Transforming IT

Introducing The Quantum Age of IT

I would like to announce that I have launched a new website called The Quantum Age of IT (www.thequantumageofit.com) and that I will be moving my main blog to that site. This site represents my vision of the future of IT and what it means to every IT leader and professional in our industry. The concept centers around four central themes:

• IT as we know it is dead. The fundamental IT business model has shifted to the customer being in control
• Because of this, every IT organization will need to make a choice and become either a Strategic Sourcer or a Strategic Innovator as we enter what I am calling The Quantum Age of IT
• To enter the Quantum Age, every IT organization must develop five new organizational traits.  They must become Learning Organizations, Disciplined Organizations, Transparent Organizations, Intimate Organizations and Dynamic Organizations
• Finally, to compete in this new age, every IT professional must develop a set of 5 new skills: Marketing & Communication, Innovation & Collaboration, Critical Thinking & Analytical, Financial Management and Leadership

The new site is dedicated to these ideas and will serve as the home to the "movement" that will be created around these ideas. My latest blog post is entitled, Why Critical Thinking is Critical. I hope that you check it out.

"What" Is More Important Than "How"

In IT, we get paid for the "how."  From the beginning, it has always been that there is some problem that needs to be solved - and IT was HOW it could be solved. This has led to innumerate advances in technologies and processes over the years and it is a big reason that technology and IT has been the primary driver of productivity for the last twenty years or so.

In some cases, however, this focus on the "how" can work against us.

As we enter this new era for IT - what I am calling the Quantum Age of IT - the problems are not quite so apparent.  It is no longer as simple as having a better way to do something.  IT must now be a part of creating its own destiny.  In short, IT leaders and entire organizations need to begin focusing on the "what."

While this can sometimes be foreign to IT professionals, it is actually a very proven and intuitive approach.  Before you worry about how you will you do something, you need to know what it is that you want to accomplish.  It is kind of like trying to plot the fastest way to go someplace.  You need to know where that place is first.  This sounds simple, but the truth is that for most of IT's existence, someone else has picked the destination.  Our job was simply to find the most effective and most efficient way to get there.

But things have changed.

IT must now be a part of picking that destination.  That means that we must be focused on the "what."

Whether you are establishing the entire vision for the IT organization or just focused on a specific component of its operation, the process is the same.  You need to follow a simple equation:

• Clearly articulate what you want to achieve - where you want to go, the end-state you seek (Note: this isn't what tasks you want to complete, it is what you expect it to look like when you are done.)
• Understand what obstacles are in your way and are stopping you from achieving this end-state
• Determine what you will need to change, fix or create to overcome those obstacles
• Then - and only then - figure out how you will you do it

This simple formula can be repeated in greater detail as you start putting your plan together.  The first iteration will be a vision and a high-level plan.  Each component of that plan can use the same process to figure out what needs to be done and so on.  In truth, this simple, intuitive approach can be used in any effort - no matter how large or small.

Focusing on the "what" is not always natural for IT pros.  We are natural problem solvers and we thrive on being the hero that can come up with solutions to the most vexing problems.  But the world is changing and our customers are expecting far more from us than just problem solving today. They are looking to us to help drive technology-enabled efficiencies and innovation deep into the core of the business.  They want us to help identify the problems that need fixing in the first place.  And that requires a lot more imagination and creativity - and a lot more focus on the "what."

Undeniable Trend #3: Last-Mile Value

This is part 4 of a 4 part series entitled, The Three Undeniable Trends that Will Shape the Future of IT.

IT organizations have an addiction problem.  We are addicted to "big." 

Almost since the beginning, IT leaders have sought the big leap in technology that was going to change everything - touch every corner of the enterprise. It is this addiction that leads to $100MM and $500MM and $1B ERP projects. It is why we love big, giant data center projects. It doesn't matter if we are developing them or migrating them or consolidating them - just as long as it is big.

