IT Management Quality Check in Digital Transformation

The quality check of IT management is to ensure IT is the enabler and even a game-changer of the digital transformation.

Quality is defined by a number of factors such as innovation, effectiveness, flexibility, or maturity, etc., and to effectively lead an organization into good practices to focus on quality attributes takes work and a level of credibility within the organization. IT plays a significant role in digital transformation, as more often than not, technology is a major digital disruptor today, the purpose of digital transformation is to embed digital technology into key business processes, to improve business capability and competency to compete for the future. Hence, CIOs should do the periodic IT management quality check to ensure its effectiveness, efficiency, and maturity.

Assess innovation performance: Quality management should be focused not only on product and service quality but also the means to achieve it, it often has the indication of innovation. Organizations can no longer rely on a single individual or team to drive innovation, largely due to the fact that innovating in today’s digital world has become increasingly complex in nature, with a broader spectrum. Innovation needs to lay out different structures, thinking and solutions to allow this to develop into its potential where organizations are combining all necessary and available components in imaginative and advantageous ways. Innovation ecosystem or the methodological environment should cover the whole innovation process, from processes in managing ideas or idea handling systems to idea implementation and promotion. Hence, innovation management assessment and measurement is both art and science. In many companies, a pervasive obsession for purely quantitative measurement and numerical success indicators sweeps aside much of the softer, more qualitative information that is crucial in understanding the health and well-being of the firm's innovation efforts. The perception will also come from the usage you're doing with metrics. It won’t be just a matter of explicit communicating the intention behind metrics, but a matter of guiding the team via understanding the purpose of doing that and engaging on that, to improve innovation success rate. Always keep in mind, the goal of innovation assessment and measurement is to build innovation capacity and improve innovation management effectiveness and capability.

Assess digital fitness of IT organization: Quality check includes to make an objective assessment of IT effectiveness, efficiency, scalability, flexibility, resilience, etc, or the overall digital fitness of IT organization. Digital is fluid, IT digital fitness is based on strategy competency and execution effectiveness, keep information flow to avoid data overloading, process redundancy, or overall business complication. Keeping digital fit means you need to make consolidation, integration, modernization, automation, innovation, and optimization and manage digital transformation in a systematic way. The emergent technology trends are where the opportunity located for real competitive advantage from investments in digital into the future. Either information or technology is the means to the end, not the end. If you don't know how to use it properly you won't get good results. It is also important to develop a balanced IT capability portfolio to improve operational excellence, changeability, innovation, architectural flexibility, service scalability, etc, to run a high-quality IT with the digital fit.

Evaluate talent quality of the IT organization: The quality of people is the foundation to provide quality products and services and build a qualified digital IT organization. High-quality leaders or employees are always in demand. In reality, people are always the weakest link in organizations in either strategy management or change management. Quality leaders and employees demonstrate both intellectual understanding and emotional maturity; the good attitude and great aptitude. Quality leaders have the clear vision to lead forward, a unique set of capabilities to lead effectively and soft skills to communicate and motivate the team. Quality employees are the ones who can work independently, have excellent problem-solving skills, well disciplined, have a "customer focus," and bring positivity and wisdom to the workplace. The quality check of the IT teams is to evaluate both individual and team performance on how effective they can improve the quality of products/service, their skill/capability/potential, as well as their learning agility to bring IT to the next level of maturity. Build up a positive emotional climate, foster positive relationships, communicate relentlessly, be there at the crossroad of the transformation to make sure information and interaction flow in every direction, build up trust by bonding people around clear and benevolent intentions.

The quality check of IT management is to ensure IT is the enabler and even a game-changer of the digital transformation. IT is weaving all important business elements (people, process, and technology) together to achieve the business performance and improve the overall business quality and maturity.

Posted in: Digitalization,IT Transformation,Quality