Picking up from my last post, IT Transformation is About Cultural Change, I'd like to address the second piece of our vision for IT Transformation:
IT Transformation Begins with Organizational Effectiveness
IT Transformation sounds big. It sounds sexy. And so organizations often run off and want to focus their transformation effort on big and sexy things. They want to "align with the business" and become a "true business partner" and on and on. The problem is, that in many cases the conversation goes something like this:
IT: "We are launching an IT Transformation initiative to become your true business partner and work together to create innovation solutions for our customers."
Business: "Uh, that's great. But how are you going to do that when our systems aren't very stable and it takes you 10 days to deliver a PC for one of my new employees?"
Of course, this is an exaggeration, but this is the essence of what goes on. In many cases, IT lacks the credibility to have a "strategic conversation" with the business because they have not yet demonstrated that they can delivery routine services consistently and reliably.
So we believe that in order for an IT Transformation initiative to have legs, it must begin with organizational effectiveness. It's table stakes. IT must be able to operate effectively and efficiently with what's on its plate before the business will be willing to invest the time to create a more strategic relationship. This requires that IT begins the transformation process by instilling discipline. It means that IT must be mission- and metrics-driven, united in its operations (no more silos!) and it must be highly agile and adaptable.
The last part of our vision makes it clear that organizational effectiveness is not enough, but it is where you must begin.
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