Team Spotlight on Jim Lee, Strategy Advisor

Our Blue Tree Team Spotlight is on Jim Lee, one of our incredible strategy advisors!

Discover some interesting details about Jim, along with photos of his favorite people and places. Curious to learn more about what makes Jim tick? Let’s get started!

Q: What is it like to work at Blue Tree?

A: Being able to work with experienced team members who are 100% focused on collaboration and bringing value to our clients is a total joy. The Blue Tree team not only represents individuals who bring domain expertise to client engagements but each member is willing to learn from each other.

Q: What do you find most unique about this company?  

A: I have worked for many like-organizations that are large and mid-sized and the key difference is the focus on bringing value to the client. Don’t get me wrong, firms I have worked with focus on bringing value to the client but Blue Tree is not about billable hours and more laser-focused on helping our clients achieve strategic objectives.

Q: How would you describe your position?

A: My role with Blue Tree leverages my years of experience in management consulting coupled with industry experience as C-Suite executive. I believe I bring a unique perspective and experience that enables me to understand the real-challenges of our clients while bringing a practical and proven hands-on experience to help the client achieve strategic objectives. In addition, I am (as well as my colleagues) have no issues wearing different hats. In fact, in addition to providing strategic insights for our clients – I also provide hands-on activities with project management, business analysts, technical architecture and meeting facilitation activities. At the end of the day, we do whatever is necessary to ensure success for our clients.

Q: What has been your favorite project at Blue Tree?

A: I have been fortunate to have been involved in over 5 client engagements. I do not have one favorite project but enjoy seeing our clients reaping the benefits of Blue Tree’s contributions.

Q: What are 3 words to describe you?

A: Family, Work and Golf

Q: Where is your happy place?

A: Being able to spend quality time with family and walking 18 holes on any golf course.

Q: What kind of hobbies and interests do you have outside of work?

A: My interests include keeping up on technology trends and improving my golf game. 

Q: What do most people not know about you?

A: I grew up in working class family where my parents worked 2+ jobs to provide for my brothers and I. I am grateful and fortunate that my parents (particularly my mom) instilled hard work and the importance of staying grounded.

Q: Personal motto, mantra, or favorite quote?

A: “Know better – Do Better. Also, Do Not Be Afraid To Fail!”

Q: Favorite TV Show?

A: The Office , Curb Your Enthusiasm

Q: Favorite Food?

A: Mexican and Chinese

Thank you, Jim, for your priceless contributions to the Blue Tree team!

Customer Testimonial: Aspiranet’s Technology Transformation with Blue Tree & TierPoint

Aspiranet, a leading non-profit organization supporting families and children across California, faced significant challenges with their IT infrastructure. Their mission-critical services demanded a robust, secure, and reliable IT environment, but their previous provider struggled to meet their needs.

This case study explores how Aspiranet partnered with Blue Tree Technology Group and TierPoint to transform their IT infrastructure and service delivery. Discover how they addressed key challenges, including:

🔹 Ensuring a continuously operational IT environment for emergency and regular services
🔹 Adhering to strict HIPAA regulations and California state laws
🔹 Implementing a reliable disaster recovery solution for service continuity
🔹 Enabling efficient IT issue management for staff productivity

Learn how Blue Tree’s strategic advisory services led to the selection of TierPoint as the standout cloud data center provider. Explore the comprehensive suite of IT services TierPoint offered, including:

– Robust and secure private cloud infrastructure
– Comprehensive disaster recovery solution
– Efficient Help Desk support and escalation processes
– White-glove Enterprise Client Services (ECS) for strategic guidance

Witness the remarkable results of this collaboration, including a smooth data center migration, enhanced disaster recovery capabilities, improved Help Desk services, and ongoing strategic IT guidance aligned with Aspiranet’s mission.

Watch how this transformative partnership empowered Aspiranet to focus on their vital work, confident in the security, compliance, and efficiency of their IT infrastructure.

Read the full case study: https://www.tierpoint.com/success-sto…

Team Spotlight on Stacey Haggart, Strategy Advisor

Our Blue Tree Team Spotlight is on Stacey Haggart, one of our amazing strategy advisors! 

As a key player on our Blue Tree Team, Stacey shares intriguing facts about herself that may surprise you. Plus, take a peek at some candid snapshots featuring her favorite people and places. Ready for a glimpse into Stacey’s world? Here we go! 

Q: What is it like to work at Blue Tree?

A: Blue Tree is the first company I’ve worked for that values work / life balance.

Q: What do you find most unique about this company?  

A: Every colleague brings their distinctive experience to the entire team rounding out skillsets on a project. There is an esprit de corps that has developed as we’ve delivered solutions across projects together.

