(eBook PDF) IT Strategy Issues and

PracticesIssues and Practices 3rd install

download

https://ebookluna.com/product/ebook-pdf-it-strategy-issues-and-
practicesissues-and-practices-3rd/

Download more ebook from https://ebookluna.com

 Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) ready for you
Download now and discover formats that fit your needs...

IT Strategy: Issues and Practices 3rd Edition (eBook PDF)

https://ebookluna.com/product/it-strategy-issues-and-practices-3rd-
edition-ebook-pdf/

ebookluna.com

(eBook PDF) Foundation Design Principles and Practices 3rd

Edition

https://ebookluna.com/product/ebook-pdf-foundation-design-principles-
and-practices-3rd-edition/

ebookluna.com

(eBook PDF) IT Strategy & Innovation 4th Edition By James

D. McKeen

https://ebookluna.com/product/ebook-pdf-it-strategy-innovation-4th-
edition-by-james-d-mckeen/

ebookluna.com

Bioethics: Principles, Issues, and Cases 3rd Edition

(eBook PDF)

https://ebookluna.com/product/bioethics-principles-issues-and-
cases-3rd-edition-ebook-pdf/

ebookluna.com
(eBook PDF) Reading and Writing About Contemporary Issues
3rd Edition

https://ebookluna.com/product/ebook-pdf-reading-and-writing-about-
contemporary-issues-3rd-edition/

ebookluna.com

Global Health Care: Issues and Policies 3rd Edition (eBook

PDF)

https://ebookluna.com/product/global-health-care-issues-and-
policies-3rd-edition-ebook-pdf/

ebookluna.com

(eBook PDF) Corporate Governance: Principles, Policies,

and Practices 3rd Canadian Edition

https://ebookluna.com/product/ebook-pdf-corporate-governance-
principles-policies-and-practices-3rd-canadian-edition/

ebookluna.com

(eBook PDF) Managing Information Systems: Strategy and

Organisation 3rd Edition

https://ebookluna.com/product/ebook-pdf-managing-information-systems-
strategy-and-organisation-3rd-edition/

ebookluna.com

(eBook PDF) Behavior Modification: What It Is and How To

Do It 11th Edition

https://ebookluna.com/product/ebook-pdf-behavior-modification-what-it-
is-and-how-to-do-it-11th-edition/

ebookluna.com
 Contents vii

Section II   IT Governance 87

Chapter 7 Creating IT Shared Services 88

IT Shared Services: An Overview 89
IT Shared Services: Pros and Cons 92
IT Shared Services: Key Organizational Success Factors 93
Identifying Candidate Services 94
An Integrated Model of IT Shared Services 95
Recommmendations for Creating Effective IT
Shared Services 96
Conclusion 99 • References 99

Chapter 8 A Management Framework for

IT Sourcing 100
A Maturity Model for IT Functions 101
IT Sourcing Options: Theory Versus Practice 105
The “Real” Decision Criteria 109
Decision Criterion #1: Flexibility 109
Decision Criterion #2: Control 109
Decision Criterion #3: Knowledge Enhancement 110
Decision Criterion #4: Business Exigency 110
A Decision Framework for Sourcing IT Functions 111
Identify Your Core IT Functions 111
Create a “Function Sourcing” Profile 111
Evolve Full-Time IT Personnel 113
Encourage Exploration of the Whole Range
of Sourcing Options 114
Combine Sourcing Options Strategically 114
A Management Framework for Successful
Sourcing 115
Develop a Sourcing Strategy 115
Develop a Risk Mitigation Strategy 115
Develop a Governance Strategy 116
Understand the Cost Structures 116
Conclusion 117 • References 117

Chapter 9 The IT Budgeting Process 118

Key Concepts in IT Budgeting 119
The Importance of Budgets 121
The IT Planning and Budget Process 123
viii Contents

Corporate Processes 123

IT Processes 125
Assess Actual IT Spending 126
IT Budgeting Practices That Deliver Value 127
Conclusion 128 • References 129

Chapter 10 Managing IT- Based Risk 130

A Holistic View of IT-Based Risk 131
Holistic Risk Management: A Portrait 134
Developing a Risk Management Framework 135
Improving Risk Management Capabilities 138
Conclusion 139 • References 140
Appendix A A Selection of Risk Classification
Schemes 141

Chapter 11 Information Management: The Nexus

of Business and IT 142
Information Management: How Does It Fit? 143
A Framework For IM 145
Stage One: Develop an IM Policy 145
Stage Two: Articulate the Operational
Components 145
Stage Three: Establish Information Stewardship 146
Stage Four: Build Information Standards 147
Issues In IM 148
Culture and Behavior 148
Information Risk Management 149
Information Value 150
Privacy 150
Knowledge Management 151
The Knowing–Doing Gap 151
Getting Started in IM 151
Conclusion 153 • References 154
Appendix A Elements of IM Operations 155

Mini Cases
Building Shared Services at RR Communications 156
Enterprise Architecture at Nationstate Insurance 160
IT Investment at North American Financial 165
 Contents ix

Section III   IT-Enabled Innovation 169

Chapter 12 Innovation with IT 170

The Need for Innovation: An Historical
Perspective 171
The Need for Innovation Now 171
Understanding Innovation 172
The Value of Innovation 174
Innovation Essentials: Motivation, Support,
and Direction 175
Challenges for IT leaders 177
Facilitating Innovation 179
Conclusion 180 • References 181

Chapter 13 Big Data and Social Computing 182

The Social Media/Big Data Opportunity 183
Delivering Business Value with Big Data 185
Innovating with Big Data 189
Pulling in Two Different Directions: The Challenge
for IT Managers 190
First Steps for IT Leaders 192
Conclusion 193 • References 194

Chapter 14 Improving the Customer Experience:

An IT Perspective 195
Customer Experience and Business value 196
Many Dimensions of Customer Experience 197
The Role of Technology in Customer Experience 199
Customer Experience Essentials for IT 200
First Steps to Improving Customer Experience 203
Conclusion 204 • References 204

Chapter 15 Building Business Intelligence 206

Understanding Business Intelligence 207
The Need for Business Intelligence 208
The Challenge of Business Intelligence 209
The Role of IT in Business Intelligence 211
Improving Business Intelligence 213
Conclusion 216 • References 216
x Contents

Chapter 16 Enabling Collaboration with IT 218

Why Collaborate? 219
Characteristics of Collaboration 222
Components of Successful Collaboration 225
The Role of IT in Collaboration 227
First Steps for Facilitating Effective Collaboration 229
Conclusion 231 • References 232

Mini Cases
Innovation at International Foods 234
Consumerization of Technology at IFG 239
CRM at Minitrex 243
Customer Service at Datatronics 246

Section IV  IT Portfolio Development and Management 251

Chapter 17 Application Portfolio Management 252

The Applications Quagmire 253
The Benefits of a Portfolio Perspective 254
Making APM Happen 256
Capability 1: Strategy and Governance 258
Capability 2: Inventory Management 262
Capability 3: Reporting and Rationalization 263
Key Lessons Learned 264
Conclusion 265 • References 265
Appendix A Application Information 266

Chapter 18 Managing IT Demand 270

Understanding IT Demand 271
The Economics of Demand Management 273
Three Tools for Demand management 273
Key Organizational Enablers for Effective Demand
Management 274
Strategic Initiative Management 275
Application Portfolio Management 276
Enterprise Architecture 276
Business–IT Partnership 277
Governance and Transparency 279
Conclusion 281 • References 281
 Contents xi

Chapter 19 Creating and Evolving a Technology

Roadmap 283
What is a Technology Roadmap? 284
The Benefits of a Technology Roadmap 285
External Benefits (Effectiveness) 285
Internal Benefits (Efficiency) 286
Elements of the Technology Roadmap 286
Activity #1: Guiding Principles 287
Activity #2: Assess Current Technology 288
Activity #3: Analyze Gaps 289
Activity #4: Evaluate Technology
Landscape 290
Activity #5: Describe Future Technology 291
Activity #6: Outline Migration Strategy 292
Activity #7: Establish Governance 292
Practical Steps for Developing a Technology
Roadmap 294
Conclusion 295 • References 295
Appendix A Principles to Guide a Migration
Strategy 296

Chapter 20 Enhancing Development

Productivity 297
The Problem with System Development 298
Trends in System Development 299
Obstacles to Improving System Development
Productivity 302
Improving System Development Productivity: What we
know that Works 304
Next Steps to Improving System Development
Productivity 306
Conclusion 308 • References 308

Chapter 21 Information Delivery: IT’s Evolving Role 310

Information and IT: Why Now? 311
Delivering Value Through Information 312
Effective Information Delivery 316
New Information Skills 316
New Information Roles 317
New Information Practices 317
xii Contents

New Information Strategies 318

The Future of Information Delivery 319
Conclusion 321 • References 322

Mini Cases
Project Management at MM 324
Working Smarter at Continental Furniture International 328
Managing Technology at Genex Fuels 333
Index 336
 Preface

Today, with information technology (IT) driving constant business transformation,

overwhelming organizations with information, enabling 24/7 global operations, and
undermining traditional business models, the challenge for business leaders is not
simply to manage IT, it is to use IT to deliver business value. Whereas until fairly recently,
decisions about IT could be safely delegated to technology specialists after a business
strategy had been developed, IT is now so closely integrated with business that, as one
CIO explained to us, “We can no longer deliver business solutions in our company
without using technology so IT and business strategy must constantly interact with
each other.”

