Monday, November 30, 2015

The Talent Management Brief of the “Future of CIO” Nov. 2015

10:50 PM Pearl Zhu 2 comments

Make qualitative assessment about character, mindsets, potential, multidimensional intelligence and culture effect.

The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.1 million page views with 2370+ blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom, to inspire critical thinking and spur healthy debates.

People are always the most invaluable asset in businesses. “Hiring the right person to the right position at the right time,” is the mantra of many forward-thinking organizations. The question is how would you define the right people? How do you define wrong, average, mediocre, good, great or extraordinary person? Or put simply, for what should they be right? How to fill skill gaps by setting the principles and taking practices to manage talent more scientifically?

IT Talent Management Brief Nov. 2015

IT Skills Gap According to industry surveys, IT skills gap is a significant challenge facing IT leaders today, what are exactly the skills gaps and what are the resulting symptoms? For example, business have job openings, but cannot find people with the right skill set; or the talent they current have do not have the right competencies to adapt to the changes; or their business partners do not understand IT. Sometimes, the gaps people usually pick are not root causes they are symptoms of specific best practices not being used. So what are the organizational best practices/ways that have been deployed to close the gap?

How to Attract, Develop & Retain the best IT Talent? Talent development and management are perhaps one of the most critical practices in business today, and developing & retaining IT talent is even more challenging due to the CHANGE nature of IT, the smartness and sensitivity of IT workers, the complexity of multi-generational, multicultural, and multi-tasking workforce, only insightful leaders can tackle it with mindfulness and skills.

Data-Driven Talent Management. Information is the lifeblood of digital business, and makes an impact upon all different aspects of business, especially in talent management space, as people are the most invaluable asset in business, rather than following traditional subjective HR model, forward-looking organizations shall experiment, develop and mature data-driven talent management for leaping through digital transformation.

The Principles and Practices to Encourage Creativity As businesses get more cut-throat in the face of fierce competitions and unprecedented changes, this puts stress on the labor force that is not conducive to creative, experimental thinking. As a business leader, what are the common solutions to encourage creativity? Will you allow people to make mistakes? Spend time on something with no guarantee of ROIs? Work on what interests them? Which type of work activities, roles, industries, require great deals of creativity? How do you, as leaders involve all people in creative thinking and actions? And how can you help improve the harvest of the creative seeds? Doesn't the real solution to innovation, creativity begin with inquiry? Would it not be prudent to focus on ensuring all levels of the organization are well founded on asking learning questions?

Digital Talent Management Next Practice: Character and Mindset Assessment. Talent performance and potential assessment and management are critical for business’s long-term success because people are always the most invaluable asset in business. However, the traditional performance management approaches more focus on measuring behaviors and the quantitative result, with ignorance of qualitative assessment about character, mindsets, potential, multidimensional intelligence and culture effect. In order to manage people as human capital, rather than just cost or resources, talent managers need to do self-checking: For what purpose are you assessing mindsets? For selection? For promotion? For leadership development? Is it job-related and relevant? does it really matter for what purpose you're assessing? Can you measure a person’s character or mindsets (the varying thought processes)? Can the purpose be an excuse for higher or lower qualitative capability of the assessor? Or put simply, how to take more objective and innovative approaches to measuring talent as deep as in mind level and as profound as at character base?

Talent Management Next Practice #2: "Hiring for Digital Minds" “Hiring for Minds” is the extended and detailed next practice of “Hiring for Character,” "Hiring for Attitude" and “Hiring for Potential” philosophy and methodology. Many hiring managers aren't comfortable with evaluating “mindset,” or just lack the skills to evaluate it properly, and instead they rely on the answers the candidate gives to the more concrete skills inquiries. However, the mind is the innovation engine of any human progress, but also the root cause of almost all human problems. So more specifically, how can managers leverage talent assessment methodology and tools, talent development plans and practices to evaluate and build the right sets of digital minds, capabilities, and skills in order to compete for the future?

Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking and innovating the new ideas; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes the time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify diverse voices and deepen digital footprints, and it's the way to harness your innovative spirit.

Three Aspects of Data Governance

10:45 PM Pearl Zhu 2 comments

Data Governance should be seen as a good habit, not a software package or an old solution.

