A featured contribution from Leadership Perspectives, a curated forum for enterprise technology leaders, nominated by our subscribers and vetted by the CIOApplications Editorial Board.
Groupe Deschênes
Natural Evolution Or Paradigm Shift?
Since the early 2000s, I have held the top IT position with several companies, gaining my fair share of experience and knowledge.
Through these years, I have filled my toolbox with skills and competencies, a strong sense of governance, and a balanced perspective. Benefiting myself from precious advice from peers, I feel that sharing some of my observations could be beneficial input for others to consider.
Let’s start with a question. Do you ever feel like things are moving so quickly that you'll fall behind if you don't drastically accelerate your delivery pace? Reading about success stories from other companies, witnessing the daily advancements in GenAI, observing the rise of chatbot interactions, fully automated warehouses, autonomous deliveries, exploding cyber security breaches, and so much more, while often still grappling with outdated ERPs and other obsolete systems – it can be daunting.
Many of us are in a very similar boat. We must deal with legacy systems, replace outdated technologies, keep up with cybersecurity threats, embrace collaboration, adopt GenAI, and seize digital opportunities, all while working within limited budgets, staff, and misaligned competencies. You are not alone in this struggle. So, take a moment to breathe and regroup.
Alright? Done? Enough!
The competitive landscape waits for no one. Yet, it's important to remember that haste is inherently risky and does not equate to velocity. Particularly when it involves your business-critical operations, taking the time to do things correctly the first time will invariably be faster than dealing with the consequences of errors. Don't be afraid to delay and regroup if the risks seem too great. Missing a few windows of opportunity, while disappointing, is less detrimental than making costly mistakes and damaging your credibility.
Therefore, partnering with the business is a must.
In the old days, we essentially took orders from the business, went away to develop, and often came back with inadequate solutions, long turnaround times, and frustrations. To improve, we all moved to work more inclusively and agilely.
Doing sprints, scrums, and personas, looking at the user experience, focusing on design, minimum viable products, progressing faster, and delivering value in a closer relationship with our internal customers. Still, although much better than the old waterfall-type approach, it is insufficient to address some of the unfulfilled digital opportunity gaps. To really increase that agile leverage, we need to push this effort yet a bit further. Add a new twist to our cocktail recipe.
In my opinion, the path forward includes supporting a more democratized and franchised digitalization approach. I am not inventing this but rather embracing it.
This means, among other things, creating a new community: the business technologists. Not managed by IT but encouraged and fostered by IT. Business people are encouraged and supported by the business to develop and leverage new technical skills.
As a business, we must learn new techniques and competencies and train our digital and governing muscles, making them stronger and more agile
It certainly, and in priority, also means developing AI dexterity programs. Generic AI, by itself, deserves an entire chapter. The leverage it will provide is unheard of.
Throughout our IT careers, we have trained ourselves to improve stability and tighten our controls for better costs, supportability, and security management. Now, we must find ways to allow some control and entrust creative users to unlock new digital value.
We, IT, now have to learn new techniques and new skills.
We must train our advisors' and collaborators' muscles for more strength and flexibility. We have to package it in low code, no code mode. We have to think of delivering self-explanatory tech without completing the solution all the way! We have to coach on how to code and how to prompt.
As a business, we must learn new techniques and competencies and train our digital and governing muscles, making them stronger and more agile.
We have to be tech-savvy to create new digital solutions!
It is a natural evolution in our quest to bring more value. It is a paradigm shift in how we make it happen!
