Have you heard the latest? The CFO is the new CIO. In some companies, CFOs are assuming responsibility for IT. These companies have decided that IT development and delivery can be decentralized across the various business units and functions. The CFO, they believe, can provide the necessary central coordination to ensure that IT-enabled investments generate value and that IT is operating in a cost-effective, high quality, and secure manner.
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Cloud computing is inevitable.
The end state promises computing resources that deliver against the New Normal's need for speed, collaboration, productivity, and scale.
The transition state, however, delivers nothing but challenges for all involved.
On the vendor side, big names don't necessarily equate to big capabilities. Every "world class" cloud vendor consists of mere mortal employees who are struggling (given organizational silos, fragmented technology, and dramatic growth) to deliver on their company's service level commitments . Buyers beware. Take your reference checks to a new level - and focus not only on vendor capabilities but also the internal capabilities necessary to make sure the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
On the company side, technology and process changes are pretty well understood, security implications less so, but the organizational impacts are the most profound and sure to confound.
As we transition from managing assets to services, what is the role for our MVP technologists? With the transition to cloud, they are being asked to transfer their knowledge and manage service levels without direct access to the tools that allow them to do so. As an technical IT leader said to me recently, "We are now managing relationships and tickets - not technology."
Don't write off these employees as "unnecessary" in the end state and replaceable in the transition. Companies need to "lift and shift" their MVP technologists from the micro to the macro: architecting, integrating, innovating, directing, monitoring, resolving, negotiating.
As you move to cloud computing, how are you making sure that your people are moving with you?
Question: Why would a major technology vendor fire people for leveraging IT?
Answer: When the employees are leveraging IT without involving IT.
A well-known technology company has become the poster child for locking down IT to capture efficiencies gained through consolidation and standardization. Now, all IT decisions must be funneled through IT. It's a good idea that has gone bad. It's not unusual for engineers to wait a year for technology decisions. Going it alone risks termination. Courageous business leaders mask IT spending in their project budgets by calling it "equipment."
IT is at a crossroads - it needs to either figure out how to bring shadow IT out of the dark - and into the light - or risk being marginalized as increasingly tech-friendly business leaders take innovation into their own hands.
It's time for IT to control what matters. Imagine if IT defined investment policies rather than stewarding all business cases through approval? Imagine if IT certified project managers rather than managing all IT-enabled projects? Imagine if IT approved vendors rather than getting involved with all IT vendor provisioning? Imagine if IT controlled access to applications and data rather than the access devices?
Shadow IT reflects a need. Rather than shutting it down, IT should be building it up - while ensuring that it meets the needs of the enterprise as well as the individuals within.
How is your company bringing shadow IT into the light?
Here's a simple piece of advice for companies looking to become more innovative: Get IT out of the IT department.
I know it sounds counterintuitive and goes against the drive for centralization that has been in effect at most companies for the past 10 years. But for both competitive and technological reasons, funneling everything through the IT department no longer makes sense. Instead, business-unit leaders need to start assuming more control over the IT assets that fuel their individual businesses. To read the full Wall Street Journal article, click here. To learn more, listen to a recent NPR interview with Susan.
This week I met with some senior IT leaders to discuss my new book and the future of IT. At the end of the discussion, one of the participants expressed concern about the ability to develop future IT leaders in light of the fact that the company is outsourcing and "we aren't hiring junior IT people anymore." As I looked around the table, I realized that this organization is running on the leaders they developed five, 10, even 15 years ago, in their pre-outsourcing days. These people are getting older and looking tired. Outsourcers, not employees, are performing many of the jobs that helped build their leadership skills.
Andy Grove penned a fascinating commentary about the impact of outsourcing on American job creation, and the subsequent ability to innovate in the sectors that have been outsourced. He challenges the belief that as long as knowledge work stays in the United States, it doesn't matter what happens to factory jobs. Grove believes that, "not only did we lose an untold number of jobs, we broke the chain of experience that is important for technological evolution." Grove makes a good argument that, over time, companies lose the ability to innovate in the sectors they outsource.
Think outsourcing eases leadership burdens? Think again.
By default or by design, companies get the IT capability they've bought and paid for.
The key to freeing IT up is to increase the "IT smarts" of your team. In my previous post, "Find the IT Innovator Within," I recommended creating an "IT gifted and talented" program for the lead (or power) IT innovators on your team by elevating the relationship with IT from supporting existing technologies to supporting innovation. But overall, business leaders don't feel very smart about IT. For example, in my recent survey...
Eric Hippel, in his book Democratizing Innovation, says that every organization has "lead users" who "engage in developing and modifying products" so that they get "exactly what they want, rather than relying on manufacturers to act as their (often very imperfect) agents." In the midst of this half-empty economy, it's comforting to know that innovation is happening at the front lines of every organization.
What a bad day for Vivek Kundra, the recently appointed Federal Government CIO who is now on leave after the arrest on bribery, fraud, and money laundering charges of one of his subordinates and a contractor who did business with his agency.
I think we've made it through the stages of economic grief. We've mourned our former investment balances like a love suddenly lost. Now we're embracing the fact that "the long term view" is further away than we thought not too long ago.
When leaders think about reorganizing IT, they usually start with the assumption that they have two options: To centralize or to decentralize.
You're new to the organization and you feel like you are trying to sort out a bowl full of spaghetti.
When it comes to empowering employees, a little encouragement goes a long way.
"If individuals don’t accept personal responsibility when things go wrong, their organizations will become dysfunctional and stay dysfunctional."
"Change is unstoppable, and CIOs are climbing aboard. Nice for them. But they risk losing their staff unless they communicate better. "
"Does it really help you to vote people off your IT island? Isn’t there a better way to build a staff of top performers? In fact, there is."
"How to involve everyone in the leadership and management of IT."
"It's not how much you know, it's what you know about your audience."