What’s New in This Third Edition?

• Six new chapters focusing on current critical issues in IT management, including
IT shared services; big data and social computing; business intelligence; manag-
ing IT demand; improving the customer experience; and enhancing development
productivity.
• Two significantly revised chapters: on delivering IT functions through different
resourcing options; and innovating with IT.
• Two new mini cases based on real companies and real IT management situations:
Working Smarter at Continental Furniture and Enterprise Architecture at Nationstate
Insurance.
• A revised structure based on reader feedback with six chapters and two mini cases
from the second edition being moved to the Web site.

All too often, in our efforts to prepare future executives to deal effectively with
the issues of IT strategy and management, we lead them into a foreign country where
they encounter a different language, different culture, and different customs. Acronyms
(e.g., SOA, FTP/IP, SDLC, ITIL, ERP), buzzwords (e.g., asymmetric encryption, proxy
servers, agile, enterprise service bus), and the widely adopted practice of abstraction
(e.g., Is a software monitor a person, place, or thing?) present formidable “barriers to
entry” to the technologically uninitiated, but more important, they obscure the impor-
tance of teaching students how to make business decisions about a key organizational
resource. By taking a critical issues perspective, IT Strategy: Issues and Practices treats IT
as a tool to be leveraged to save and/or make money or transform an organization—not
as a study by itself.
As in the first two editions of this book, this third edition combines the experi-
ences and insights of many senior IT managers from leading-edge organizations with
thorough academic research to bring important issues in IT management to life and
demonstrate how IT strategy is put into action in contemporary businesses. This new
edition has been designed around an enhanced set of critical real-world issues in IT
management today, such as innovating with IT, working with big data and social media,

xiii
xiv Preface

enhancing customer experience, and designing for business intelligence and introduces
students to the challenges of making IT decisions that will have significant impacts on
how businesses function and deliver value to stakeholders.
IT Strategy: Issues and Practices focuses on how IT is changing and will continue to
change organizations as we now know them. However, rather than learning concepts
“free of context,” students are introduced to the complex decisions facing real organi-
zations by means of a number of mini cases. These provide an opportunity to apply
the models/theories/frameworks presented and help students integrate and assimilate
this material. By the end of the book, students will have the confidence and ability to
tackle the tough issues regarding IT management and strategy and a clear understand-
ing of their importance in delivering business value.

Key Features of This Book

• A focus on IT management issues as opposed to technology issues
• Critical IT issues explored within their organizational contexts
• Readily applicable models and frameworks for implementing IT strategies
• Mini cases to animate issues and focus classroom discussions on real-world deci-
sions, enabling problem-based learning
• Proven strategies and best practices from leading-edge organizations
• Useful and practical advice and guidelines for delivering value with IT
• Extensive teaching notes for all mini cases

A Different Approach to Teaching IT Strategy

The real world of IT is one of issues—critical issues—such as the following:
• How do we know if we are getting value from our IT investment?
• How can we innovate with IT?
• What specific IT functions should we seek from external providers?
• How do we build an IT leadership team that is a trusted partner with the business?
• How do we enhance IT capabilities?
• What is IT’s role in creating an intelligent business?
• How can we best take advantage of new technologies, such as big data and social
media, in our business?
• How can we manage IT risk?
However, the majority of management information systems (MIS) textbooks are orga-
nized by system category (e.g., supply chain, customer relationship m
­ anagement, enterprise
resource planning), by system component (e.g., hardware, software, ­networks), by system
function (e.g., marketing, financial, human resources), by s­ystem type (e.g., transactional,
decisional, strategic), or by a combination of these. Unfortunately, such an organization
does not promote an understanding of IT management in practice.
IT Strategy: Issues and Practices tackles the real-world challenges of IT manage-
ment. First, it explores a set of the most important issues facing IT managers today, and
second, it provides a series of mini cases that present these critical IT issues within the
context of real organizations. By focusing the text as well as the mini cases on today’s
critical issues, the book naturally reinforces problem-based learning.
 Preface xv

IT Strategy: Issues and Practices includes thirteen mini cases—each based on a real
company presented anonymously.1 Mini cases are not simply abbreviated versions of
standard, full-length business cases. They differ in two significant ways:
1. A horizontal perspective. Unlike standard cases that develop a single issue within
an organizational setting (i.e., a “vertical” slice of organizational life), mini cases
take a “horizontal” slice through a number of coexistent issues. Rather than looking
for a solution to a specific problem, as in a standard case, students analyzing a mini
case must first identify and prioritize the issues embedded within the case. This mim-
ics real life in organizations where the challenge lies in “knowing where to start” as
opposed to “solving a predefined problem.”
2. Highly relevant information. Mini cases are densely written. Unlike standard
cases, which intermix irrelevant information, in a mini case, each sentence exists for
a reason and reflects relevant information. As a result, students must analyze each
case very carefully so as not to miss critical aspects of the situation.
Teaching with mini cases is, thus, very different than teaching with standard cases.
With mini cases, students must determine what is really going on within the organiza-
tion. What first appears as a straightforward “technology” problem may in fact be a
political problem or one of five other “technology” problems. Detective work is, there-
fore, required. The problem identification and prioritization skills needed are essential
skills for future managers to learn for the simple reason that it is not possible for organi-
zations to tackle all of their problems concurrently. Mini cases help teach these skills to
students and can balance the problem-solving skills learned in other classes. Best of all,
detective work is fun and promotes lively classroom discussion.
To assist instructors, extensive teaching notes are available for all mini cases. Developed
by the authors and based on “tried and true” in-class experience, these notes include case
summaries, identify the key issues within each case, present ancillary i­ nformation about the
company/industry represented in the case, and offer guidelines for organizing the class-
room discussion. Because of the structure of these mini cases and their embedded issues, it
is common for teaching notes to exceed the length of the actual mini case!
This book is most appropriate for MIS courses where the goal is to understand how
IT delivers organizational value. These courses are frequently labeled “IT Strategy” or
“IT Management” and are offered within undergraduate as well as MBA programs. For
undergraduate juniors and seniors in business and commerce programs, this is usually
the “capstone” MIS course. For MBA students, this course may be the compulsory core
course in MIS, or it may be an elective course.
Each chapter and mini case in this book has been thoroughly tested in a variety
of undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs at Queen’s School of Business.2

1
We are unable to identify these leading-edge companies by agreements established as part of our overall
research program (described later).
2
Queen’s School of Business is one of the world’s premier business schools, with a faculty team renowned
for its business experience and academic credentials. The School has earned international recognition for
its innovative approaches to team-based and experiential learning. In addition to its highly acclaimed MBA
programs, Queen’s School of Business is also home to Canada’s most prestigious undergraduate business
program and several outstanding graduate programs. As well, the School is one of the world’s largest and
most respected providers of executive education.
xvi Preface

These materials have proven highly successful within all programs because we adapt
how the material is presented according to the level of the students. Whereas under-
graduate students “learn” about critical business issues from the book and mini cases
for the first time, graduate students are able to “relate” to these same critical issues
based on their previous business experience. As a result, graduate students are able to
introduce personal experiences into the discussion of these critical IT issues.

Organization of This Book

One of the advantages of an issues-focused structure is that chapters can be approached
in any order because they do not build on one another. Chapter order is immaterial; that
is, one does not need to read the first three chapters to understand the fourth. This pro-
vides an instructor with maximum flexibility to organize a course as he or she sees fit.
Thus, within different courses/programs, the order of topics can be changed to focus on
different IT concepts.
Furthermore, because each mini case includes multiple issues, they, too, can be
used to serve different purposes. For example, the mini case “Building Shared Services
at RR Communications” can be used to focus on issues of governance, organizational
structure, and/or change management just as easily as shared services. The result is a
rich set of instructional materials that lends itself well to a variety of pedagogical appli-
cations, particularly problem-based learning, and that clearly illustrates the reality of IT
strategy in action.
The book is organized into four sections, each emphasizing a key component of
developing and delivering effective IT strategy:
• Section I: Delivering Value with IT is designed to examine the complex ways that
IT and business value are related. Over the past twenty years, researchers and prac-
titioners have come to understand that “business value” can mean many d ­ ifferent
things when applied to IT. Chapter 1 (Developing and Delivering on the IT Value
Proposition) explores these concepts in depth. Unlike the simplistic value propo-
sitions often used when implementing IT in organizations, this c­ hapter ­presents
“value” as a multilayered business construct that must be effectively m ­ anaged at
several levels if technology is to achieve the benefits expected. Chapter 2 (Developing
IT Strategy for Business Value) examines the dynamic i­nterrelationship between
business and IT strategy and looks at the processes and critical s­uccess ­factors
used by organizations to ensure that both are well aligned. Chapter 3 (Linking IT
to Business Metrics) discusses new ways of measuring IT’s e­ ffectiveness that pro-
mote closer business–IT alignment and help drive greater business value. Chapter
4 (Building a Strong Relationship with the Business) examines the nature of the
business–IT relationship and the characteristics of an effective relationship that
delivers real value to the enterprise. Chapter 5 (Communicating with Business
Managers) explores the business and interpersonal competencies that IT staff will
need in order to do their jobs effectively over the next five to seven years and what
companies should be doing to develop them. Finally, Chapter 6 (Building Better IT
Leaders from the Bottom Up) tackles the increasing need for improved leadership
skills in all IT staff and examines the expectations of the business for strategic and
innovative guidance from IT.
 Preface xvii