I think it is because the bigger the project, the more complex it becomes. And if a project is big and complex, well, you must need some highly paid IT professionals to handle it right?

And let's not forget us consultants and all of the hardware and software vendors. We all love big too, don't we? Big, complex projects mean big deals and big consulting contracts. As a bonus, big and complex means that there are a bunch of players involved - so no one group can be blamed when it all falls apart. Big contracts, no accountability. Sounds perfect doesn't it?

Big and complex is good for everyone...well, almost everyone, that is. 

The problem is that the one person that it generally isn't good for is the only one that matters - the customer.

Do you think the customer cares about that big ERP system? Or the data center consolidation? Nope. And most of the time, you will be hard pressed to even make a valid case for how the $100MM or $1B investment translates into $100MM or $1B in value to the customer.

In fact, I think that we should add a new step to the IT portfolio analysis and approval process. Before any significant budget can be approved, the IT leadership team must stand before a focus group of real customers and pitch them on how the proposed project will result in something that they value. I wonder how many of those big projects would make the cut?

Don't get me wrong, I get that technology is complex. I get that all of that infrastructure is the foundation upon which value is built. But here is the thing: to the extent that the infrastructure is just the commodity foundation, then it adds little discernable value to the organization. It is just a commodity utility and the only thing that you can do to be effective is to deliver it as inexpensively as you can.

Which leads me to the third and last undeniable trend that will shape the future of IT - last-mile value. I am defining "Last-Mile Value" as some improvement in the customer experience that is discernable and of worth to the customer. The new Chase QuickDeposit iPhone app is a perfect example. This new feature allows customers to take a picture of their check with their iPhone and BAM! the check is deposited. 

Did that little wonder of coding cost them $100MM? I doubt it. But it created a tremendous amount of value for their customers. It also created a lot of positive market momentum. Have you seen the ads? 

If you are an IT leader, your business customers get this. They are looking for technology to once and for all get out of the back office and to get on the front line. They are looking for those small, little innovations that drive exponential value in the customer experience, in customer satisfaction, in positive brand impression and in revenue and market share growth. 

How many ERP or data center implementations do that?

Yes, these big projects will always be a part of what IT must deliver to its customers. But to be relevant in the future, IT organizations will need to break their addiction to "big" and focus on Last-Mile Value - because it will be the only value that really matters.

So what do you think of these three "Undeniable Trends?" Am I on to something?

Undeniable Trend #2: Dynamic Provisioning

IT organizations have been looking at their infrastructures all wrong. For years, organizations have been focusing all of their energies on pretty much one thing: efficiency. The idea is to create the most automated and efficient infrastructure as possible.

There are mountains of technologies to support this model. Even virtualization is primarily looked at from an efficiency perspective - buy fewer servers and optimize them through the use of virtual machines.  Efficiency is good. It helps meet one side of the value equation by continually optimizing costs.  But it is only half of the puzzle.

The other half of the puzzle is that the IT infrastructure must enable the business to create customer value through the use of technology. Most of this benefit does not come from the infrastructure, per se. It is mostly (thought not always) found on the application side of the house. But infrastructure (both application middleware and physical infrastructure) is a key element of this value creation. Depending on how it is designed and implemented it can either be the bottleneck that stops your customers from realizing the value they seek or the enabler which allows your customer to react swiftly to seize market opportunity.

Sadly, infrastructure is typically viewed as the bottleneck. The reason is clear: in most cases, it simply takes too long to provision a new service. The minute I say that I can already here the chorus of excuses as to why it takes so long. Security and compliance requirements. The change process. Approvals.

The thing is, the excuses just do not cut it. Because of the consumerization of technology, your customers have been trained that they can place an order for something and have it provisioned in minutes - not days. In addition, markets are moving much faster than they have in the past and your customers simply cannot afford to wait any longer. The reality is that in most cases they now have choices. If you demonstrate that you cannot provision services to them rapidly and reliably, they will leave.

