IT Strategy

CIO.com – Making IT processes effective for the digital age

Does how IT runs itself matter to their firm’s digital transformation plan?

I have spent a lot of time in the #CIOChat discussing digital transformation. But can the IT organizational design and IT internal business processes impede digital transformation? Can IT, itself, become an obstacle to responding to the waves of digital disruption that are coming? This is the question that I recently asked CIOs.

Do IT processes get in the way?
CIOs say that poor processes and organizational misalignment can get in the way. They say both represent barriers to success when transformational work is built upon them. This, of course, is frequently the case and may explain why so many digital transformations fail.

More of the CIO.com article from Myles F Suer

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09
Oct 18

ZDNet – Five ways to talk about tech, without switching people off

Talking about why tech matters can be hard. Here are some tips on getting your message across.

From engineers to chief execs, from top suppliers to the smallest customers, the ability of a tech managers to speak clearly about their aims and challenges can often be key to the success of a technology strategy. So, how can CIOs improve how they communicate? Five digital leaders give their best-practice tips.

1. BUILD A CULTURAL AWARENESS OF DIGITAL CHANGE
Julie Dodd, director of digital transformation and communication at charity Parkinson’s UK, says everyone across the business must understand that successful IT-led change is about more than simply buying the right kit. Instead, transformation requires a cultural change and an awareness of how technology can be used to help the business meets its objectives quicker.

More of the ZDNet article from Mark Samuels

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08
Oct 18

InformationWeek – DevOps: From a Business and Executive Perspective

Some of the roadblocks to a successful DevOps initiative have nothing to do with technology or the IT group. Business unit leaders and executives have to get involved in the initiative as well.

Creating an environment that is capable of shifting and adapting to market demands isn’t always easy. Remember, the major goal here is to develop agility around both business and technology. DevOps is certainly a method to accomplish this task. I mentioned this in my “DevOps 101” article, but it’s worth repeating. The concept of DevOps isn’t just a single tool or platform. Rather, it truly is a shift in thinking in how you deliver services, applications, and even business capabilities into a digital market. In some ways, it’s the engine around digital transformations.

More of the InformationWeek post from Bill Kleyman

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05
Oct 18

WSJ – Firms Brace for Wave of Retiring IT Workers

Pilot Flying J is one firm tackling the talent exodus through knowledge-sharing programs and modernization efforts

Baby-boomer retirements over the next few years could leave companies without the IT expertise required to operate their legacy systems, even as they race to update older apps and shift more workloads to the cloud, industry advisors warn.

Part of the problem is that in the rush to modernize IT systems, many firms neglected to document legacy IT processes or hire new people with a working knowledge of how they function, they say.

As a result, a surge in retirements over the next few years “will leave many large companies with unsupported systems,” said Martha Heller, chief executive of Heller Search Associates, a recruiting firm that focuses on technology executives.

“If you don’t have anyone to support those old systems, you will have major gaps in your infrastructure,” she said.

Without taking steps now, the problem will only get worse, she adds. The total U.S. labor force participation rate is projected to hit 61% in 2026 after peaking at 83.8% in 1996, when the entire baby-boom generation was under 54 years old, according to U.S. Census and Bureau of Labor data.

CIO.com – What does it mean to be a transformational IT leader today?

As CIO, if you think your job is systems, think again.

Having now spent the last 12 months asking every CIO I know, “What does digital mean to your company?” I have some trends to report:

We used to use technology to run our businesses, now technology is our business.
We used to sell a product, now we sell data, or connectivity, or customer experience.
We used to know who our competitors were, now our competitors are coming at us from all sorts of new places.
Our company used to be all about manufacturing, or supply chain, or design, or R&D. Now we are all about the customer, and the customer wants access on her phone, her watch, her voice, and in her car

More of the CIO.com post from Martha Heller

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02
Oct 18

CIO.com – Why IT-business alignment still fails

With the push for digital transformation, relations between business and IT seemed to be improving, then they took a left turn. Here’s what’s worth addressing to improve alignment in your organization.