In the mini cases associated with this section, the concepts of delivering
value with IT are explored in a number of different ways. We see business and
IT ­executives at Hefty Hardware grappling with conflicting priorities and per-
spectives and how best to work together to achieve the company’s strategy. In
“Investing in TUFS,” CIO Martin Drysdale watches as all of the work his IT depart-
ment has put into a major new system fails to deliver value. And the “IT Planning
at ModMeters” mini case follows CIO Brian Smith’s efforts to create a strategic
IT plan that will align with business strategy, keep IT running, and not increase
IT’s budget.
• Section II: IT Governance explores key concepts in how the IT organization is
structured and managed to effectively deliver IT products and services to the orga-
nization. Chapter 7 (IT Shared Services) discusses how IT shared services should be
selected, organized, managed, and governed to achieve improved organizational
performance. Chapter 8 (A Management Framework for IT Sourcing) examines
how organizations are choosing to source and deliver different types of IT functions
and presents a framework to guide sourcing decisions. Chapter 9 (The IT Budgeting
Process) describes the “evil twin” of IT strategy, discussing how budgeting mecha-
nisms can significantly undermine effective business strategies and suggesting
practices for addressing this problem while maintaining traditional fiscal account-
ability. Chapter 10 (Managing IT-based Risk) describes how many IT organizations
have been given the responsibility of not only managing risk in their own activities
(i.e., project development, operations, and delivering business strategy) but also
of managing IT-based risk in all company activities (e.g., mobile computing, file
sharing, and online access to information and software) and the need for a holistic
framework to understand and deal with risk effectively. Chapter 11 (Information
Management: The Nexus of Business and IT) describes how new organizational
needs for more useful and integrated information are driving the development of
business-oriented functions within IT that focus specifically on information and
knowledge, as opposed to applications and data.
The mini cases in this section examine the difficulties of managing com-
plex IT issues when they intersect substantially with important business issues.
In “Building Shared Services at RR Communications,” we see an IT organiza-
tion in transition from a traditional divisional structure and governance model
to a more centralized enterprise model, and the long-term challenges experi-
enced by CIO Vince Patton in changing both business and IT practices, includ-
ing information management and delivery, to support this new approach. In
“Enterprise Architecture at Nationstate Insurance,” CIO Jane Denton endeavors
to make IT more flexible and agile, while incorporating new and emerging tech-
nologies into its strategy. In “IT Investment at North American Financial,” we
show the opportunities and challenges involved in prioritizing and resourcing
enterprisewide IT projects and monitoring that anticipated benefits are being
achieved.
• Section III: IT-Enabled Innovation discusses some of the ways technology is
being used to transform organizations. Chapter 12 (Innovation with IT) examines
the nature and importance of innovation with IT and describes a typical inno-
vation life cycle. Chapter 13 (Big Data and Social Computing) discusses how IT
leaders are incorporating big data and social media concepts and technologies
xviii Preface

to successfully deliver business value in new ways. Chapter 14 (Improving the

Customer Experience: An IT Perspective) explores the IT function’s role in creating
and improving an organization’s customer experiences and the role of technology
in helping companies to understand and learn from their customers’ experiences.
Chapter 15 (Building Business Intelligence) looks at the nature of business intelli-
gence and its relationship to data, information, and knowledge and how IT can be
used to build a more intelligent organization. Chapter 16 (Enabling Collaboration
with IT) identifies the principal forms of collaboration used in organizations, the
primary business drivers involved in them, how their business value is measured,
and the roles of IT and the business in enabling collaboration.
The mini cases in this section focus on the key challenges companies face in
innovating with IT. “Innovation at International Foods” contrasts the need for pro-
cess and control in corporate IT with the strong push to innovate with technology
and the difficulties that ensue from the clash of style and culture. “Consumerization
of Technology at IFG” looks at issues such as “bring your own device” (BYOD) to
the workplace. In “CRM at Minitrex,” we see some of the internal technological and
political conflicts that result from a strategic decision to become more customercen-
tric. Finally, “Customer Service at Datatronics” explores the importance of present-
ing unified, customer-facing IT to customers.
• Section IV: IT Portfolio Development and Management looks at how the IT
function must transform itself to be able to deliver business value effectively in
the future. Chapter 17 (Application Portfolio Management) describes the ongoing
management process of categorizing, assessing, and rationalizing the IT application
portfolio. Chapter 18 (Managing IT Demand) looks at the often neglected issue of
demand management (as opposed to supply management), explores the root causes
of the demand for IT services, and identifies a number of tools and enablers to
facilitate more effective demand management. Chapter 19 (Creating and Evolving
a Technology Roadmap) examines the challenges IT managers face in implement-
ing new infrastructure, technology standards, and types of technology in their real-
world business and technical environments, which is composed of a huge variety of
hardware, software, applications, and other technologies, some of which date back
more than thirty years. Chapter 20 (Enhancing Development Productivity) explores
how system development practices are changing and how managers can create
an environment to promote improved development productivity. And Chapter 21
(Information Delivery: IT’s Evolving Role) examines the fresh challenges IT faces in
managing the exponential growth of data and digital assets; privacy and account-
ability concerns; and new demands for access to information on an anywhere, any-
time basis.
The mini cases associated with this section describe many of these themes
embedded within real organizational contexts. “Project Management at MM” mini
case shows how a top-priority, strategic project can take a wrong turn when proj-
ect management skills are ineffective. “Working Smarter at Continental Furniture”
mini case follows an initiative to improve the company’s analytics so it can reduce
its environmental impact. And in the mini case “Managing Technology at Genex
Fuels,” we see CIO Nick Devlin trying to implement enterprisewide technology for
competitive advantage in an organization that has been limping along with obscure
and outdated systems.
 Preface xix

Supplementary Materials
Online Instructor Resource Center
The following supplements are available online to adopting instructors:
• PowerPoint Lecture Notes
• Image Library (text art)
• Extensive Teaching Notes for all Mini cases
• Additional chapters including Developing IT Professionalism; IT Sourcing; Master
Data Management; Developing IT Capabilities; The Identity Management Challenge;
Social Computing; Managing Perceptions of IT; IT in the New World of Corporate
Governance Reforms; Enhancing Customer Experiences with Technology; Creating
Digital Dashboards; and Managing Electronic Communications.
• Additional mini cases, including IT Leadership at MaxTrade; Creating a Process-Driven
Organization at Ag-Credit; Information Management at Homestyle Hotels; Knowledge
Management at Acme Consulting; Desktop Provisioning at CanCredit; and Leveraging
IT Vendors at SleepSmart.
For detailed descriptions of all of the supplements just listed, please visit http://
www.pearsonhighered.com/mckeen.

CourseSmart eTextbooks Online

CourseSmart is an exciting new choice for students looking to save money. As an alter-
native to purchasing the print textbook, students can purchase an electronic version of
the same content and save up to 50 percent off the suggested list price of the print text.
With a CourseSmart etextbook, students can search the text, make notes online, print
out reading assignments that incorporate lecture notes, and bookmark important pas-
sages for later review. www.coursesmart.com.

The Genesis of This Book

Since 1990 we have been meeting quarterly with a group of senior IT managers from
a number of leading-edge organizations (e.g., Eli Lilly, BMO, Honda, HP, CIBC, IBM,
Sears, Bell Canada, MacDonalds, and Sun Life) to identify and discuss critical IT manage-
ment issues. This focus group represents a wide variety of industry sectors (e.g., retail,
­manufacturing, pharmaceutical, banking, telecommunications, insurance, media, food
processing, government, and automotive). Originally, it was established to meet the com-
panies’ needs for well-balanced, thoughtful, yet practical information on emerging IT
management topics, about which little or no research was available. However, we soon
recognized the value of this premise for our own research in the rapidly evolving field
of IT management. As a result, it quickly became a full-scale research program in which
we were able to use the focus group as an “early warning system” to document new IT
management issues, develop case studies around them, and explore more collaborative
approaches to identifying trends, challenges, and effective practices in each topic area.3

3
This now includes best practice case studies, field research in organizations, multidisciplinary qualitative
and quantitative research projects, and participation in numerous CIO research consortia.
xx Preface

As we shared our materials with our business students, we realized that this issues-
based approach resonated strongly with them, and we began to incorporate more of our
research into the classroom. This book is the result of our many years’ work with senior
IT managers, in organizations, and with students in the classroom.
Each issue in this book has been selected collaboratively by the focus group after
debate and discussion. As facilitators, our job has been to keep the group’s focus on IT
management issues, not technology per se. In preparation for each meeting, focus group
members researched the topic within their own organization, often involving a number
of members of their senior IT management team as well as subject matter experts in
the process. To guide them, we provided a series of questions about the issue, although
members are always free to explore it as they see fit. This approach provided both struc-
ture for the ensuing discussion and flexibility for those members whose ­organizations
are approaching the issue in a different fashion.
The focus group then met in a full-day session, where the members discussed all
aspects of the issue. Many also shared corporate documents with the group. We f­ acilitated
the discussion, in particular pushing the group to achieve a common understanding of
the dimensions of the issue and seeking examples, best practices, and guidelines for deal-
ing with the challenges involved. Following each session, we wrote a report based on the
discussion, incorporating relevant academic and practitioner materials where these were
available. (Because some topics are “bleeding edge,” there is often little traditional IT
research available on them.)
Each report has three parts:
1. A description of the issue and the challenges it presents for both business and IT
managers
2. Models and concepts derived from the literature to position the issue within a con-
textual framework
3. Near-term strategies (i.e., those that can be implemented immediately) that have
proven successful within organizations for dealing with the specific issue
Each chapter in this book focuses on one of these critical IT issues. We have learned
over the years that the issues themselves vary little across industries and organizations,
even in enterprises with unique IT strategies. However, each organization tackles the
same issue somewhat differently. It is this diversity that provides the richness of insight
in these chapters. Our collaborative research approach is based on our belief that when
dealing with complex and leading-edge issues, “everyone has part of the solution.”
Every focus group, therefore, provides us an opportunity to explore a topic from a
­variety of perspectives and to integrate different experiences (both successful and oth-
erwise) so that collectively, a thorough understanding of each issue can be developed
and strategies for how it can be managed most successfully can be identified.
 About the Authors

James D. McKeen is Professor Emeritus at the Queen’s School of Business. He has been
working in the IT field for many years as a practitioner, researcher, and consultant. In
2011, he was named the “IT Educator of the Year” by ComputerWorld Canada. Jim has
taught at universities in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the United States.
His research is widely published in a number of leading journals and he is the coau-
thor (with Heather Smith) of five books on IT management. Their most recent book—IT
Strategy: Issues and Practices (2nd ed.)—was the best-selling business book in Canada
(Globe and Mail, April 2012).