Data Governance provides the rules that the data should follow. Data Governance, for the most part, relates to the maintenance of quality data. Just because data will fit into a certain column in a database doesn't mean that it is, therefore, good data or have good data quality. People are seeing governance as a synonym for quality; the latter can certainly be viewed as a dimension of the former, but all too often seems to dominate the business case. Data Governance really comes down to making a proactive decision about what data is needed, what it means to the enterprise and how to understand the quality of data (Big Data, Master Data, Reference Data, Transaction Data, etc.). Also how to improve the data quality where needed.

Data Governance is essential in order to provide meaningful and insightful reporting or business intelligence. Think about it, you will not be able to understand the performance of your company or measure it without good quality data, and data governance ensures that you can get your hands on it. Data governance is at its heart is business intelligence practice - without the effective business analysis of data there's no hope of understanding data -from the business perspective. BI applications are pretty close to useless without Data Governance in place and enforced. Data Governance leads to excellent Data Quality which in turns leads to good Business Intelligence. Typically BI without DQ is useless because you're not basing your decisions on good quality information. The stronger link has to be drawn between the success of Business Intelligence and the need for Data Governance - and vice versa.

Both big data and small data suffer from low quality. But with big data, cleansing can be more arduous or, in most cases, infeasible. But is 100% clean data necessary? That depends on the use of the data. For example, when analyzing human capital data, and even though there is high variance in the domain by its very nature, with large enough data sets and as much cleansing as is practical, you can ignore or let the statistical algorithms handle the dirt yet still derive knowledge from the data. The great irony is that the quality and speed of achieving data governance is inescapably and directly connected to the quality of the analytics tool in use. Analytics is only as good as your data quality...and typically during ETL, the IT team is not going to know what makes up good quality data unless there are rules (Data Governance) established that apply to all the data and unless there is business led involvement to determine its accuracy.

"There's no such thing as bad data, only some that's misunderstood."All data, from wherever it comes, is legitimate and reflective of the systems that provide it. As such, the data reveals deep and essential truths about not only the business domain it covers but also about the systems that capture it. (The practice of transforming data into a different form necessarily eliminates some of these truths.). Every malformed phone number, every mistyped address, every miscoded part number is an opportunity to identify and correct the root cause and improve the information universe, and there are tremendous benefit and value there. From the other side, it is important how data reflect a reality. What to consider as information and noise. Will fixing wrong addresses increase potential profit. Or what percent of wrong addresses to expect and if cleaning improves your profit. In addition, what is good data from an IT perspective (making sure that the data types (int, char, vchar, bit) match and that the data is stored properly is far different than what is good quality from a business perspective (data type (costs, sells, customer addresses, etc)).

Data governance is critical especially as organizations move to the cloud using SaaS model; data is an asset that needs to be protected and used properly. Data Governance should be seen as a good habit, not a software package or an old solution. The end result is their "Big Data" will be viewed as accurate and trustworthy. Further, proper data governance is not a one-time exercise but a constant review.

What are the Set of Principles to Harness Communication?

10:41 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

The purpose of setting communication principles is to build an effective digital workplace where collaboration and sharing are the norms.

Communication is a very powerful tool in breaking barriers, building trust, and enforce collaboration. In order to harness communication, start by identifying the barriers you think hinder effective collaboration and work on them. We can achieve an effective communication when we make sure our desired thought is interpreted between multiple entities and acted on in the desired way. Here is the set of principles to harness communication.

It’s the mindset that needs to change first: Breaking down barriers and communicating or collaborating in a different way must start with "Why." It helps us to try to see situations from the perspective of individuals involved.If we do not answer the basic question of why we want to start doing something in a different way then we will be met with cynicism and mistrust as to our motives and, therefore barriers will rise. If we desire to affect a different outcome we must explain the rationale for change and engage people in that rationale, once people understand the need to do things differently then the barriers start to lower. And today, too many minds are too set and settled in comfort-zone. We can sometimes forget that a barrier exists. Or we may not realize it is a barrier. People build walls and have been in "self-preservation" mode in business environments at the industrial age, how many of us are genuinely looking within our own hearts and minds to learn about the barriers? Limits we impose on those around us; which in turn, prevents us from genuinely listening, collaborating and building trust?

Communicate gratitude for others' contributions: Be reasonably and appropriately available. Assure designated leaders are identified to stakeholders. Assure vision and strategy to achieve it are well communicated. Define and implement collaboration tools to be used. Designate duties or accept duties assigned. State limitations if unable to accomplish a duty and enroll team member to assist. Meet deadlines, give and accept feedback. Demonstrate accountability. Respect the differences of others and understand that there are times as a leader that you must become a follower. Consensus means “general agreement” and having that as a goal encourages and focuses the participants. It also creates equity and ownership in whatever decision is made. Being generous at sharing the change with all coworkers, as the change is the most precious asset in organizational settings. Communicate and support the others regardless of leadership style differences.

