Five “V”s of Big Data

The value of Big Data starts from asking the BIGGER QUESTIONS. 

There are still many big puzzles in Big Data. Big Data is about Managing 5 V's of Data - Volume,Velocity,Variety, Veracity and Value. In detail, what’re these 5 ‘V’s all about? And how to handle them effectively?

Volume: There’s no restrict line defines the volume of data constitutes Big Data. The volume attribute of Big Data can be  summed up as "The ability to store Big Data", not so much the physical amount, but do you have the ability to hold that data for use. 

Variety: How many different data sources are needed to constitute a wide variety of data? The variety aspect of Big Data is "The ability to acquire a wide variety of data”. Simple: instead of using a single source for a particularly type of measurement, businesses use data from many different and unrelated data sources to produce the measurement and allow them to cross-corroborate each other.

Velocity: The 3^rd V aspect of Big Data is "the ability to process at the required velocity". Can we take a transaction, process it and run algorithms on it at the required pace.  There are two aspects of # bigdata. (1) the ability of the platform to capture the raw data as it happens (2) the agility to aggregate, analyze and report on them in near real time. The platform should be flexible enough to incorporate new data models on the fly and the business owners should be empowered to tweak the models and algos per market need and demand.

Veracity: Veracity is another V to focus on making the data useful and trustworthy. Veracity is the lynch pin to all of these aspects. How do you ensure accuracy in unstructured data? What accuracy are you trying to make sure of? So how is veracity assured in cases where a human can never look at the data before it is acted upon? Instead of trusting a single source for ground truth, you let several different systems "vote" on the ground truth. Veracity is achieved by putting as many different data sources into the data model as possible. In addition, the "veracity" has little to do with curation and auditing even though many people treat them as equivalent. Veracity is about minimizing the risk of adverse outcomes due to the inevitable errors, omissions, and noise that are a part of every sufficiently large data set. So business should drive the decisions to invest in building data processes that improve Veracity.

Value: (Volume + Variety + Velocity + Veracity)* visualization = Value. It is still a very fuzzy topic for most people and difficult to show value proposition. Trying to give an answer to a question that hasn't been asked yet is a tough sell to any organization. Input the first 3 V's (Volume, Variety and Velocity) still apply in defining any collection process, the addition of veracity should be applied post-exploration against the variables that have been "discovered" as being business relevant; and then the value to be derived from a big data implementation is dependent on what questions you could ask of the data - "Ask Bigger Questions".  So, unless the right & bigger questions are asked from the data, expecting the answer to provide value is very difficult. And business needs to marry the ability of Big Data technology with the "domain expertise"/ business insights" together to carve value out of such an implementation. Visualization is such a bonus V to clarify Big Data value.

With Big Data, we run the risk of focusing too much on technology and too little on the more arduous aspects, such as organizational aspects. Unless we know for what business objective/decision are we churning the data for, we would just end up spending millions without any result. Hence, thought leadership and close collaboration is the key for Big data success

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Certain vs. Doubt Mind

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”  ― Winston S. Churchill 

To be creative you must set aside both certainties and doubt. Doubts are the driving force behind artistic creation. Doubts about what you see at any given time propel you towards finding other things that haven't been observed yet. Doubts are of unlimited value. Certainties are the functioning of the left brain, while uncertainties are that of the right brain. In any creative process, you need both certainties and uncertainties. 

The uncertainties give rise to the questions/problems, the certainties give rise to the contextualization of the problem and laying the foundational knowledge to solve the problem or make sense out of the uncertainties: Once all the groundwork was done, it is up to the certainties/uncertainties to make all the necessary connections in order to solve the problem. 

One cannot exist without the other; there is no yin without yang, no black without white. Maybe we are only to believe in shades of gray, something between right and left. But then maybe right does not exist at all. "The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.”  ― Erich Fromm 

Doubts are essential to intellectual as well as to creative thought, and to fine thinking in general. If we were "certain" we knew everything or anything, then we'd never learn anything. To take a cognitive "step back" from the two trees we're discussing...and look at the continuum forest from above. Part of what is vital to each of us is the consciousness of the fact that there is such continuum in the first place... Another is for each of us to retain that consciousness in-the-moment of creativity, choice, action, and so on. And yet another is the belief/recognition that we have the power to choose our own orientation along that continuum...even if just incrementally. Viktor Frankl quote: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. And in that response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Einstein said that it is far more valuable to be able to unlearn things as opposed to learning things. We get bored due to certainty and look for discrepancies and anomalies to cure the boredom -- we get stressed from too much uncertainty and we seek something more solid on which to brace ourselves. Our built-in system is designed to keep us learning, growing, and exploring but to do it by extending from identifiable mental foundations -- places in our mental experiences where we feel comfortable.

The certainty of good things and doubts about bad things = OPTIMISM. While 
The certainty of bad things and doubts about good things = PESSIMISM.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.    - Francis Bacon 

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Strategy vs. Execution

Execution without strategy is purposeless. Strategy without execution is useless.

A business strategy is a cohesive entity of programs, projects, and policies that concentrate and fuse corporate resources to enable an organization to establish, sustain and enhance its competitiveness and capabilities for self-renewal. It's about creating tomorrow's organization out of today.