Which brings us back to the trend. IT organizations must develop the capabiities to enable dynamic provisioning. This means not only designing a highly dynamic and flexible architecture, but also building the process and automation capabilities to enable near immediate provisioning of services to the customer.

This demands much more than you may think. It begins by developing a comprehensive understanding of what the customer needs and how they interact with your service. Do you need to build some automation tools that enable them (or you) to define and provision services? It also requires that you develop significant capabilities around demand forecasting and management. You cannot provision dynamically without building an appropriate degree of surplus capacity into your systems.

But regardless of the challenges, IT organizations must get here. From Amazon to Google to Salesforce, your customers are experiencing the wonders and benefits of dynamic provisioning every day. They will demand no less from you.

Undeniable Trend #1: Human IT

This is part 2 of a 4 part series entitled, The Three Undeniable Trends that Will Shape the Future of IT.  Click here to read part 1.

The wild, wild west is a bygone era best left for old movies. Those carefree days of the cowboy cultures in which IT was able to operate in relative obscurity are gone. Today's IT organizations are large and complex. They employ hundreds, thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of employees with a vast range of skills, cultural influences and experiences. They operate across vastly diverse geographies and typically support multiple customers each with their own needs and demands.

It should come as no surprise then, that anyone who has spent any time in an IT organization lately knows that they can be quite dysfunctional. The reason is that despite the fact that IT organizations are typically $50MM - $1B businesses in and of themselves, they have invested very little in developing the disciplines of managing their own people.

For generations, IT organizations have viewed themselves as the bastion of technical domains.  A staggering amount of money has been invested over the years in a wide range of tools and processes to manage the technology.  Yet, the part that could have the greatest impact has largely been left untouched: people.

Over the last ten years or so, this has begun to change.  With growing complexity, IT leaders have realized a need for management disciplines.  This has ushered in the era of the process improvement and management domains such as ITIL, PMBOK, COBIT, Agile, LEAN and Six Sigma. But these efforts have only scratched the surface.  The amount of differentiation and competitive advantage that can be additionally realized from improvements in technology and architectures is limited. That leaves the effective management of IT's human resources, rather than the technical ones, as the great untapped reserve of value potential.

I believe that it will come down to this.  IT organizations will be driven to develop robust disciplines which enable them to create true learning organizations that can adapt to change rapidly. It will no longer be sufficient to just manage technology. Advantage will come to those who are most adept at managing their people.

Three Undeniable Trends that Will Shape the Future of IT

What are the three most important trends that will shape the future of IT?

If you guessed social media, mobile technology and "the cloud," you're wrong - at least in my opinion. 

I had an interesting conversation the other day with a long time associate of mine who is in the middle of a job transition and had called to just pick my brain. It was good to catch up and during the call we ended up talking about what I saw as the future of IT and, if I was plotting a career move today, where I would focus my attention.

During the conversation, I ended up rattling off these three trends without giving it much thought. A while later, I started really thinking about them and they began to crystalize in my mind.

They became so clear and stark - at least to me - that I decided that I was going to write a white paper of some sort on them and make them a centerpiece to a lot of what we do at CastlePointe.

Perhaps what I found most interesting though, is that these aren't the normal things that you hear bandied about these days.

Which means I am either dead wrong...or I am on to something.

We hear constant stories about social media, mobile and the cloud as transforming technologies - but that is not (exactly) what I am thinking of here. I mean, those three technologies are important and will certainly have an impact, but I don't think that they are going to fundamentally change the way IT organizations operate, per se.

But I think that these three trends will.

Ok, I know that I've been beating around the bush here a little bit, but I wanted to make sure that I got the setup right. These trends are not about technology. They are about how IT organizations themselves will need to transform. Technology is a part of that, but it is not the main part. At the center is an attitude and an approach to how IT views both itself and its customers.

I am going to spend the next three days giving a little view into the details of each of these trends and then put the real meat in the white paper, but I am very curious to know what you think about these at first blush.