Heather A. Smith has been named the most-published researcher on IT management

issues in two successive studies (2006, 2009). A senior research associate with Queen’s
University School of Business, she is the author of five books, the most recent being IT
Strategy: Issues and Practices (Pearson Prentice Hall, 2012). She is also a senior research
associate with the American Society for Information Management’s Advanced Practices
Council. A former senior IT manager, she is codirector of the IT Management Forum and
the CIO Brief, which facilitate interorganizational learning among senior IT executives.
In addition, she consults and collaborates with organizations worldwide.

xxi
 Acknowledgments

The work contained in this book is based on numerous meetings with many senior IT
managers. We would like to acknowledge our indebtedness to the following individuals
who willingly shared their insights based on their experiences “earned the hard way”:

Michael Balenzano, Sergei Beliaev, Matthias Benfey, Nastaran Bisheban, Peter

Borden, Eduardo Cadena, Dale Castle, Marc Collins, Diane Cope, Dan Di Salvo,
Ken Dschankilic, Michael East, Nada Farah, Mark Gillard, Gary Goldsmith, Ian
Graham, Keiko Gutierrez, Maureen Hall, Bruce Harding, Theresa Harrington,
Tom Hopson, Heather Hutchison, Jim Irich, Zeeshan Khan, Joanne Lafreniere,
Konstantine Liris, Lisa MacKay, Mark O’Gorman, Amin Panjwani, Troy Pariag,
Brian Patton, Marius Podaru, Helen Restivo, Pat Sadler, A. F. Salam, Ashish
Saxena, Joanne Scher, Stewart Scott, Andy Secord, Marie Shafi, Helen Shih, Trudy
Sykes, Bruce Thompson, Raju Uppalapati, Len Van Greuning, Laurie Schatzberg,
Ted Vincent, and Bond Wetherbe.

We would also like to recognize the contribution of Queen’s School of Business

to this work. The school has facilitated and supported our vision of better integrat-
ing academic research and practice and has helped make our collaborative approach
to the study of IT management and strategy an effective model for interorganizational
learning.
James D. McKeen
Kingston, Ontario

Heather A. Smith
School of Business
June 2014

xxii
Section I

Delivering Value with IT

Chapter 1 Developing and Delivering on the IT Value Proposition

Chapter 2 Developing IT Strategy for Business Value
Chapter 3 Linking IT to Business Metrics
Chapter 4 Building a Strong Relationship with the Business
Chapter 5 Communicating with Business Managers
Chapter 6 Building Better IT Leaders from the Bottom Up

Mini Cases
■ Delivering Business Value with IT at Hefty Hardware
■ Investing in TUFS
■ IT Planning at ModMeters
 Chapter

1 Developing and Delivering

on the IT Value Proposition1

I
t’s déjà vu all over again. For at least twenty years, business leaders have been
­trying to figure out exactly how and where IT can be of value in their organizations.
And IT managers have been trying to learn how to deliver this value. When IT was
used mainly as a productivity improvement tool in small areas of a business, this was
a ­relatively straightforward process. Value was measured by reduced head counts—
usually in clerical areas—and/or the ability to process more transactions per person.
However, as systems grew in scope and complexity, unfortunately so did the risks. Very
few companies escaped this period without making at least a few disastrous invest-
ments in systems that didn’t work or didn’t deliver the bottom-line benefits executives
thought they would. Naturally, fingers were pointed at IT.
With the advent of the strategic use of IT in business, it became even more difficult
to isolate and deliver on the IT value proposition. It was often hard to tell if an invest-
ment had paid off. Who could say how many competitors had been deterred or how
many customers had been attracted by a particular IT initiative? Many companies can
tell horror stories of how they have been left with a substantial investment in new forms
of technology with little to show for it. Although over the years there have been many
improvements in where and how IT investments are made and good controls have been
established to limit time and cost overruns, we are still not able to accurately articulate
and deliver on a value proposition for IT when it comes to anything other than simple
productivity improvements or cost savings.
Problems in delivering IT value can lie with how a value proposition is conceived
or in what is done to actually implement an idea—that is, selecting the right project and
doing the project right (Cooper et al. 2000; McKeen and Smith 2003; Peslak 2012). In
addition, although most firms attempt to calculate the expected payback of an IT invest-
ment before making it, few actually follow up to ensure that value has been achieved or
to question what needs to be done to make sure that value will be delivered.

