Friday, December 13, 2019

The Digital CIO’s “ Start Small & Think Big” Practices

IT matters not only because it’s pervasive, more about it continues to evolve, advance, and its nature of the "constructive disruption," with the ability to make continuous deliveries.

Information Technology plays a significant role in driving changes and weaving all crucial ingredients into business competencies. There is no one size fits all formula to run a highly effective digital IT, different IT organizations and enterprise as a whole are at a different stage of the business maturity. Thus, IT leaders have to keep up for improving IT return on investment and stepping up for enforcing IT leadership visibility. Here are a set of the digital CIO’s “Think big & start small” practices.

Identify and initiate pivotal changes, also make large complex changes gradually: “Keeping the lights on” and running IT with operational excellence are still fundamental. If there is a day-to-day operation break or fix type of issue in relation to a business critical technology, it’s important to resolve it first. From the budgeting perspective, continue to figure out what’s an ideal ratio to both “keep the lights on” and drive significant change.

The CIOs who identify small pivotal changes and start "fixing" them in the background, gradually over time making larger more complex changes tend to be the ones who can turn companies around and become the trustful business partner. All the communication in the world won't influence the executive peer if there aren't results. That's why those pivotal changes are the basis for a compelling story.

Start small and create a core team and in the process identify resources from other areas that can assist with the IT-enabled business initiative preferably in a function of the company that is receptive to changes the C-Level wants to implement for developing the business competency. The point is how to make sure systems run according to plans, schedules, and performance standards for improving IT effectiveness, efficiency, and maturity.

Build on the momentum while keeping an eye on the scale, adoption, and flexibility: To run IT as an integral component of the business, start small, and then scale up, via the Center of Excellence, to share the best practices. There is no technical challenge only, but business initiative, developing a compelling strategic business case is especially critical when an initiative is difficult to monetize.

Start small, create a core team and in the process identify resources from other areas that can assist with the business initiative, define a clear objective, business justification, and make a full alignment with the overall company’s objectives, otherwise, they do not exist, and attach believable dollar values to identified benefits flows. IT/software architecture helps to set up the environment for implementing business solutions such that it becomes hard to not think about the big picture and do good design and keep eyes on the scale, adoption, and flexibility.

Grab some low hanging fruits: To run IT as a strategic business partner, it is important to have a holistic strategy and catch the critical opportunities for business innovation and digital transformation, but also do not forget to grab some low hanging fruits. 

In fact, thinking big doesn't always mean to manage the large heavy project portfolio and only hunt for breakthrough opportunities. It’s important for IT to be more innovative from an outside-in customer’s lens. Through catching customer insight and understanding their needs, focusing on customer needs should be an easier path to grab some low hanging fruits and grow the innovation fruit. 

Businesses love to see IT getting deeply immersed in the new apps, devices, and solutions and make internal customers more productive, collaborative and smart;  IT also helps to digitize the touch points of the end customer experiences. Pay more attention to the scope, status, talent, and resources. IT leaders need to strike the right balance of “run, grow and transform,” and transform IT from a reactive fixer to a proactive business solutionary.

IT matters not only because it’s pervasive, more about it continues to evolve, advance, and its nature of the "constructive disruption," with the ability to make continuous deliveries. The role of the CIO continues to “think big and start small,” evolves rapidly in the midst of the information in digital transformation and accelerates changes in technology. IT is the business in the business and the change agent of the entire organization.

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