Use collaboration as a strategy to deliver: Collaboration is the route towards providing better and more tailored services for people in the future. Spending time with people to find out what it is that drives them; what their issues are; what their fears and perceptions might be. Not taking things personally has been a huge benefit. Explain clearly and completely about what you expect. This means defining what you want and need. It does not mean telling someone how to do it your way. This is giving them enough information to figure out how to do it their way. For example, finding the root cause of miscommunication, if it's to do with knowledge, close the gap and instill a greater understanding of issues that you want to collaborate on. Try horizontal and vertical open communication. Collaborate on strategy and work together to drive performance. Use other’s strengths to strengthen your team. Reach out and offer support to others, that we may have perceived as competition. By doing so, developing collaborative behaviors to support this essential evolution. Collaboration becomes a whole lot easier if we give people the time to hear what they have to say without the constant distraction or unhealthy competition. If collaboration leads to better outcomes than acting alone, people collaborate. Where common benefits are the basis for individual benefits, people collaborate. If the virtue of togetherness benefits more than being solo, people collaborate.

Self-awareness and vulnerability: Vulnerability, generosity, respecting differences and a willingness to have ideas challenged seem to be in short supply in that neck of the woods! You need to understand your own tendencies and their value, but also what you may not think about as readily. You also need to be vulnerable to hearing the ideas challenged from a viewpoint different than your own. The vulnerability is key! In the spirit of 'being the change," it is imperative that we are willing to seek out help and collaboration as we work to generate new ideas or solve problems. For so long, we have been taught to not show weakness or 'fake it till you make it' and while the origin of these adages may have been positive, it can be difficult to show a willingness to be vulnerable and admit that we may not know all of the answers. Ultimately, that is not a sign a weakness but rather an open door to illustrate the value of developing the answer with a colleague and sharing the power of diverse perspectives to shape a new idea or solution.

Applying Agile philosophy to foster cross-functional interaction and communication: Being agile helps with bringing the right people together quickly to make progress sooner, faster decisions and access to the right resources. Technology can help with collaboration, but nothing beats co-located resources with shared goals and clear decision making. Agile is to manage changes, and the best way to do that is to improve the communication. All others points of Agile are great improvements, but this is the principle. Managers and executives have to serve and lead, and the traditional management paradigm needs to shift 180 degrees; leadership teams have to trust and support teams and remove organizational impediments. They need to empower teams and individuals that are closest to the 'problem' to make the right decisions and ensure that those decision makers have everything they need to implement.

The purpose of setting communication principles is to build an effective digital workplace where collaboration and sharing are the norms. The least effective culture at fostering a digital workplace is traditional command and control environments. So digital technology such as enterprise social computing could be effective tools to break down a hierarchical culture and harness cross-functional interaction, communication, and collaboration. And businesses have to figure out a more efficient way of bringing people together to follow a vision, create business synergy and achieve business goals effortlessly.

CIO’s Digital Agenda VI: IT Governance as Fundamental Business Necessity

10:59 PM Pearl Zhu 1 comment

A simple definition of IT Governance is how to manage IT.

The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.1 million page views with about 2359+ blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom.

Governance is like steer-wheel (governance is "steer" in Greece), to ensure enterprise running in the right direction and wellhead to the destination. Corporate governance is not only about governing operations and tactical efforts. It is or should be equally about governing the evolution of the company. Otherwise, the company, no matter how good the governance is, will fail because of a lack of vision and strategic direction. And IT governance is a subcomponent of corporate governance and a fundamental business necessity, how to manage it in an effective and holistic way?

IT Governance as a Fundamental Business Necessity

IT Governance as a Fundamental Business Necessity: How to Get it Right?- IT plays a pivotal role in leading the organization’s digital transformation. IT Governance is like a steer, to ensure IT running with the right speed smoothly. IT governance is no longer just a theoretical concept, it is a fundamental business necessity, and an iterative process which requires senior management commitment over the long term in order to see results. IT governance also shouldn't stifle innovation and performance, so how to get it right?

