Every IT professional has been taught how important it is to be objective. To that end, we have budgets, planning methods, scorecards and metrics that are supposed to be numerically based. And, as a result, we have no shortage of red lights, green lights and yellow lights to keep us focused.
It's time to capitalize on the power of connecting organizational silos and stakeholders, says columnist Jack Bergstrand. He offers three steps to get there.
While working on more than $2 billion worth of reinvention projects in the past 15 years, I've often reflected on why large companies can be so good at running their organizations but struggle so much when it comes to changing them. Any way you slice it, reinvention is hard. It is difficult even when it's successful. And it hurts when projects stumble, spiral out of control, or crash and burn-which happens as much as 70 percent of the time.
When Tom Peck, CIO at Levi Strauss, spoke at this year's CIO 100 Symposium, there was something distinctive about his presentation: It was light on IT and heavy on marketing. It sounded like a commercial-which was a good thing.
This year I had the privilege of judging a number of CIO 100 applications. What I enjoyed most about the process was seeing the direct connections among technology, innovation and business value in the submitted projects. Perhaps most remarkable, however, is the importance of effective leadership to these highly successful and innovative technology initiatives.
Recently, I participated in the Drucker Centennial event and attended the Drucker Institute's Innovation Forum with participants from, among other companies, Boeing, Coca-Cola, Intuit and Lockheed Martin, along with nonprofits Teach for America and the Rainforest Alliance. It was a great time to reflect on Peter Drucker's legacy and what he had to say about successful and unsuccessful innovation.
Enterprise reinvention and enterprise risk management have been a challenge to implement in many large organizations. The key to unlocking the potential of both is to understand and overcome why the traditional implementation approach consistently struggles.
Enterprise reinvention and enterprise risk management have been a challenge to implement in many large organizations. The key to unlocking the potential of both is to understand and overcome why the traditional implementation approach consistently struggles.