The CIO’s Digital Agenda: How to Handle these IT Dilemmas to Run a Balanced IT?

Modern IT has paradox nature, and contemporary CIOs are "Chief Paradox Officer."

IT Management is a strange animal, in that the capabilities are there, the data is there - but the motivations are often confused. Technology drives changes nowadays, but IT is often considered the function slower to change with “controlling mentality.” IT tends to measure itself against trivial things IT considers important but are often less important and impactful through the business lens. More importantly, how to deal with the management dilemmas in running a balanced IT to improve the overall organizational maturity.  

How to Handle IT Dilemmas to Run a Balanced IT?

• IT Transformation Debate: Shall IT Lead or Follow: More often than not, technology is the catalyst for driving business change and digital transformation, however, in most of the companies, IT is still perceived as an order taker and support function, and most of IT organizations get stuck at the lower level of maturity for functional alignment or enabler. So IT is at a crossroad: Should IT lead or follow? Should IT leadership rock the boat or just keep it afloat? And how to run digital IT with high speed and agility?

• Shall a CIO be a General Manager of IT or a SME of all IT Domains? Today’s CIOs have multiple roles to play and take broader leadership responsibilities in transforming their organizations. Should a CIO be a general manager of IT or a subject matter expert (SME) of all IT domains?

• Agile Dilemma: are Managers Happy, Developers are Unhappy or the Other Way Around Agile has emerged as the mainstream project management philosophy and methodology, does it make managers happy, developers unhappy, or the other way around, or ideally, can it make everyone happy as a fountain of improvement, interaction and incremental?

• CIO’s Dilemma: Buy vs. Build There are many variables and considerations to the decision upon ‘build versus buy’. This decision is unique to each organization, industry, and application. There are pros and cons to each but regardless of which decision is taken, IT leaders need to make the case to successfully bring quality and speed with IT deliveries. Here are a few angles to see it through in order to make the right decisions.

• IT Dilemma: Is Customer Always RIGHT: IT has always gone through this dilemma of "customers is always right" vs. "rational approach in designing a solution". If IT always see this as two conflicting forces pulling in opposite directions, you are most likely to get caught and always fall short of expectations. So what’s the right attitude in the face of such customer dilemma?

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