CIO’s GRC Management Agenda: Many factors influence a CIO's choice about where to position his/her information resources along with business continuum. These factors include: the organization’s risk appetite, regulatory environment, size, stage in lifecycle, market environment and current conditions, Board's attitude to risk and reward, core systems lifecycle, maturity of the Information Systems team & processes and, perhaps most importantly, the CIO's predilection for either risk aversion or risk-taking, and his/her ability to influence decisions around this. As an IT Executive, CIO should focus on Data Governance, IT Governance, and Risk Management. These are some core strategies empower IT to use consistent data terminology, effectively plan IT roadmap based on business goals & objectives, and help the organization avoid taking unacceptable risks.

IT Governance Principles: Is Simplicity the Key? A simple definition of IT Governance is how to manage IT - "… the leadership and organizational structures and processes that ensure the organization’s IT sustains and extends the organization’s strategies and objectives." (Governance Institute). There is nothing simple about managing IT, you can wish the complexity away, but since the complexity is the result of human nature, wishing and achieving are two entirely different things. However, governing the delivery does not have to be too complex. So how to govern IT effectively, what are IT governance principles, is simplicity the key?

The Root Cause to IT Project Failure: Poor Management or Weak Governance? Every successful project has many parents; but the failure seems to be like an orphan, no one like to admit it. In fact, there are many causes to fail an IT project such as Scope Creep, Failure to obtain stakeholder commitment, inability to assemble a high-performance team, and failure to plan or execute well. So to dig through the root causes, more broadly speaking, is IT project failure caused by poor management or ineffective governance?

IT Governance Effectiveness: Consensus or Dictate? -IT governance is mostly associated with controlling and managing IT in an enterprise, so that specific rules that apply to how IT is deployed, serviced, sourced, implemented, etc. And IT governance is key to ensure the business vision is maintained throughout the entire delivery cycle of business change and project delivery. However, what’s the more effective governance ‘style”? Do you need to always reach consensus on approach and methodology with all key stakeholders, perhaps compromise the governance process too much? Or should governance be more by top-down dictate to ensure compliance?

Holistic IT Governance? Digital IT is permeating into the very fabric or core processes in modern organizations, thus, IT governance is crucial to steering business in the right direction and make effective business decisions. However, what is the best approach to begin implementing formal IT Governance specifically aimed at improving the quality of demand? How can the "competition" for finite dollars be structured so that the end game, best benefit for the enterprise, is achieved? How much of a decision-making body (vs. advisory or discussion forum) is the IT Steering Committee (ITSC) and how do they make those decisions? How does one keep the ITSC focused on WHAT IT should work on and not HOW IT accomplishes it ("If IT was more efficient at keeping the lights on, you could have more dollars to spend on new things")?

How to Evaluate the Success of GRC?-The purpose of the GRC is to improve business performance through the creation of value to shareholders and other stakeholders. Usually, the factors considered for evaluating or measuring the successful implementation of technology, either GRC or some other area, are always contextual and subjective, as GRC is more as a state of mind, and it’s multi-dimensional practice.

Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes the time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify your voice, deepen your digital footprints, and match your way for human progression.

Agile Principle Clarity

10:55 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

Agile is both philosophy and methodology; mindset and framework.

Agile is a great emergent methodology, however, there is such trend that industry has been a way to be preoccupied with asking all the ‘HOW’ questions and focusing on methodologies, with ignorance of in-depth understanding about the principles, values, and philosophy behind Agile. What are the values behind Agile, and how to clarify agile principles and apply them to practice agile management more wisely?

Agile approaches expect you not to get everything right upfront: So for some definitions, "failure is expected," and expects failure. “Failure" is an emotive word. Agile redefines failure to mean 'continuing after it has become clear that you cannot deliver sufficient value.' It allows you to stop at the beginning, or earlier than you expected to, and adjust the methods and practices to adapt to the changes. Thus, that approach lends itself to a much greater chance of success vs other methodologies and approaches. Agile redefines failure to mean "you need to change your plans based on what you learned. That might mean to re-think the last certain amount of time worth of work, or it might mean canceling the project, depending on what failed. Agility is the ability to adapt to changes, not following the plan too rigidly.

Changing your mind is not necessarily as failing. Only continuing after it becomes clear that you are unlikely to deliver sufficient value. Once you remove the idea of a fixed destination for a project, the concept of failure is less absolute. So one might say we are geared toward learning by trying things out, by experimentation. That is a positive spin on "learning through mistakes" or "learning from failure." The "Scientific method" takes an even braver / smarter step, to qualify as a scientific fact one must have tried one's best to disprove the fact, and failed. what you need to do is to move away from the Waterfall idea of failure, where anything that you didn't get right up-front was a failure and deserved blame.