Do your company’s IT leaders and top business executives have the same understanding of IT’s role within the organization? Back in 2012, researchers at Capgemini asked this question of more than 1,300 senior executives. Sixty-five percent of them answered yes.

Perhaps a number closer to 100 percent would have been ideal, but the fact that nearly two thirds of companies surveyed believed business and IT were on the same page was very good news. It represented enormous and hard-won progress from the bad old days when business executives saw technology professionals as pointy-headed geeks, and technology professionals saw business executives as soulless and money-obsessed.

More of the CIO.com post from Minda Zetlin

Cloud infrastructure / DevOps / Internet of Things / IT Staff Retention / IT Strategy / Uncategorized — Comments Off
01
Oct 18

InformationWeek – How to Drill DevOps into Your Organizational Culture

Establishing the right culture will get your DevOps initiative off on the right foot.
These days, software applications are not your classic installable Windows apps, but instead exist in the cloud, delivered on the Internet and offered as a service to end users. This has ushered in the era of modern, web-based apps that require seamless internal operations throughout development, testing and quality assurance in order to deliver an experience that satisfies (and even goes beyond) user expectation for reliability, uptime, and quality.

This paradigm shift has resulted in the rise of DevOps, and launched initiatives that reframe the way developers and engineers work on a day-to-day basis. Enterprises must innovate smarter and adapt faster to outpace competitors and scale the business. DevOps strategies not only support technological advancements that benefit the consumer, but set benchmarks for entire industries.

More of the InformationWeek article from Christian Beedgen

CIO Strategy / Cloud Computing / Cloud infrastructure / Data Center / DevOps / Digital Transformation / IaaS / Internet of Things / IT Governance / IT Security / IT Staff Retention / IT Strategy — Comments Off
28
Sep 18

CIO.com – 8 CIO archetypes: What kind of IT leader are you?

From order taker to business leader, CIO responsibilities vary widely. Learn what role you currently play and how to break that mold in service of improved business value and career growth.

Global business disruption is quickening the evolutionary timeline of the CIO role. Market dynamicsare forcing IT leaders to extend beyond taking orders and delivering sustainable IT systems to massaging digital strategies and driving business outcomes.

More of the CIO.com slideshow from Clint Bouton

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27
Sep 18

TechTarget – Too many tools hobble network management design

‘Measure twice, cut once’ doesn’t work for network management. It’s time for the industry to consider a new way to coordinate network management design tools.

Carpenters always remember one simple piece of advice when they are working on a job: Measure twice, cut once. It’s a little different in networking, though. In our industry, my advice is the following: Measure many times, but never cut.

Take your typical network. Ask five different administrators and outside consultants about the tools they use to determine how the network is performing or to troubleshoot problems, and you’ll get six different answers — maybe more — about their network management design strategies.

More of the TechTarget article from Russ White

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26
Sep 18

CIO.com – Agility and architecture

Agile practices are still maturing. To scale, they require an enterprise and business architecture framework in their organizations.

I seriously doubt that agile initiatives can have success in the long run if they are not supported by an enterprise and business architecture framework that can be reused and enhanced from one project to the next. Digital transformation is not about a one-time change project or about spontaneous business activities. Digitization is more about transforming many dimensions of an organization with a structured approach involving business and enterprise architecture. This article will demonstrate how architecture can ensure success of agile digital transformation initiatives.

Agile practices in organizations

Agile practices are increasingly used for the digitization of today’s organizations because business environment demands sound decision making and quick follow through to address global competition treats and rapid market disturbances. According to a 2018 survey entitled How Agile and DevOps Enable Digital Readiness and Transformation, about 80% of surveyed organizations have committed to adopting agile practices in their software development.

More of the CIO.com article from Daniel Lambert

Doug Theis Leave your comfort zone.