1
This chapter is based on the authors’ previously published article, Smith, H. A., and J. D. McKeen.
“Developing and Delivering on the IT Value Proposition.” Communications of the Association for Information
Systems 11 (April 2003): 438–50. Reproduced by permission of the Association for Information Systems.
2
Other documents randomly have
different content
known poems had a personal background and thus to differ with the
theory usually prevalent that Swinburne, instead of having sung his
own soul, was but a clever manipulator of rhyme and metre. The
clue to the investigation is furnished by our knowledge that one of
his greatest poems in the Poems and Ballads, "The Triumph of
Time," was inspired by the one love disappointment of his life. It
was written in 1862 when he was twenty-five years old and
"represented with the exactest fidelity," says Gosse, his biographer,
"his emotions which passed through his mind when his anger had
died down, and when nothing remained but the infinite pity and the
pain." Swinburne met the young lady at the home of the friends of
Ruskin and Burne-Jones, Dr. John Simon and his wife. She was a
kinswoman of theirs. She gave the poet roses and sang for him. She
laughed in his face when he proposed. He was hurt grievously and
went up to the sea in Northumberland and composed the poem. The
poet told Gosse the story in 1876.
The poem is a cry of a wounded heart; one of the most powerful in
all literature. The poet recounts all his emotions and foresees that
this affair will influence his life. Many lines in it are familiar to
Swinburne lovers, such as "I shall never be friend again with roses,"
"I shall hate sweet music my whole life long." It is one of
Swinburne's masterpieces and Rupert Brooke considered it the
masterpiece of the poet.
One may now see that the terrible declamation against love, one of
the lengthiest and best choruses in his play Atlanta in Calydon, rings
with a personal note. The lines beginning "For an evil blossom was
born" constitute one of the most bitter outcries against love in
literature. Unconsciously, memories of his lost love were at work and
the chorus must have been written about the same time as "The
Triumph of Time." The play itself was published in 1864. Swinburne
is the Chorus and thus chants his own feelings in the Greek legend
he tells.
Swinburne may have had other love affairs though Gosse tells us this
was his only one. I find memories of the unfortunate episode
throughout the entire first volume of Poems and Ballads, and note
recurrences to the theme in later volumes. In one of his best known
poems, "The Forsaken Garden," written in 1876, he dwells on the
death of love. The idea of love having an end is repeated with much
persistency throughout many of his poems; he so harps on the same
note, that the suspicions of critics should have been roused before
we learned about the romance of his life. No doubt the reason he
was attracted to the love tragedy of Tristram of Lyonesse, published
in 1882, was because of his own tragic experience; and in the
splendid prelude (written, Gosse tells us, in 1871) we see the effects
of his love affair.
We have evidence of Swinburne's grief in two of the greatest poems
of the Poems and Ballads, where it was least suspected, in
"Anactoria" and "Dolores," poems whose morality he had to defend.
He pours some light on the subject in his Notes on Poems and
Reviews, published as a reply to his critics after the issue of his
Poems and Ballads in 1865. Of "Anactoria" he said: "In this poem I
have simply expressed, or tried to express, that violence of affection
between one and another which hardens into rage and deepens into
despair.... I have tried to cast my spirit into the mould of hers
(Sappho), to express and represent not the poem but the poet.... As
to the 'blasphemies' against God or gods of which here and
elsewhere I stand accused—they are to be taken as the first
outcome or outburst of foiled and fruitless passion recoiling on
itself."
In other words he was singing his own grief through Sappho. The
rage and despair were Swinburne's own and the "blasphemies" were
his own reaction to frustrated love.
On "Dolores," the poet says: "I have striven here to express that
transient state of spirit through which a man may be supposed to
pass, foiled in love and weary of loving, but not yet in sight of rest;
seeking rest in those violent delights which have violent ends in free
and frank sensualities which at last profess to be no more than they
are."
No doubt the poet gave himself up to light loves as a result of his
disappointment. But the point here to be remembered is that the
poem is by his own confession a result of a state of spirit through
which a "man foiled in love" (the poet himself) may be said to pass
and through which Swinburne did pass.
Let us examine some of his lyrics, chiefly those in his first volume
where we can see the result of the love affair.
In "Laus Veneris" he breaks off from his story to say:
"Ah love, there is no better life than this,
To have known love how bitter a thing it is,
And afterwards be cast out of God's sight."
He spoke here from personal memories.
After he tells the story of "Les Noyades," of the youth who was
bound to a woman who did not love him and thrown into the river
Loire, the poet ends abruptly, and addresses his own love, regretting
that this could not have happened to him. He re-echoes the
sentiment in "The Triumph of Time" where he wishes he were dead
with his love. Yet no critic has ventured to see how Swinburne was
drawn to this tale by his unconscious, by the fact that he had lost his
love; and no critic dreamed of claiming that the following concluding
lines were personal and addressed to the kinswoman of the Simons:
"O sweet one love, O my life's delight,
Dear, though the days have divided us,
Lost beyond hope, taken far out of sight,
Not twice in the world shall the Gods do this."
His address to the spirit of Paganism, the "Hymn of Proserpine,"
which should not necessarily bring up thoughts of his love tragedy,
nevertheless begins, "I have lived long enough, have seen one thing,
that love hath an end," and later on he complains that laurel is
green for a season, and love is sweet for a day, but love grows bitter
with treason and laurel outlives not May. I fear that the poet
deserves more sympathy than he has hitherto been accorded. He
had accused his love of having encouraged him, hence he knew
what he meant when he sang those sad words "love grows bitter
with treason."
Two other pathetic poems are "A Leave Taking" where he constantly
reiterates "she would not love" and he turns for consolation to his
songs; and "Satia de Sanguine" where he says, "in the heart is the
prey for gods, who crucify hearts, not hands."
In "Rondel" he begins:
"These many years since we began to be
What have the gods done with us? what with me,
What with my love? They have shown me fates and fears,
Harsh springs and fountains bitterer than the sea."
In the "Garden of Proserpine," he sings,
"And love grown faint and fretful,
Sighs and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure."
This poem shows his longing for rest after his sad experience; he is
tired of everything but sleep.
In "Hesperia" he again refers to his troubles:
"As the cross that a wild nun clasps till the edge of it bruises her
bosom,
So love wounds as we grasp it and blackens and burns as a flame;
I have loved much in my life; when the live bud bursts with the
blossom
Bitter as ashes or tears is the fruit, and the wine thereof shame."
Even in "The Leper" he gives us an inkling of his great love by
describing the devotion of the lover for the smitten lady. "She might
have loved me a little too, had I been humbler for her sake."
All these poems appeared in his first volume and were written within
at least two years after his sorrow. He can scarcely write a poem or
chant about a woman or retell an old myth or legend, or venture a
bit of philosophy but he unconsciously introduces his aching heart.
The burden is always that love has an end or lives but a day.
There are other poems in the first volume where the personal note is
present and yet very little attention has been called to this.
The poem "Felise," with its quotation from Villon, "Where are the
Snows of Yesterday," is I believe a personal poem, based on an
actual or desired change between him and his lost sweetheart, that
is, if this poem refers to her. Some day new data may appear to tell
us whether the facts of the poem had any basis in reality. It seems
that a year after the poet's love was rejected by the girl, she wished
to win his love back and that he now scorned her. The poem was
written, Gosse conjectures, in 1864, but 1863 is most likely the date
from the internal evidence, as she rejected him in 1862. Swinburne
refers to the change a year had brought:
"I had died for this last year, to know
You loved me. Who shall turn on fate?
I care not if love come or go
Now, though your love seek mine for mate.
It is too late."
He exults cruelly; in the new situation he is revenged.
"Love wears thin,
And they laugh well who laugh the last."
He concludes:
"But sweet, for me no more with you!
Not while I live, not though I die.
Good night, good bye."
If she ever sought a return to the poet's affections, he refused to
receive her. He had hoped she might seek to return; read the
following lines from "The Triumph of Time," where he takes the
same stand that he does in this poem.
 "Will it not one day in heaven repent you?
Will they solace you wholly the days that were?
Will you lift up your eyes between sadness and bliss,
Meet me and see where the great lane is,
And tremble and turn and be changed? Content you.
The gait is strait. I shall not be there."
No, never would he take her back. Whether the incident of her
asking to be restored to his affections happened or not is
unimportant, relatively. Sappho prayed to Aphrodite to reverse the
situation of her love and make the rejecting lover come to her
suppliant; a situation that every suffering lover wants, and as we
know, very often happens.
One of the finest poems inspired by his love, "his sleek black
pantheress," is the poem called "At a Month's End," published in
1878 in the second series of Poems and Ballads. He recalls the old
days and his grief is not now so maddening. He sighs:
"Should Love disown or disesteem you
For loving one man more or less?
You could not tame your light white sea-mew,
Nor I my sleek black pantheress.

"For a new soul let whoso please pray,

We are what life made us and shall be.
For you the jungle and me the sea-spray
And south for you and north for me."
The late Edward Thomas, killed in the war, was certainly in error
when he concluded that Swinburne did not directly express personal
emotion and that few of the pieces could have been addressed to
one woman and that he never expressed a single hearted devotion
to one woman except in "A Leave Taking." We need not insist that
one woman was always in his mind, but one woman inspired most of
his love passages. New information may show that other women
inspired some of his love verse.[E]
Another phase in studying the poet that has interested readers is
whether he actually figured in the light and lewd loves he sang. This
is rather dangerous ground, and one cannot delve with certainty
here. Nor is this matter so important as the question of the
connection between a grand passion and the poems. The poet says
in his notes in reply to critics that "Dolores" and "Faustine" are
merely fanciful. Gosse has been censured for not having written an
honest biography and for having passed over certain episodes in the
poet's life. It had often been rumoured that the poet did lead,
occasionally, a dissipated life. In the late seventies he was rescued
by his friend Watts-Dunton from the effects of presumable long
dissipation. After that time the poet's life was normal and the
publication of the early poems of passion became a source of regret
to him. He never again returned to that strain and incidentally rarely
wrote work that was equal to his first period. It may then be true
that some light loves and immoral women inspired poems like
"Anima Anceps," "A Match," "Before Parting," "Rococo," "Stage
Love," "Interlude," "Before Dawn," "Faustine," "Dolores,"
"Fragoleeta," "Aholibah," etc.
Swinburne then, who of all lyric poets was the one deemed least to
have drawn on his personal life for material, has done so in great
measure.
His "Thalassius" gives us his spiritual autobiography. At the age of
fifty-five he recurred to his childhood scenes and gave us memories
of them in his drama The Sister (1892) where he drew himself in
Clavering. His The Tale of Balen, published a few years later, is also
personal.
In spite of the fact that the poet elaborated and gave us such rich
verse, he wrote from the unconscious. The first stanzas of "A Vision
of Spring in Winter" were composed in sleep. He awoke at night and
penned the verses he had composed. His "A Ballade of Dreamland"
was written in the morning without a halt. Swinburne worked from
impulse.
Swinburne's affinity to Shelley calls for special comment. He was
attracted to him, because Shelley too, like Swinburne, hated
monarchy and the church, because he had a mastery over melody in
verse, because he was persecuted. He wrote to his youngest sister
(Leith: Swinburne, Page 221): "I must say it is too funny—not to say
uncanny—how much there is in common between us two; born in
exactly the same class, cast out of Oxford—the only difference being
that I was not formally but informally expelled—and holding and
preaching the same general views in the poems which made us
famous." This is a good illustration of the process of projection in
literature. Swinburne was attracted to Shelley because he was most
like him.
The influence of his mother, Jane Swinburne, was a determining
factor in his life. She guided his reading and took care of him and he
was mentally a good deal like her. He was very much attached to her
and no doubt she unconsciously is present in much of his work. She
died in 1896 when eighty-seven years old and her death left him a
changed man and was the tragedy of his later life. When she came
to live with him before her death he wrote a poem of welcome to
her, "The High Oaks," and when she died he wrote "Barking Hall."
 CHAPTER VI
UNCONSCIOUS CONSOLATORY MECHANISMS
IN AUTHORSHIP