Q: How would you describe your position?

A: My role is rather multifaceted as I can be advising a CEO as his/her CIO as well as working alongside a company’s team to help them manage their IT program more effectively. Several times throughout the year I will go to market and competitively evaluate service providers for integration of needed solutions into a company’s IT portfolio.

Q: What has been your favorite project at Blue Tree?

A: My favorite project thus far has been a datacenter migration for one of our non-profit customers. I enjoyed it because we moved our customer from an underperforming datacenter provider to a high performing provider. This project solved a lot of problems experienced by the customer and alleviated a great deal of operational integrity concerns.

Q: What are 3 words to describe you?

A: Diligent, Resourceful, Thorough

Q: Where is your happy place?

A: Being surrounded by both my immediate and extended family over our summers on Lake Okoboji, IA.

Q: What kind of hobbies and interests do you have outside of work?

A: Recreating in Prescott, AZ fabulous outdoor space either on a trail (hiking or biking) or a lake (paddleboarding).

Q: What do most people not know about you?

A:  Scouting has taken a significant place in our family. My husband and son #1 are both Eagle Scouts, and son #2 has completed his Eagle project and turned in his paperwork awaiting his Eagle review. I have recently been appointed as the Scouting Commissioner over our quad-city area.

Q: Personal motto, mantra, or favorite quote?

A: “Trust but verify.”

Q: Favorite TV Show?

A: My favorite series was Game of Thrones.

Q: Favorite Food?

A: Mediterranean

Thank you, Stacey, for your invaluable contributions to the Blue Tree team!

5 Books to Help Prepare For Digital Transformation

5 Books to Help Prepare For Digital Transformation - Blue Tree Technology Group
The buzz words “digital transformation” may be overused, but that doesn’t make them less meaningful. If anything, digital transformation is more relevant then ever, but organizations continue to struggle, first, with how they define digital transformation, and second, how to initiate a successful digital transformation. We witness this struggle every day and work with our clients to successfully define, assess, plan and execute successful technology initiatives that enable them to run their organizations more efficiently and effectively. One thing that makes the process smoother is when all the stakeholders of a digital transformation initiative are communicating from a shared vision and understanding. We’ve listed five books below that can help lay the groundwork for both.

1. Designed for Digital: How to Architect Your Business for Sustained Success by Jeanne w. Ross

DESCRIPTION: Practical advice for redesigning “big, old” companies for digital success, with examples from Amazon, BNY Mellon, LEGO, Philips, USAA, and many other global organizations. Designed for Digital How to Architect Your Business for Sustained Success Digital Transformation BooksMost established companies have deployed such digital technologies as the cloud, mobile apps, the internet of things, and artificial intelligence. But few established companies are designed for digital. This book offers an essential guide for retooling organizations for digital success. In the digital economy, rapid pace of change in technology capabilities and customer desires means that business strategy must be fluid. As a result, the authors explain, business design has become a critical management responsibility. Effective business design enables a company to quickly pivot in response to new competitive threats and opportunities. Most leaders today, however, rely on organizational structure to implement strategy, unaware that structure inhibits, rather than enables, agility. In companies that are designed for digital, people, processes, data, and technology are synchronized to identify and deliver innovative customer solutions―and redefine strategy. Digital design, not strategy, is what separates winners from losers in the digital economy. Designed for Digital offers practical advice on digital transformation, with examples that include Amazon, BNY Mellon, DBS Bank, LEGO, Philips, Schneider Electric, USAA, and many other global organizations. Drawing on five years of research and in-depth case studies, the book is an essential guide for companies that want to disrupt rather than be disrupted in the new digital landscape.

Five Building Blocks of Digital Business Success

1. Shared Customer Insights 2. Operational Backbone 3. Digital Platform 4. Accountability Framework 5. External Developer Platform

2. Implementing World-class IT Strategy: How it Can Drive Organizational Innovation by Peter High

DESCRIPTION:

The actionable guide for driving organizational innovation through better IT strategy.

Implementing World Class IT Strategy How IT Can Drive Organizational Innovation Digital Transformation BooksExpert technology strategist Peter High emphasizes the acute need for IT strategy to be developed not in a vacuum, but in concert with the broader organizational strategy. This approach focuses the development of technology tools and strategies in a way that is comprehensive in nature and designed with the concept of value in mind. The role of CIO is no longer “just” to manage IT strategy―instead, the successful executive will be firmly in tune with corporate strategy and a driver of a technology strategy that is woven into overall business objectives at the enterprise and business unit levels.