So here it is. The three trends that I believe are going to shape the future of IT are:

• Human IT: Developing the disciplines to manage the people-side of IT - those that are most adept at managing their people will win
• Dynamic Provisioning: Developing capabilities to deploy and manage dynamic architectures - those that can most effectively and rapidly respond will have advantage
• Last-Mile Value: Developing expertise in delivering value at the point of the customer experience - it will be the only value that matters

At first blush, these may not seem that "out there." They aren't. There is also plenty of interrelation between these trends/concepts and the buzzwords of the day. But I think the difference, while subtle, is significant.

I'll examine each of these over the next few days and I hope you'll see what I mean.

Ok, so am I nuts or on to something?

Are You an IT Business Strategist?

Do you have what it takes to be an IT business strategist?

A recent blog series by Louie Ehrlich, the CIO of Chevron, was posted at the CIO Dashboard. As far as I'm concerned, this is required reading if you are serious about understanding where the future of IT organizations and IT leadership is going.

What I loved most is that this is not your typical, pie-in-the-sky rant about how the CIO needs a seat at the table. This concise series of three blog posts gets down to the practical reality of what it means to be a business strategist CIO - and what is required to get there.

FIRST THINGS FIRST
Not to pat ourselves on the back too much, but at CastlePointe we have always had three tenants about IT transformations.

First, we believe that IT transformation does not occur if cultural change is not involved. Second, we believe that you cannot begin to transform an IT organization unless you have an IT organization that is both efficient and effective. Finally, we believe that the only real purpose behind an IT transformation is to increase and drive meaningful business value.

In the blog series, Mr. Ehrlich essentially makes the same points. He recounts how he had to realize that he couldn't have strategic conversations until basic elements of functional delivery were being met.

A NEED FOR STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
But he also took it further. At least from a CIO's perspective, his goal was to elevate his own value proposition to one of being a business strategist.

This echoes some of our recent articles and discussions around IT's unique opportunity to see and influence business strategy. While this is an area that we are still developing, it was gratifying to see it all laid out so succinctly.

I encourage you to take a few minutes and read this series of posts. Then go back a few days later and read it again. Let it really sync in.

This is your future and you have an opportunity to glimpse it.

Are You Investing in IT Leaders?

I believe that each of us in the IT profession has a responsibility to invest in each other. How much are you investing?

When I was in high school, I had a teacher who made a huge difference in my life. In fact, he is probably responsible, at least in part, for the fact that I'm writing this post right now.

His name was Lou Casselle and he was my computer science teacher. We were learning COBOL on TRS-80's (I know, I'm dating myself a bit) and it was a fun class. But it became much more than just a class. Mr. Casselle, for whatever reason, decided to invest in me. He would invite me in during lunch to talk about computers and the new businesses that were developing around them. Later, he would invite me over to his house on weekends to work on "projects" together.

The net result of this was that by the time I graduated high school, I had written an order management system for a local manufacturing company, I had started a small custom-PC business and had landed the contract to rebuild my high school's computer lab. Being the self-absorbed kid that most of us are at that age, it never occurred to me how much Mr. Casselle was giving of himself to make this investment in me. Particularly because there was essentially nothing in it for him.

As my career progressed, I had several other mentors. People that would take me under their wings and show me the ropes. Most of us have had these kinds of relationships, but frankly, in the modern era of technology it is starting to get lost.

THE LOST FRATERNITY
Back when I was getting my start, things were still somewhat new and those of us in the industry were a bit of a fraternity. The geeks in the basements had to stick together! As our industry has matured and grown exponentially in size, however, I think that it has become much more transient and almost mercenary. It still feels like a small industry at times, but I see a lot less investing in others these days. I think that needs to change.

In many of my recent posts, webinars, articles and just about anywhere I can shout from a rooftop, I have been making the case that our industry is at a precipice. That we are in the midst of a fundamental change in how IT organizations must operate. It means that a lot of what we know will cease to apply. But not everything.