I
There is a large body of popular literature that may be called the
literature of self-deception. The author makes statements that are
false, but which he wants to be true. He is aware, too, that most
people like these sentiments, and he gives a forceful expression to
them so that they have a semblance of truth. Dr. Johnson once said
that all the arguments set forth to prove the advantages of poverty
are good proof that this is not so; you find no one trying to prove to
you the benefits of riches.
The literature of self-deception, which is nearly always optimistic and
consolatory, derives its value as a defence mechanism. It is based on
a lie but is efficacious nevertheless. Of this species Henley's famous
poem ending with lines "I am Master of my fate, I am Captain of my
soul" is a good example. Of course no one is master of his fate. To
this class belongs much of the consolatory advice found in the
stoical precepts of Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. Most
religious poems and works like The Imitation of Christ may be
included here.
Many writers whose lives have been sad, have written works that
buoyed them up. They have affected to learn much from their
calamities, although they unquestionably would have preferred not
to have been victims of these misfortunes. They have pretended to
exult over the failures of their ambitions when at heart they would
have wished a more successful termination to them. Naturally
literature of this kind is popular, although any vigorous intellect can
see through the fallaciousness of the reasoning in a poem like "The
Psalm of Life" or in the writings of the syndicate authors in our
newspapers.
All the literary works wherein the precious and valued things in life
are decried, wherein asceticism, death and celibacy are vaunted, are
usually unconsciously insincere. The writer cannot have certain
things and he bolsters himself up by pretending he is better off
without them.
In examining a literary work we should always find out what the
author's real thoughts must be, and not assume that they are what
he claims them to be.
Eulogies of pain and the praise of the advantages of misfortune are
forced, and though the literature abounding in such sentiments may
aid some, it will only irritate those who think.
It would be interesting to collect passages from the works of writers
who give us such ideas and inquire what motive prompted them. It
is not very difficult to unravel the unconscious in these cases,
especially if we know something of the writer's life.
Take the following lines from "Rabbi Ben Ezra" by Browning:
"What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me."
No doubt these lines, put in the mouth of the Rabbi, were a
consolation that Browning administered to himself in his days of
obscurity. It could not be possible that he really meant it. He wanted
his work to be read and he wanted to have the name of poet. While
it is not to the credit of a poet to seek popular applause by trying to
do commonplace work, still a poet of value is anxious to be
recognised as such by some people. He is not comforted that he
does not attain this end; on the contrary, he is disappointed. And
while it is always best to do one's utmost and to be resigned if one
fails, it does not follow that the man should be satisfied with his
mishap. The lines of Browning are a confession of regret for failure.
Then the various passages in the same poem seeking to show the
advantages of age over youth merely tell us that after all the poet
was really bemoaning his lost youth. Love and recognition came to
him late in life, and as his youth was embroiled with some
unsatisfactory love affairs and as he was not recognised as a great
poet, we cannot say that Browning had an altogether happy youth.
He would have preferred to become young again but to spend his
youth more happily than he had done. He also no doubt had
unconsciously before him the praises sung by poets of youth, and
recalled Coleridge's beautiful plaint for his own departed youth, in
the poem "Youth and Age." Browning really agreed with the
sentiments of that poem, but after all what was the use of regrets?
One might as well pretend that age was the better period of life, and
one would then possibly be able to enjoy it. He wrote then, when
past fifty, to counteract his real feelings, the lines:
"Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life for which the first was made."
Much of Browning's optimism was forced.
The most famous example of consolation for the miseries of old age
is Cicero's discourse On Old Age addressed to Atticus when they
were both about sixty-three years old. Cicero puts his own
arguments about the advantages of old age into the mouth of Cato
who is eighty-four years old. Cato tries to prove beneficial the four
assumed disadvantages of old age; these are that it takes us away
from the transactions of affairs, enfeebles our body, deprives us of
most pleasures and is not very far from death.
Cicero really tried to console himself for the loss of his youth. Most
assuredly he would rather have been young. The objections that he
finds against old age are not satisfactorily removed by him and he
does not state them all. Even though he does show old age has its
pleasures, we read between the lines that he is aware that his body
is subject to ailments, that he is shut off from certain pleasures, that
he has not the energy or health or zest of life he had in youth and
that he dreads death; we perceive all his arguments are got up to rid
himself of these painful thoughts. People as a rule do not write on
the disadvantages of youth; these are taken for granted. Rich and
successful men who are old would generally be young again and
give up some of the advantages of old age. Not that many people
have not been happier in age than in youth, not that age is not free
from those violent passions to which youth is subject, but youth still
is preferable to old age and all the arguments in favour of it will not
make a man want it to be reached more quickly.
Carlyle was the author of many statements meant to salve his own
wounds. One of his famous hobbies was to attack people who seek
happiness, no doubt because that is the very thing he himself
sought his whole life long. He told them to seek blessedness. Let us
examine the following passage from one of the most famous
chapters of Sartor Resartus, entitled "The Everlasting Yea."
"I asked myself: What is this that, ever since earliest years, thou
hast been fretting and fuming, and lamenting and self-torturing, on
account of? Say it in a word; is it not because thou art not happy?....
Foolish soul! What act of legislature was there that thou shouldst be
happy?... Close thy Byron; open thy Goethe ... there is in man a
Higher than love of Happiness: he can do without happiness, and
instead thereof find Blessedness."
We can discern under all this Carlyle's despair because he is not
happy. Teufelsdröck, who is Carlyle's picture of himself, had a
sweetheart who was stolen by a friend. One may be sure that
Teufelsdröck would have given up his ideal of blessedness if this
misfortune could have been prevented. No doubt, like Carlyle, he
had dyspepsia, was poverty-stricken and had a hard path to travel to
success. Of course he would have wished to have had a good
stomach, to be free from money troubles, and to be recognised. All
these fortunate circumstances were not his. He had to say to
himself, "Away with them. I am better off without them." But it is
certain he never could have really felt this way. We learn from
Carlyle's recently published letters, written to his future wife in his
courting days, that he was unhappy for personal reasons; because
she coquetted with him or jilted him, because he was unsuccessful,
because he was poor, etc. He whined only too much though no
doubt he had reason therefor. He is full of the Byronism which he
affected to despise.
It is likely that Browning and Carlyle, who remain, nevertheless,
among the greatest English writers, may have thought at the time of
writing that they believed what they said. But psychoanalysis
teaches us that we do not really know our own minds. We may think
we are honest when we really are deceiving ourselves.
A writer may seek an effect which is attained by lauding a moral
sentiment. Did not Shelley profess to believe in immortality of the
soul, in his elegy on Keats, Adonais, while we know from a prose
essay of his that he did not believe in immortality?
We should try to learn the whole truth from the fractional part of it
or unconscious lie that authors give us. We will find a personal
background for all their theories, a past humiliation or a present
need, which will explain the origin of the ideas professed.
When we read in his Autobiography that Spencer ascribes his
nervous breakdown to hard work, if we are Freudians we figure that
Spencer has not told us the truth. We know that most cases of
breakdown have had a previous history, usually in some love or sex
repression. We are aware that Spencer was a bachelor who never
had his craving for love satisfied, and probably led a celibate life.
This led to his nervous troubles. This is merely one instance where
by the aid of psychoanalysis we can read more than the author
reveals.
There are many instances where critics who had never heard of
psychoanalysis still applied its principles. In his essay on Thoreau,
Stevenson dilates on Thoreau's cynical views on friendship. When
Stevenson inserted the essay in his Familiar Portraits he wrote a little
introductory note, in which he shows he penetrated the secret of
Thoreau's views. Thoreau was simply seeking to find a salve for his
own lack of social graces. His strange views and personality made
him almost an impossible friend.

II
Even a great writer like Goethe deceived himself, as one can see by
a famous passage in his autobiography as to why Spinoza appealed
to him. In the fourteenth book he says that his whole mind was filled
with the statement from the Ethics, that he who loves God does not
desire God to love him in return. Goethe desired to be disinterested
in love and friendship, and he says that his subsequent daring
question, "If I love thee, what is that to thee?" was spoken straight
from his heart.
Great as Goethe's intellect was, he could not perceive that his
partiality for this passage from Spinoza was due to the consolation
he found in it for unreciprocated love. This particular sentiment from
the profound work of that philosopher is really one of the least
valuable parts of the work. It was probably inspired unconsciously by
the philosopher's rejection at the hands of Miss Van den Ende,
whom he meant to marry. The Ethics was finished when the author
was about thirty-three. Spinoza, who led the life of a celibate,
sublimated his repressed love into philosophic speculation. When he
wrote the passage in question he was consoling himself for loving a
girl who did not care for him. The mechanism was: "I am not such a
fool after all, because I love a girl who does not love me; why should
I even want her to do so; don't we love God, and yet don't want Him
to love us in return?" Goethe, having gone through the harassing
experience that led to the writing of Werther, repeated the mental
processes that Spinoza must have gone through in creating the
sentiment about our not desiring God to love us in return.
Goethe imagined that love could be disinterested, and this is really
not so. The lover seeks a return of his love, for that is just what love
means. Those novels where sacrificing lovers turn over the women
they love to rivals, as in George Sand's Jacques and Dostoievsky's
Injured and Insulted, do not show disinterested love, but merely
obedience to an abstract idea with which the whole individual's
psychic and physical constitution is not in harmony at all. Goethe
tried to be different from what he really was. The question, "What is
that to thee if I love thee?" with its corollary that the love need not
be returned, did not come, as Goethe thought, straight from his
heart. His interest in Spinoza's sentiment, just as the creation of it
by Spinoza, was a self curative process for grief because of disprised
love. All psychoneuroses are unsuccessful efforts to purge one's self
of repressed feelings.
Now let us investigate the sentiment itself, and we will see under
analysis it has no value intellectually.
As a matter of fact, there is no warrant for Spinoza's assumption
that man does not desire that God love him in return. All religion is
based on the principle that God loves us and cares for us more than
he does for other animals, or more than he does for other tribes or
religious sects. Prayers are made to God to make us happy and
prosper and satisfy our wants. This is tantamount to saying we want
His love. If God, or Nature, as Spinoza understood Him, was only a
malevolent force and gave us undiluted pain, we would not love Him
or her. Again, man does not love God or Nature in the sense that he
loves a woman, so even if Spinoza were right that man does not
desire to be loved by God or Nature in turn, it is because that love
does not promise the pleasure derived from the returned love of the
woman.
The truth is that both Spinoza and Goethe would have preferred to
have had their love returned, and had such been the case, they
would not have occupied themselves with this fatuous idea.

