Doug Theis - Leave your comfort zone.

CIO.com – The CIO as storyteller

Effective communication across the enterprise requires a renewed focus on capturing an audience. Tech leaders from California State University, QEP Resources, and Arup share how they handle the challenge.

Communication is the bedrock of all social behavior. And multilingual communication — what linguists call code-switching — is the human norm. The British Council, the United Kingdom’s international cultural arm, has referred to recent surveys indicating that the majority of humanity is multilingual. The Linguistic Society of America reports that there are upwards of 6,000 languages worldwide, and humans have worked hard to accommodate this diversity. In Novi Sad, Serbia, for example, the sign to the mayor’s office is in the four official languages of the city: Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, and Pannonian Rusyn.

More of the CIO.com article from Brendan McGowan

CIO Strategy / Cloud Computing / Cloud infrastructure / IaaS / IT Governance / IT Leadership / IT Staff Retention / Technical Debt — Comments Off
15
Oct 18

Continuity Central – Gartner Emerging Risks Report highlights the rise of talent shortage as a top concern

Gartner’s quarterly Emerging Risks Report has found that talent shortage has joined privacy regulation and cloud computing as the top three business risks that organizations are concerned about.

In a time of historically low unemployment where the supply of available workers is much lower than usual, organizations are struggling to find and retain the talent that they need to meet their strategic objectives.

At No. 3, behind accelerating privacy regulation and cloud computing, this is the first time talent shortage was named a top business risk in Gartner’s quarterly Emerging Risks Report. Cloud computing, which was ranked the No. 1 risk in 2Q18, remains a concern. Cybersecurity disclosure and the artificial intelligence (AI)/robotics skills gap round out the top five concerns among executives surveyed.

Fast Company – Why you need to make your team uncomfortable from time to time

It’s crucial to have a sense of community in the workplace, but too much comfort can hinder progress.

People get comfortable with where they sit, what projects they work on, and what teams they are responsible for. For leaders, no‑drama days where everyone does their thing without any complaints or conflict feel great–so they assume that a calm, hassle-free existence is the one that produces the best work. As a result, they optimize for a steady state, where there are no surprises and people do as they’re told.

More of the Fast Company article from Scott Belsky

IT Security / IT Strategy / Risk Management — Comments Off
11
Oct 18

Continuity Central – Redefining the definition of operational risk

The definition of operational risk varies but generally covers the risk of loss resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes, people and systems or from external events. However, I want to take a fresh look at this general definition and present what I believe operational risk should reflect, taking into account all the cyber security related risks that are currently plaguing organizations.

We know that operational risk exists in every organization and size does not matter. What matters however are two critical areas that need to be included in the operational risk definition:

Internal controls
User awareness.

Internal controls
We often see organizations of all sizes that have experienced intrusion or losses due to lack of (or failed oversight of) internal controls. Although various certifications exist that verify that all is in place, organizations are dynamic in nature and internal controls and processes change rapidly.

More of the Continuity Central article from Adesh Rampat

CIO Strategy / Digital Transformation / IT Governance / IT Leadership / IT Security / IT Staff Retention / IT Strategy — Comments Off
10
Oct 18

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

CIO Strategy / Digital Transformation / IT Leadership / IT Strategy — Comments Off
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

CIO Strategy / Cloud Computing / Cloud infrastructure / DevOps / Digital Transformation / IT Strategy — Comments Off
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

CIO Strategy / Data Center / IT Staff Retention / IT Strategy — Comments Off
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

Business continuity / Disaster Recovery / IT Security — Comments Off
03
Oct 18

Continuity Central – Five core questions to help boards understand their cyber risk

The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) says that Board members ‘need to get a little bit technical if they are to understand and manage the risks they face’ and has published a five-question checklist to assist.

NCSC also emphasises that boards cannot outsource their cyber security risks and need to understand what their technical staff are doing if they are to ‘prosper securely in the digital age’.

When launching the checklist, Ciaran Martin, chief executive of the NCSC, said:

“Cyber security is now a mainstream business risk. So corporate leaders need to understand what threats are out there, and what the most effective ways are of managing the risks.

“But to have the plain English, business focussed discussions at board level, board members need to get a little bit technical. They need to understand cyber risk in the same way they understand financial risk, or health and safety risk.

Doug Theis Leave your comfort zone.