3 MBWe take a deep dive into the nature of the divide between business and IT. We lay out our research on the frequency, costs and cause of roughly 75% of all enterprise IT failures. The primary cause is usually labeled a communications issue. It’s actually a function of silence. It’s the sum total of all the details the business forgets to share, all the questions IT never knows to ask, and all the assumptions they both make but never confirm. These podcasts are dedicated to bridging the gap b...
S1 E3 Part 1: The Cause - Our Brain Doesn’t Work the Way We Thought
August 21, 2021 01:00 - 35 minutes - 24.6 MBOur entire approach to running IT projects is based on an unspoken assumption that is so deeply engrained in our culture it’s treated as a given. There’s only one problem with this assumption—it’s wrong. Humans are not rational actors who control their thoughts and actions. We don’t control our brain. Our brain controls us in ways, and to an extent, we never imagined. Part one of this episode begins to unpack this discovery and explain its consequences. Continue to Part 2 Suggested readin...
S1 E3 Part 2: The Cause - Our Brain Doesn’t Work the Way We Thought
August 21, 2021 01:00 - 51 minutes - 35.6 MBPart two continues where part one leaves off by attempting to explain—as well as a non-scientist can—seven unconscious and uncontrollable ways our brain works to unwittingly sabotage IT projects. These “sinister seven” are by no means unique to IT or business. They inject themselves into and impact every human interaction. Suggested readings: “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” by Malcolm Gladwell “Thinking Fast & Slow” by Daniel Kahneman “How We Decide” by Jonah Lehrer “Be...
Episode 3 Part 2: The Cause - Our Brain Doesn’t Work the Way We Thought
August 21, 2021 01:00 - 51 minutes - 35.6 MBPart two continues where part one leaves off by attempting to explain—as well as a non-scientist can—seven unconscious and uncontrollable ways our brain works to unwittingly sabotage IT projects. These “sinister seven” are by no means unique to IT or business. They inject themselves into and impact every human interaction. Suggested readings: “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” by Malcolm Gladwell “Thinking Fast & Slow” by Daniel Kahneman “How We Decide” by Jonah Lehrer “Be...
Episode 3 Part 1: The Cause - Our Brain Doesn’t Work the Way We Thought
August 21, 2021 01:00 - 35 minutes - 24.6 MBOur entire approach to running IT projects is based on an unspoken assumption that is so deeply engrained in our culture it’s treated as a given. There’s only one problem with this assumption—it’s wrong. Humans are not rational actors who control their thoughts and actions. We don’t control our brain. Our brain controls us in ways, and to an extent, we never imagined. Part one of this episode begins to unpack this discovery and explain its consequences. Continue to Part 2 Suggested readin...
Episode 1: Welcome to Bridging Business & IT
August 17, 2021 02:00 - 49 minutes - 34.1 MBIntroduction to a journey and your hosts. A father and son tech team sets out to explore the biggest challenge and most persistent problem in business technology—how to bridge the chasm between what a business needs and how IT addresses that need. Each brings a different perspective and approach with the goal of meeting in the middle.
S1 E1: Welcome to Bridging Business & IT
August 17, 2021 02:00 - 49 minutes - 34.1 MBIntroduction to a journey and your hosts. A father and son tech team sets out to explore the biggest challenge and most persistent problem in business technology—how to bridge the chasm between what a business needs and how IT addresses that need. Each brings a different perspective and approach with the goal of meeting in the middle. These podcasts are dedicated to bridging the gap between business & IT. Each episode looks at different aspects of this relationship as we explore ways to he...