III
Then there is the reaction-impulse and the infantile regression in
writers. Many books are written by their authors to counteract
certain impulses. They feel that their course of conduct or thought
was reprehensible, and they try to make amends for this. They
become fanatical converts; they show a regression to a fixed period
in their own lives, and return to the religion of their parents. Writers
who in spite of being unable to believe in religious dogmas, miracles,
ascetic notions of morality, nevertheless return in later life to the
religions advocating these, belong to this class. The leading of a
wicked life, but more often the influence of childish memories of a
religious household, are responsible for such conversions. The
converts feel young again; pleasant recollections of the mother or
father and delicious memories of school days play a part in the
process. Many free thinkers who have had a theological training
never really outgrow this.
Tolstoi's conversion was due to the wild days he spent as a young
man. He was a proud aristocrat, and gave play to all his instincts; he
was an atheist and pessimist, he was a gambler and a rake. He
shows us his evolution in his various novels and autobiographical
works. He finally came to deify ignorant peasants and advocated
extreme non-resistance. He worshipped poverty, practised self-
abnegation, and derogated sex. But, after all, his latter views are but
the reactions to the life he led in youth, and a regression with some
changes to views he was taught in childhood.
The same is true of Strindberg, who as a young man was an atheist,
and a believer in free love; through the sufferings brought about by
his three marriages and his attacks of insanity, he "turned." He
looked with disapproval upon his early ideas, attributed much of his
misery to his entertaining them; hence he discarded them, and
returned to the religious views he held as a child. But his greatest
work belonged to the period when he held liberal ideas.
Dostoievsky was really always a devout orthodox Christian, even in
his early revolutionary days. His great suffering in Siberia chastened
him, and made him find a welcome religion in the religion of
suffering, a guide in Christ who suffered. He is always at pains in his
later novels to prove the existence of a personal God—a fact which
makes one suspect that he had his own doubts, and that he tried to
rid himself of them by his writing. Being also an epileptic, he would,
particularly in these attacks, digress to infantile fixations and they
would lead him to worship his sublimated "Father in Heaven."
There are many who naïvely insist that these men, when they went
back to the belief of childhood days, had at last come to see the
truth. The point of view taken is dependent on whether a man
considers belief in the dogma of a religion a fetter or an asset.
In English literature we have as examples of reactions, both in
religion and politics, the Lake School poets, Wordsworth, Coleridge
and Southey. All of them later turned away from the republican and
pantheistic ideas of their youth. The reason Southey fought so
bitterly against free thinkers like Byron and Shelley, is that in youth
he, like them, also was attached to the ideas of the French
Revolution. He became a Tory of Tories, showed disapproval of all
the leading thinkers of the time, of men like Hazlitt, Lamb and Hunt.
Liberal ideas, it is well known, have no greater enemy than a
renegade liberal. Southey was sufficiently pilloried by Byron in the
Vision of Last Judgment, and the psychology of his reaction has
been drawn in the portrait of him by Hazlitt in The Spirit of the Age,
while the gentle Lamb has administered to him a rebuke in the
immortal Letter of Elia to Robert Southey.
When one reads the theological works of the gifted Coleridge, such
as The Aids to Reflection and some of the Table Talk, and ponders
on the spectacle of this former Spinozist and Unitarian, speaking in
defence of dogmas that have not one logical argument in their
favour, one is amazed. Poor Coleridge! What a wreckage of the
human intellect is often made by private misfortunes. Here was the
greatest literary critic and one of the subtlest poets England ever
had, talking about supernatural miracles as though they were not
even to be questioned. "The image of my father, my reverend, kind,
learned, simple-hearted father, is a religion to me," he once said,
thus giving us the key to his reaction. The elder Coleridge was a
vicar, and died when the poet was nine years old. The poet became
religious because of his repressed childish affection for a religious
father who influenced him.
As for Wordsworth, he was sufficiently punished for his reaction, in
that in later life he was never able to do creditable literary work. And
Shelley's poem, "To Wordsworth," and the lines of Browning
beginning, "Just for a handful of silver he left us," generally thought
to refer to Wordsworth, were deserved rebukes.
The reaction impulse plays a great rôle in shaping the destinies of
literary men. It sometimes sweeps an entire age and gathers all
before it. This happened in France in that period of French Literature
which Brandes called the Catholic Reaction, when Chateaubriand, De
Maistre, Bonald, and others were influential. It again occurred in the
same country in the early nineties when leading free thinkers like
Bourget and Huysmans went from the extreme radical position to
Catholicism. Only great writers like Zola and Anatole France were
able to keep their heads clear. Now most of these converts really
were always at heart religious. They never emerged from the
associations of their religion even though their intellects would not
enable them to believe some of its dogmas. Unconsciously Bourget
and Huysman were always Catholics in feeling.
Hawthorne wrote a story in which he imagines some of the dead
English poets of the early decades of the nineteenth century
continuing to live, and living a life in complete reaction to their
youthful lives. He pictures the atheist Shelley as becoming a
Christian, a prediction that might have come true; for had Shelley
died at seventy instead of thirty, he might have changed, as there
was some similarity between his ideas of "perfectibility" and those of
Christianity. This is, however, a mere surmise, as one of the last
letters he wrote contains an attack on Christianity.
There are numerous instances of the reactionary impulse in
literature. Shakespeare, who was of plebeian origin, often attacked
the common people in his plays. He wrote favourably of nobility, and
had little sympathy with democracy. Nietzsche, who was gentle
personally and suffered much pain in his life, wrote in defence of
cruelty, wished to do away with pity, sought to kill the finer
emotions, and thought invalids should be left to die instead of being
allowed to be cured. He was creating a system in philosophy whose
ruling ideas were the very opposite to those which governed his
private life. He could not even witness another's pain. Professor
Eucken tells a story illustrating Nietzsche's gentleness. When that
philosopher of the superman orally examined a student who did not
answer correctly, Nietzsche would prompt him and answer the
question for him, as he was unable to witness the student's
discomfiture. Burns gave us some poetic outbursts against the crime
of seduction, probably because he himself was guilty of it.
Thackeray, who was hopelessly in love with a married woman, Mrs.
Brookfield, and was rejected by her, affected to be very cynical at
disappointed lovers and ridiculed them in his Pendennis. Cicero, who
loved glory, wrote against it.
So men are often the very opposite of what they appear in their
books, but this is done also unconsciously, although sometimes the
effort may be deliberate. Converts are fanatics. Reformed drunkards
are the most convinced prohibitionists. The severest moralists and
Puritans are often former rakes. The man who rails most bitterly
against a vice may often be suspected of struggling against
temptation with it.
Similarly, the fact that professors in exact sciences and devotees to a
philosophy of materialism, often become the most ardent exponents
of spiritualism, may be due to an unconscious reaction on their part.
No doubt the desire to believe that the dead can still communicate
with us is the real basis of this belief. It seems that scientists like
Lodge, Crookes, Barrett, Wallace and Lombroso, who have done so
much to spread spiritualism, should be the last persons to embrace
absurd beliefs so at variance with the principles which these men
profess in their scientific work.
 CHAPTER VII
PROJECTION, VILLAIN PORTRAYALS AND
CYNICISM AS WORK OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