Agile encourages creativity. The manifesto values and principles are designed largely to allow creativity to flourish. Maybe start with the problem you are trying to solve in your current process and it will lead you to what type of agile framework to experiment with. Agile is a fantastic way of working to involve everyone in the process of creation and delivery. Agile stifles innovation when stakeholders dictate "how" and not get "why" and "what." The people who are drawn towards software development are, on the whole, more "processes and tools" orientated; you 'apply' agility to the things you do during your creative process, not the creativity directly, though. Agile frameworks are a function you apply to convert the requirements of your process into high-level descriptions of things that can be said to have been 'done,' without going too far down the road are rigid proceduralization. Similarly, when you make software, you are often trying to be the agents of change. However, you are also the ones in control of that change. So it is important to have an in-depth understanding of the Agile principle to "respond to change" - even late stage change - imposed on the team from outside is also a very hard skill.

The inherent values of agile promote transparency, trust, collaboration, respect, open communication, customer centricity, creativity, etc. In a top-down adoption, there should be a business objective for moving to agile. In a bottom-up adoption, development teams may need to prove a capability that leads to a business objective. In either case, the business objective should serve as a unifying goal for the various groups. Early on, isolation between groups may be appropriate. There is a great deal of internal improvements that can be done before the teams are ready to play nicely with others. Eventually, the groups must find a way to work together to achieve the overarching business goal.

Agile needs more engineering discipline, not less: Engineering practices are the core. Everything else is built on that. You achieve the ability to be agile in your software development by following engineering practices that allow you to adapt as efficiently as possible. Then things like Scrum and a more flexible mindset simply allow you to leverage the agility you've already built in. The benefits of Agility are not sustainable unless engineering practices are adopted in the earnest. So while practices related to business analysis and project management will yield quick wins, the optimal level of benefits and impact come in only when engineering practices are adopted.

Agile is principles, but it comes from many different groups of practices finding common ground. Agile is both philosophy and methodology; mindset and framework, the organizations and teams just need to experiment and learn; run and adjust; interact and improve; with the end business goals in mind, to achieve project result with customer satisfaction and value creation.

The Monthly Strategy Highlight of Nov. 2015

10:57 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

The strategy is the light to guide you ahead, not the hand to walk you through.

The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.1 million page views with #2300+ blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom. The strategy is the focal point of the “Future of CIO,” and the pillar of organizational existence, its design, structure, functions, vision, and mission. A real strategy is neither a document nor a forecast but rather an overall approach based on a diagnosis of a challenge. Here is the monthly strategy highlight of the “Future of CIO” blog.

The Monthly Strategy Highlight Nov., 2015

Mirror, Mirror, What is the Best Strategy: To trace its lexical root, a strategy derives from the Greek strategia, "office of general, command, generalship,” the Greek equivalent for the modern word “strategy” would have been “strategike episteme” or (general’s knowledge) “strategon sophia” (general’s wisdom). One of the most famous Latin works in the area of military strategy is written by Frontius and has the Greek title of Strategemata. A strategy is a set of choices following with a series of action designed to achieve a vision and compete for the future. There’re so many good strategy theories from ancient to contemporary time, from eastern to western philosophy, today’s strategist may just wonder: what is the best strategy?

How to Make Strategy Work under Uncertainty: VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) is digital new normal, as complexity and uncertainty increasing, the connection between any single individual organization’s strategy, and their tactical plans and actions can become diluted and disconnected. How to craft a good strategy, and make strategy executable under such uncertainty and unpredictability in order to transform the business into the Digital Master?

Five Key Steps in Strategy Implementation : The conventional approach to strategy implementation is prescriptive or top-down, develop the strategy at the board or top management team, and then break it down into smaller chunks to align the organization with it. The pre-condition for this to work is that the external business environment is reasonably stable and slow to change. In today's digital dynamic or unstable business circumstances, the evidence points to strategy emerging rather than being prescribed. So what are key steps in strategy implementation, and how to improve execution effectiveness?

Strategy-Execution as an Ongoing Continuum: Strategy is about what you intend to do or accomplish in terms of managing the constraints to having the critical success factors in place to achieve the set of strategic priorities, and implementation is about how effective the strategy beyond technology achieves its defined goals. With the increasing speed of changes and continuous digital disruptions which are often caused by technologies, how frequently an organization should change its implementation plan to meet the desired strategic outcomes. Does it become difficult to secure the buy-in of stakeholders, if the implementation plans are changed too frequently? Are strategy-execution linear steps or an ongoing continuum?