High makes use of case examples from leading companies to illustrate the various ways that IT infrastructure strategy can be developed, not just to fall in line with business strategy, but to actually drive that strategy in a meaningful way. His ideas are designed to provide real, actionable steps for CIOs that both increase the executive’s value to the organization and unite business and IT in a manner that produces highly-successful outcomes.

· Formulate clearer and better IT strategic plans

· Weave IT strategy into business strategy at the corporate and business unit levels

· Craft an infrastructure that aligns with C-suite strategy

· Close the gap that exists between IT leaders and business leaders

While function, innovation, and design remain key elements to the development and management of IT infrastructure and operations, CIOs must now think beyond their primary purview and recognize the value their strategies and initiatives will create for the organization. With Implementing World Class IT Strategy, the roadmap to strategic IT excellence awaits.

3. EDGE: Value-Driven Digital Transformation by Jim Highsmith, Linda Luu and David Robinson

DESCRIPTION:

The Agile Operating Model That Will Help You Successfully Execute Your Digital Transformation

EDGE Value-Driven Digital Transformation Digital Transformation BooksMaximum innovation happens at the edge of chaos: the messy, risky, and uncertain threshold between randomness and structure. Operating there is uncomfortable but it’s where organizations “invent the future.” EDGE is a set of fast, iterative, adaptive, lightweight, and value-driven tools to achieve digital transformation.

Jim Highsmith is one of the world’s leading agile pioneers and a coauthor of the Agile Manifesto. He, Linda Luu, and David Robinson know from their vast in-the-trenches experience that sustainable digital transformation requires far more than adopting isolated agile practices or conventional portfolio management. This hard, indispensable work involves changing culture and mindset, and going beyond transforming the IT department. EDGE embraces an adaptive mindset in the face of market uncertainty, a visible, value-centered portfolio approach that encourages continual value linkages from vision to detailed initiatives, incremental funding that shifts as strategies evolve, collaborative decision-making, and better risk mitigation. This guide shows leaders how to use the breakthrough EDGE approach to go beyond incremental improvement in a world of exponential opportunities.

· Build an organization that adapts fast enough to thrive

· Clear away unnecessary governance processes, obsolete “command and control”

leadership approaches, and slow budgeting/planning cycles

· Improve collaboration when major, fast-paced responses are necessary

· Continually optimize investment allocation and monitoring based on your vision and goals

4. See Sooner, Act Faster: How Vigilant Leaders Thrive in an Era of Digital Turbulence (Management on the Cutting Edge) by George S. Day and Paul J.H. Schoemaker

DESCRIPTION:

How organizations can anticipate threats, spot opportunities, and act faster when the time is right; with rich examples including Adobe, MasterCard, and Amazon.

See Sooner, Act Faster How Vigilant Leaders Thrive in an Era of Digital Turbulence Digital Transformation BooksWhen turbulence is the new normal, an organization’s survival depends on vigilant leadership that can anticipate threats, spot opportunities, and act quickly when the time is right.

Vigilant firms have greater foresight than their rivals, while vulnerable firms often miss early signals of external threats and organizational challenges. Charles Schwab, for example, was early to see and act on the promise of “robo-advisors”; Honeywell, on the other hand, stumbled when Nest Labs came out first with a “smart” thermostat. Day and Schoemaker show leaders how to assess their vigilance capabilities and cultivate insight and foresight throughout their organizations. They draw on a range of cases, including Adobe and Intuit’s move to the cloud, Shell’s investment in clean energy, and MasterCard’s early recognition of digital challenges. 

Day and Schoemaker describe how to allocate the scarce resource of attention, how to detect weak signals and separate them from background noise, and how to respond strategically before competitors do. The challenge is not just to act faster but to act wisely, and the authors suggest ways to create dynamic portfolios of options. Finally, they offer an action agenda, with tips for fostering vigilance and agility throughout an organization. The rewards are stronger market positions, higher profits and growth, more motivated employees, and organization longevity.

5. Digital Transformation: Survive and Thrive in an Era of Mass Extinction by Thomas M. Siebel

DESCRIPTION:

Digital Transformation Survive and Thrive in an Era of Mass Extinction Digital Transformation BooksA penetrating examination of the new technologies that are disrupting business and government—and how organizations can harness them to transform into digital enterprises.  The confluence of four technologies—elastic cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and the internet of things —is fundamentally changing how business and government will operate in the 21st century.   Siebel guides readers through a fascinating discussion of the game-changing technologies driving digital transformation and provides a roadmap to seize them as a strategic opportunity. He shows how leading enterprises such as Enel, 3M, Royal Dutch Shell, the U.S. Department of Defense, and others are applying AI and IoT with stunning results.