I
Renan drew himself in his Life of Jesus, as one may see by
comparing it with his Memoirs of My Youth. He projected himself
upon Jesus and wrote a life of Renan instead. He portrayed in the
volume his individual traits and gave his own characteristics to Jesus.
His picture of Jesus is not a true one. Unconsciously he read into
Jesus's life predominating features of his own personality, and also
of his sister Henrietta's. He emphasised Christ's love of flowers, his
indifference to the external world, his obsession with a utopian ideal
and a mission in life. He found in Jesus a love for the simple and
common folk, and a partiality towards women and children. He
admired Jesus's exaltation of beggars and sympathised with his
making poverty an object of love and desire. He saw no external
affectation in Christ, who was bound only to his mission, and who
was a revolutionist besides. Jesus had only some of the qualities
Renan attributed to him.
"Never did any one more loftily avow that disdain of the 'world'
which is the essential thing of great things and great originality,"
said Renan of his Master. Thus was he describing himself
unconsciously and presenting the plan of life which he, Renan, had
followed.
If we read the analysis of Jesus's character and teachings in the last
three chapters of the Life of Jesus and then turn to Renan's analysis
of his own character in his autobiography, we shall see that the
author had projected himself upon Jesus, as it were, and identified
himself with the Master he worshipped. He finds in himself, he tells
us in his autobiography, love of poverty, indifference to the world,
devotion to his mission, affection for the common people, esteem for
simplicity, contempt for success and luxury, fondness for poverty,
dislike for the world of action, such as mercantile life—in short, he
dwells on all the meek and lowly traits that he has, and arrogates to
himself Jesus's practices, and attributes to his master idiosyncrasies
of his own. In an unguarded moment he forgets his customary
modesty and gives us the clue to himself in these words: "I am the
only man of my time who has understood the character of Jesus and
of Francis of Assissi." In this bit of self-portraiture is the whole secret
of his Life of Jesus. Critics were attacking him for drawing a false
picture of the founder of Christianity, but it did not dawn on them
why the portrait was distorted. "Jesus has in reality ever been my
master," says Renan.
How strongly Renan identified himself with and projected himself
upon Jesus may be seen from the fact that the memoirs written at
the age of sixty are in the same tone as the Life of Jesus, published
twenty years earlier. He also tells us in the memoirs how the Life of
Jesus originated. From the moment he abandoned the church, he
says, with the resolution that he should still remain faithful to Jesus,
the Life of Jesus was mentally written.
A few more traits that may be mentioned, which he felt he had in
common with Jesus, were his aversion to incurring intimate
friendships. There is reason to believe that Jesus did have friends,
but Renan, who did not cultivate friendship (though he had a good
friend in Berthelot), tried to persuade himself that Jesus was also
like him in this regard. Again Renan deemed himself a dreamer, like
Jesus, who was, however, also a man of action. Renan also saw his
own effeminacy and kindliness in Jesus, who, however, vented
himself of vigorous utterances.
Renan also fancied he found in Jesus his own inherent hostility to
Jewish culture; his own anti-Semitism. As a matter of fact, Jesus
owed much to Jewish culture, though he wanted the Jews to
abandon some of their customs and to revise the Mosaic laws; the
feeling among Jews was that Jesus, instead of being anti-Semitic,
wished to be their leader and Messiah and King. Renan reads into
Jesus his own anti-Semitism. Those who are familiar with Renan's
writings are aware of the many slurring and contemptuous
references he makes to the Jews. In fact, one of the paradoxes of
his life is that with his liberality and gentleness, with his abandoning
of all Christian dogma, he entertains a bitter feeling towards the
people who gave him his ideal man, the people who originated, even
by his own admission, many of Jesus's maxims. Renan states that
Jesus profited immensely by the teachings of Jesus, son of Sirach, of
Rabbi Hillel and of the synagogue. Renan unjustly made Jesus have
his own failing, anti-Semitism.
Strangely enough, Renan's treatment of the story of Jesus (outside
of his giving Jesus traits of his own) has been very largely a Jewish
one. It is for this reason that all devout Christians were offended.
Renan treated Jesus as a man and refused to credit all the legends
connected with him. Renan did not believe that Jesus was born
without a human father; that he was a member of a Trinity; that he
could perform supernatural miracles. In short, Renan did not accept
Jesus as a son of God, though giving him traits almost divine and
free from human frailties. The picture of Jesus in the life is an
idealised Jewish portrayal.
Renan serves as one of the best examples of a free thinker
remaining a devotee of his faith, though discarding all the tenets on
which it rests. His early religious training had a permanent influence
on him, and he was a Christian all his life, even though he differed
with the church. In one of his last and most profound essays, the
"Examination of the Human Conscience," he gives us a confession of
his faith. Here he appears as a pantheist, but ventures incredible
guesses that there may be a supernatural. His church mind plays
havoc with his Spinozism, and we see his early infantile influences.
Intellectually at times he stands high, higher it may be said without
irreverence than his master Jesus, since he had at his command a
knowledge of science and philosophy with which Jesus was
unfamiliar. The greatness of Renan appears in his Philosophical
Dialogues, in his Philosophical Dramas, in his Future of Science, in
the Anti-Christ and other essays and books. When he moralises he is
a monk; when he speculates on philosophic and scientific subjects,
he is a thinker. George Brandes's Renan as a dramatist is an
excellent study.[F]
Yet literature scarcely offers such an instance of a man projecting
himself upon a historical character. Such a projection is similar to the
seeking, in an unusual degree, by nervous people of moral shelter
and consolation in some other person. The reposing of Renan on
Jesus gives us an insight into the birth of worship of religious
founders. Pfister, a disciple of Freud, and himself a Christian pastor,
says: "In the divine father-love, he, whose longing for help, for
ethical salvation, is not satisfied by the surrounding reality, finds an
asylum. In the love for the Saviour, the love-thirsting soul which
finds no comprehension and no return love in his fellowmen is
refreshed."
A complete psychoanalytic study of Renan, which this essay does not
pretend to be, would make a fuller inquiry into his relations with his
mother, his affection for his sister and her influence on him and his
never-swerving admiration for the priests who were his early
teachers. He has left tributes to all of them. They ruled his life. In
his unconscious a fixation upon them was buried. His love for them
kept him a Christian, when intellectually he was a free thinker. They
are present in his Life of Christ, and the psychoanalyst can see them
guiding the pen of Renan. They are always with him. Had they not
loved him and he them so intensely, had he not inherited so strongly
those meek, effeminate and kindly traits, his temperament might
have been as unchristian as his intellect.
We see why the extreme liberal and the orthodox Christian were
offended by his Life of Christ, and why hundreds of pamphlets and
articles were written against it. It was really a portrait of the author,
and the unconscious Christian in him puzzled the radicals, while his
conscious intellect seemed like blasphemy to the devout followers of
dogmas. He gave his own idealised traits to his hero, and the
freethinkers complained Renan made Jesus a god anyhow, while it
seemed an insult to the Christians that mere moral virtues instead of
divinity should be thrust upon Jesus, who they felt did not need
Renan's compliments.

II
Authors also draw on the unconscious for their immoral characters.
In Pere Goriot Balzac drew himself in Eugene Rastignac, but the
author is also present in the villain of the novel, Vautrin or Jacques
Collins, who appears likewise in Lost Illusions and The Splendors and
Miseries of Courtesans. Vautrin, it will be recalled, tries to persuade
Eugene to marry a girl whose father will leave her a million francs, if
Eugene consents to have her brother, the more likely heir,
despatched by a crony of Vautrin's. Thus Eugene would be enabled
to become rich immediately instead of being compelled to struggle
for years. Vautrin wants a reward for his services. Vautrin's words
are really the voice of Balzac's unconscious; Eugene's inner struggles
are Balzac's own; and though the young student rejects the
proposition he takes up Vautrin's line of reasoning unconsciously,
even though to drop it. Vautrin's Machiavellian viewpoint was at
times unconsciously entertained by Balzac himself, though never
practised. We know Balzac always sought for schemes of getting rich
to pay his debts, and was always occupied with thoughts of his
aggrandisement and ambition. He no doubt unconsciously
entertained notions that riches, love, fame might be attained by
violating the moral edicts of society; these ideas may have obtruded
but a few seconds to be immediately dismissed. But once they made
their appearance they were repressed in Balzac's unconscious, and
emerged in the characters of Vautrin and other villains who are the
author's unconscious.
Balzac understood that vice often triumphed and that the way of
virtue was often hard. "Do you believe that there is any absolute
standard in this world? Despise mankind and find out the meshes
that you can slip through in the net of the code." Vautrin here gives
Balzac's inner unconscious secret away. The author was not aware
that he drew upon himself unconsciously in depicting Vautrin. This,
of course, does not mean that Balzac agreed with Vautrin. We
remember Eugene shouted out to Vautrin, "Silence, sir! I will not
hear any more; you make me doubt myself." The author merely got
his unconscious into one of his leading villains, just as Milton did in
Satan, as Goethe did in Mephistopheles.
Vautrin is Lucien de Rubempré's evil influence also, and Balzac saw
how disastrously he himself might have ended his life had he heeded
his unconscious, his Jacques Collin.
Since literature is often depicting struggles and conflicts with our evil
instincts, it deals directly with the material of the unconscious; for
the unconscious that psychoanalysis is concerned with is that which
springs from repressions forced upon us by society as well as by
fate. In literature the unconscious appears under various symbols
and disguises, just as it does in dreams. The devil, for example, is
but our unconscious, symbolised. He represents our hidden primitive
desires struggling to emerge; he is the eruption of our forbidden
desires. His deeds are the accomplished wishes of our own
unconscious. We are interested in the devil because he is ourselves
in our dreams and unguarded moments.
The fascination that the villain has for us is because our unconscious
recognises in him a long-forgotten brother. True, our moral sense
soon prevails, and we rejoice when the rascal is worsted, but he
represents the author's unconscious as well as our own. Any one
who has read of the thoughts and conduct of Raskolnikoff in Crime
and Punishment, or of Julian Sorel in Red and Black, or of George
Aurispa in The Triumph of Death, will see that much of the authors
themselves, or rather their unconscious selves, is drawn in these
criminals. Dostoievsky, Stendhal and D'Annunzio all said to
themselves in writing: "I too might have ended like these characters.
I did think their thoughts and a slight circumstance could have led
me to the crimes they committed."
The man who hates a vice most intensely is often just the man who
has something of it in his own nature, against which he is fighting.
The author sometimes punishes himself in his novel by making the
character suffer for engaging in the course of life that the author
himself followed. There is always a suspicion, when a writer raves
most furiously against a crime or act, that he has committed that
deed in his unconscious.

III
The reason La Rochefoucauld, author of the Maxims, is called a cynic
is because he reveals the unconscious, at the bottom of which is
self-love. He knows that there is great egotism, nay something akin
to depravity, at the root of our emotions. He shows us much in our
psychic life that many of us never suspected was there. When he
brings it forth we grow indignant and yet say to ourselves, "How
true!"
Let us examine a few of these maxims at random and note the
insight into the unconscious that the author displays. He understood
that repression was at the basis of our unconscious. Take the
following sentence: "Wit sometimes enables us to act rudely with
impunity." This saying anticipates Freud's analysis of wit in his Wit
and the Unconscious. The Frenchman digs up in a sentence the
hidden strata of the unconscious. La Rochefoucauld recognised that
we must curb our primitive instincts, repress our private wishes, and
leave our innermost thoughts unexpressed in order to adapt
ourselves to people. The world moves by concealing for charity's,
and often decency's, sake its unconscious. "Men would not live long
in society," says the Maxims, "were they not the dupes of each
other."
He knew that our primitive instincts could be subdued only when
they were not too strong, and that virtue was practised when it was
not difficult to do so. "When our vices leave us we flatter ourselves
with the idea we have left them." "If we conquer our passions it is