A DUTY TO INVEST
In IT, it seems that all that is new was once old. Even as we shift to a much more business-driven focus for IT we will be foolish if we fail to harness the lessons of our collective history. Those of us that have been around a while have a duty to share our experiences with those that will follow. We must pass along our hard earned perspectives. Not necessarily as the definitive answer to how things will be or even should be, but at least so the history of what has happened and why it happened is understood.

The new generation, on the other hand, has an obligation to take up the mantle and take our industry to a new place. You must promise, however, not to give away the hard lessons we have already learned. You must be unafraid to "blow it up," but to do so not out of rashness or hubris, but because you are able to take the experiences of those that have come before you and envision a different future.

A NEW GENERATION OF IT LEADERS
Together, we must create a new generation of IT leaders. One that harnesses both the experience and wisdom of where we come from and the enthusiasm of fresh eyes. This requires that we look beyond just our jobs or our companies and passionately invest in each other.

If you have 20 years of experience or more, who are you mentoring? Who are you investing in? If you are newer to our industry are you open to being mentored? Are you respecting our history and learning from what has happened in the past before you rush off into the future?

We are entering a tumultuous time for IT organizations and for the IT profession. It is going to take all of us investing in one another to rise to the next level. Are you up to it?

I, for one, have been remiss on this account. I am committed to changing this. I will be actively looking to identify some young up-and-comers that I can invest in.

I hope that Mr. Casselle will be proud.

P.S. If you think that I could offer you something of value by investing in you, drop me a line and let's talk.

Photo by blakespot, available under a Creative Commons Attributions 2.0 license.

Are You Ready to be an IT Coach?

During my recent webinar, Becoming a 21st Century IT Leader, I made the case that IT is entering a new era and the skills you are going to need to compete and survive in this era are very different from those you might normally think about in terms of an IT organization.

One of these skills is going to be coaching.

As we move into an era of greater distribution of responsibilities and greater business impact, the days of command-and-control will fade away. This means that simply "ordering" people to act a certain way and having any hope of them actually doing it is pretty remote. Instead, you will need to develop your coaching skills if you want your team to perform. You will also need coaching skills to "coach" your customer on how to best leverage technology to create value.

But what does it mean to be a coach? I think that there are three primary principles that you must embrace to be an effective coach:

Principle #1: Bring Out the Best in Them
Principle #2: It's About the Team
Principle #3: They Get the Glory, You Get the Win

This is going to take a lot more space to dig into, but here's a brief look at what I think these three principles mean.

BRING OUT THE BEST IN THEM
If you have ever played a team sport, you had a coach. What was their focus? It was on you and the rest of your teammates, right? The coach's job is to see your hidden talents and unearth them. They seek to help you find the best within you and bring it out.

This is what you must do if you are going to be a great IT coach. Can you go into each situation focused on how you will help others improve and find unrealized talents? It can be tough in the harried corporate worlds most of us live in, but you will never succeed in moving forward if you don't shift your focus from one based on your success to one based on how you can help others succeed.

IT'S ABOUT THE TEAM
Hero worship is alive and well in IT organizations everywhere.  I remember as a young kid trying to make a name for myself, I took great pride on being the last person to leave the office. Sometimes I would pull an all-nighter to get something done - and I made sure that everyone knew it.  As a result, I got a lot of "addaboys" from the senior management team.  All of which encourage me to do more of what I was doing.

The only problem was that I was all about me and not about the team.

By being the hero, I wasn't necessarily doing what was best for the organization. Wouldn't it have been better to engage my entire team and rally them around whatever problem was so pressing that I needed to work 40 hours straight to get it done? You see, I was much more focused on being the hero than I was focused on doing what was right for the customer.

As a coach, you need to resist the tempation for hero worship. You need to make sure that your entire team understands that you succeed or fail together.  Period.