How to Develop the Performance Measures for Strategy? The strategy will start being more and more dynamic, so the consistency and "perennial" guide of the organization will be better represented by company’s identity. Leadership, strategy, and management will build, develop and make that proposed (desired) identity. Going further, the metrics should also be immersed in a sustainable development way of thinking. However, what’s systematic thinking and which approach should you apply to develop the performance measures for your strategy?

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Three Rs in Running a Digital IT

10:53 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

Reimagining IT means to unleash the potential of IT organization to make it more strategic and visible.

Many IT organizations are at transformation journey, from an industrial model to digital leap; from back office function to innovation engine; from a cost center to value-added; from 'T'-technology driven to 'I'-Information focus, from alignment to engagement. Besides triple “I”s - Information, Innovation, and Integration, triple “A”s - Automation, Analysis, and Agility, triple “C”s - Change, Collaboration, and Cloudification, triple “P”s - Principle, Process, and Performance, triple “E”s Enablement, Exploration, and Effectiveness & Efficiency, triple “V”s - Vision, Value, and Variety, triple “F”s - Fast, Flow, and Flexibility; triple "T" factors - Transformation, Transparency, and Talent Management; triple “S” factors: Strategy, Speed, and Simplicity; triple “D” factors - Data, DevOp, and Design; triple “Q”s - Quality, Quantity, and Questioning; triple “G”s - Gap minding, Governance, and Gauging Performance; triple “W”s -Workforce analytics, Water-Scrum-Fall hybrid model, and Wisdom management, here we introduce three “R” factors in running a high-effective digital IT.

Reimagine IT: Digital means CHANGE and SPEED. IT is no longer just the tangible hardware boxes (those are heading into the commodity), the future of IT is more about the intangible information fabric (Cloud, Social, Mobile Computing, Analytics) interwoven into your organization. Businesses need people who are passionate about exploiting information enabled by information technology to work at the heart of the enterprise. Organizations rely more and more on technology; the IT department has more and more to overcome. Running at digital speed, people tend to have high expectation of digital flow, IT department is not a silo by itself and it draws its energy from within the organization as well. So how to reimagine and design an IT structure to optimize business processes, improve productivity, also encourage employees to be innovative and enforce cross-functional collaboration, and embrace Agile mindset & methodology? Before you could create a new IT structure, you have to reimagine a digital IT, make sure it’s not just in alignment with the organizational "culture," but also help cultivate the culture of innovation, as that plays a critical role in how you structure your department, services, the underlying rules.

Revenue-driven: There's almost no enterprise project these days where IT is not a big piece of the puzzle. Therefore, pursuing IT revenue-generating opportunities and measure it in the right way is one of the best strategies. IT value is measured by optimization and consumption of IT assets in support of the business services. To measure IT contribution to revenue generation, IT infrastructure assets, both HW and SW (externally acquired or internally developed) must be linked to business services that support the revenue generation. In other words, IT value is measured by optimization and consumption of IT assets in support of the business services that are identified within the organization's revenue producing streams. From IT leadership perspective, there is no one path to becoming a revenue-generating CIO. Some CIOs are in the game from the start with the full backing of the top management team, the board and other power brokers in the company. Others may battle from behind to prove they should be there. IT delivery should be transparent to users and managers in organizations. CIOs also need concentrate on the business information requirements that support company growth. it's the value (often undervalued) of corporate information as a resource and defining how it should be used strategically to best business advantage.

Risk Management: IT owns delivery of one of any organization's key assets - its information. A failure to deliver because IT function is so tied up with risk or its own governance rules is unforgivable. Speaking about IT risk, almost all departments were somehow involved, more or less. And here comes the first obstacles - if the risks spread among the different department, who will cover the costs? The financing structure and procedures are of course complicated, and CIOs have to take into account of internal politics, budgets, etc. The balancing act is taken along a continuum of risk and reward. Effective risk and governance shouldn’t stifle innovation, operational efficiency, and agility.

Reimagining IT means to unleash the potential of IT organization to make it more strategic and visible. Fundamentally, assuming IT still stands for "Information Technology," the mission of IT is to get the right information to the right people at the right time with effective risk management. While the mission may sound simple, execution of the mission may be challenging. IT needs to go beyond from alignment to engagement. These engagements are leading IT to be much more proactive in proposing - as opposed to responding to - ideas for new ways to create new customer value and revenue, and running a high-effective digital IT organization.