Ready to embark on your digital transformation journey? We’re here to help! Get in touch with us today to define, assess, plan, and execute a strategy that propels your organization forward.

Regular Technology Budget Hygiene Helps Prevent Spend Drift

Regular Technology Budget Hygiene Helps Prevent Spend Drift - Blue Tree Technology Group

Many organizations are feeling a budget crunch for COVID-related reasons and are looking to reduce their technology spend. While these efforts are critical at the moment, there is a larger argument for long-term strategic budget hygiene. Just like we floss our teeth and wash our hands regularly to help prevent cavities and disease, regular budget hygiene helps prevent wasted technology resources every quarter, every year. In turn, this makes for a financially healthy organization that is not only better prepared to survive economic downturns but is also better prepared to take advantage of economic booms.

Similar to personal hygiene, budget hygiene is most effective when it becomes a habit. There is a lot of science behind successfully creating new personal habits, and we have found that some of it translates very well to organizations.

1. Start Small

2. Plan for Obstacles

3. Take Inventory

4. Identify Areas to Improve

5. Execute

6. Rinse and Repeat

 

1. Start Small

Regular Technology Budget Hygiene Helps Prevent Spend Drift - Blue Tree Technology Group - 1Depending on the size of your organization and the size of your budget hygiene team, you may find more lasting and scalable success by starting with one business unit. This is also important as different units – say Marketing or HR – require their own unique set of technology tools and resources.

Starting small also allows for more elasticity in your strategy. It’s helpful to hone your processes and make adjustments with that first and solitary business before tackling the entire organization.

 

2. Plan for Obstacles

Regular Technology Budget Hygiene Helps Prevent Spend Drift - Blue Tree Technology GroupWhat challenges do you foresee? How will you record and organize the data? Do you have the support of most if not all of the key stakeholders? Are employees going to be resistant to any changes?

No matter how much you plan, obstacles are bound to surface after you start. Expect it and have a process for identifying and addressing obstacles in real-time. Most importantly, have a targeted communication plan ready to launch immediately.

 

3. Take Inventory

Regular Technology Budget Hygiene Helps Prevent Spend Drift - Blue Tree Technology GroupSimilar to taking stock of your personal habits, you need a clear picture of your organization’s current state before you can possibly make informed budget choices. After you’ve identified the business vertical you want to start with, collect and organize a complete inventory of the following:

· Existing technology vendors, all contracts with them, service level agreements, and all invoices

· Categorize all applications used by the business unit by the business function(s) supported by each

· Compute hardware supporting the apps, whether hosted internally or in the cloud

· Network connectivity providing employees access to those applications

· Internal and external support services

· End-user data via form surveys to see what technology they actually use

 

4. Identify Areas for Improvement

Regular Technology Budget Hygiene Helps Prevent Spend Drift - Blue Tree Technology GroupAfter you’ve collected all the necessary data, analyze it by asking the following questions:

Are existing technology vendors fulfilling their contracts?

Are they over-billing?

When are contracts up for renewal?

Does it make sense to send out an RFP before renewing existing contracts?

Are we monitoring contract dates for renewals, expirations and out-clauses?

How do our current vendors compare in service and price to other market leaders?

Are we paying more than average?

What are the triggers for auto-renewals?

Are there unnecessary redundancies?

Are there technology tools going unused?

Would different applications be better suited for the needs of the business unit?

 

5. Execute Changes

Regular Technology Budget Hygiene Helps Prevent Spend Drift - Blue Tree Technology GroupExecuting on budget decisions is bound to encounter obstacles. Most likely, not all stakeholders are going to be supportive. Many employees are going to resist any changes to the way they are used to doing things. Hopefully, all of these obstacles were foreseen and prepared for. Continue to listen and acknowledge the validity of any concerns and communicate all the benefits of the new technology initiatives.

Assign project managers for any decommissions, service cancelations or implementations of new services. Canceling a service or picking a new service provider is only the beginning. It is very rare that technology initiatives go smoothly. Just assume things will go wrong at some point. Having a plan, enforcing accountability, establishing escalation paths, and fostering clear and constant communication to both internal and external stakeholders are all critical for success.

Record all of the changes in real time and keep these records up to date.

 

6. Rinse and Repeat

This is where establishing a habit comes into play. Having efficient and effective technology tools that support business outcomes requires regular review. A quarterly technology review of each business unit is probably overkill, but an annual review is manageable and can be done simultaneously with already established financial reviews and cost benefit analysis. Afterall, budget is not just about the cost of tech tools, it’s also about whether or not those tools are actually effective and efficient.