In terms of your coaching relationship with your customers, it is pretty much the same thing. You need to get on the same team with them. It must always be a situation in which you don't win if they don't.  You must realize that you can never be a hero at your customer's expense. Get this right and you will have laid the foundation for a powerful force of change.

THEY GET THE GLORY, YOU GET THE WIN
There is an old axiom that to be a great leader, you must take all of the pain, but give away all of the glory. In simple terms, it means that when something goes wrong you must take accountability, but when it goes right you must give away the credit.

Frankly, I always thought that this seemed a bit unfair.

It always bugged me. I could do everything that I was supposed to, but one of my guys messed up and I had to take the lumps. As I've matured, however, I realized the power in this approach. Its power comes from the fact that your team is measured, recognized and rewarded at the "event" level. As the leader and coach, on the other hand, you are recognized, measured and rewarded over much longer periods of time. By providing your team the protection when something goes wrong, you free them to take risks and experiment. This leads to better outcomes over the long haul.

Likewise, when something goes well, they are deeply connected to it because they've invested their blood, sweat and tears into it. When the manager takes the credit, it takes all of that effort and turns it from a source of pride to a source of resentment. Even if it isn't fully deserved, giving your team the credit encourages them to stretch further and work harder.

The key fact to understand is that while your team's product is whatever project or activity they have been assigned, as a coach and leader, your product is them. So as you give them the glory and protect them when things fail, you will get the wins.

These are not common skills in IT organizations today - but they will be.  The changes that are coming to our industry are demanding it.

Are you ready to be a coach? Which of these three principles will be toughest for you to embrace? What can you do to change that?

Why We Need More Women in IT

There are not enough women in IT and I believe IT organizations are worse off because of it.

There are a couple of reasons that I believe this.  Jim Cross, one of our Principal Consultants, recently wrote an article entitled Cultural Diversity: Building Teams for Success. It has gotten quite a bit of attention and got picked up by a number of other websites. While it does not specifically address the question of women in IT, I think that it struck a nerve because it pointed out the need for differences in both perspectives and experiences in order to put together a well rounded and cohesive team.

In addition to those perspectives that are shaped by our experiences, the truth is that our gender can also shape how we look at things. I do believe that men and women look at things differently. I hate to over generalize, but I believe that this is true more often than it is not and, let's face it, when your organization is made up almost entirely of men, that different point-of-view is going to get lost.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT NOW?
This has always been true. This isn't a new development. But I believe that the situation is becoming much more acute. The reason is that I believe IT organizations are entering a world where the difference in perspective is going to create competitive value for organizations.

In our recent webinar entitled, Becoming a 21st Century IT Leader, I lay out five key skills that I believe are going to be required to be a leader in the IT organization going forward.  They are:

   * Discerning Strategic Value
   * Coaching, Mentoring, Networking and Building Coalitions
   * Product Design, Planning and Management
   * Marketing & Communication
   * Continual Optimization and Innovation

Here's what is interesting: these are not technical skills. They are much more focused on the human and value dimensions of IT. The hard truth is that while I believe that anyone can learn these skills, they will come more naturally to women than men.

Without over generalizing, women tend to be much more in tune with value, they are better at people skills and building teams, they communicate better and they tend to look at things from the customer perspective. 

These natural traits will make them much more capable of developing the skills that I believe will be necessary for IT to succeed in the future. Ironically, the greatest threat to this outcome is that IT cultures everywhere are working very hard to channel everyone to the hierarchical and structured perspectives that have long persisted in IT organizations. To the extent that they succeed, this natural advantage will dissipate. That would be a horrible loss.

IT leaders must seek out more women - particularly in management and leadership roles. You must be willing to break free of your highly structured methodologies and create openness to new ideas centered around these key skill areas. Do that and IT's odds of succeeding and competing in the future will improve dramatically.

What can you do to promote women in IT roles? How can you create an openness to new perspectives and points-of-view?