Strategy and Execution have to go hand in hand. Both are critical. Execution without strategy is simply jumping from one thing to the next. It is a truly great thing to be a part of the team when strategy and executing get in sync and so there is clear decisive action take towards a clear strategic direction. That is when organizations really take off. A well-crafted, unexecuted plan is just a wish. A competitive advantage is only established when a well-crafted plan is executed. In fact, the following four stages are necessary to achieve the desired change. ANALYZE (competitive landscape, trends, insights, etc.) -> PLAN (the destination or goal and roadmap) -> EXECUTE --> MONITOR and ADAPT = Repeat as needed. 

The strategy is the destination. Execution is the drive. If you don't know the destination, you just keep driving until you run out of gas in the middle of nowhere. On the other side, a strategy is nothing without execution, but culture trumps both. A strategy should encompass the 3 main pillars to succeed and follow “POLC” principles as well: 
(1) a strategy on how to approach the strategic planning process; 
(2) a strategy on how to develop a strategic plan; 
(3) a strategy for strategy execution. 

"POLC" principles:
[1] P = Plan the plan/strategy 
[2] O = Organise the plan/strategy 
[3] L = Lead the plan/strategy 
[4] C = Control the plan/strategy 

A finger without a hand is akin to a strategy without execution. A Strategy is a planned direction to act - without implementation, it is not complete and is probably someone's idea that got lost in the mail. 'Culture' describes the state of growth of the journey on the way to civilization. In itself simply a description of a process rather than the plane of civilization one has reached. Strategic Planning and Execution are a continuous cycle of organizational adaptation to a changing world.  Strategies fail either because of improper execution or more likely because the strategy was flawed. It implies 3 potential points of failure: 
(1). Poor organizational capability in assessing the business environment and setting/re-setting of strategic direction. 
(2). Poor organizational capability in the management of projects and multi-project programs that translate strategic direction into real changes within the organization. 
(3). Poor organizational capability in the governance of projects and programs that is needed to maintain strategic fit - stop individual projects if a change in direction makes them no longer necessary. 

THREE levels of strategy and each must be integrated to have a complete strategy. The level I: INVESTMENT strategy, which decides on where and when an organization must invest its scarce financial, human and physical resources. The level II is DIFFERENTIATION strategies that specify how the organization can gain and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage. The level III is an IMPLEMENTATION strategy that determines how each part of the organization, including all of the key functions must "put it all together" to be successful.  "A second class strategy well-executed trumps the first-class strategy badly executed.

Strategy and execution should not be thought of as separate or competing things, rather complements of each other. If strategy versus execution is the implication that managing a corporation starts with a strategy and ends with the execution of that strategy. In fact, the process flows like this: 
(1). It starts with knowing shareholder objectives (what they value, how they want their benefit and its quantum, what do they want to see grow, and how do they define risk);
(2). Adaptation of those objectives into corporate objectives (the corporation's mission);
(3). Molding a strategy to deliver those corporate objectives;
(4). Molding an execution/delivery strategy. 

Conclusion. As long that people approach strategy and execution as two sets of activities, they will continue to fail in achieving the expected benefit.

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Which of the triple constraints (schedule, scope, budget) is most difficult to attain?

There are two outline points: the client expectations and the company strategy.

The Project Management Triangle (called also Triple Constraint or the Iron Triangle) is a model of the constraints of project management. It is a graphic aid where the three attributes show on the corners of the triangle to show opposition. It is useful to help with intentionally choosing project biases, or analyzing the goals of a project. It is used to illustrate that project management success is measured by the project team's ability to manage the project, so that the expected results are produced while managing time and cost (Wikipedia). The thought-provoking question is: which of the triple constraints (schedule, scope, and budget) is most difficult to attain?

The nature of each project drives the relative priority of its constraints - a regulatory compliance project may be focused on minimal scope within a fixed schedule and flexibility on cost; while a discretionary project without external commitments might be most challenged on schedule. The real value-added, experienced Program Manager is to keep a proper balance between the 3 constraints (schedule, scope, budget). 

There are two outline points: the client expectations and the company strategy. The managers have to balance between those points and find the way to conciliate the objectives. It's not an easy task but if the managers have a total support of his or her hierarchy, the development of the approach should be done logically to uncover a two-part problem: 
(1) A blatant optimism bias that plagued the task duration and effort estimates. 
(2) Ambiguous requirements that caused a lot of rework very late in the quality testing cycle. 

Agile methodology focuses on iterative delivery and continuous improvement. Nowadays the speed of change is accelerated, everyone is hard pressed on delays, and favoring a quick delivery on a good enough scope, that PM can iteratively improve. It also gives time for the business to adjust its requirements that are not always well defined in details and subject to evolution with market trends. 

There’re all types of challenges on the SCOPE: Scope is typically always the area where there can be many issues with interpretation, decomposition, assumptions, and lack of continuity and understanding between the stakeholders. As we all appreciate there are many ways to deal with these types of challenges, it seems to always turn out to be the most difficult constraint to tackle and manage throughout the life cycle.

3”D” sessions to clarify critical constraint. It always seems to be the trade space based on stakeholder ease of suggesting Budget and Time are fixed, with no desire to give up Quality. A way to deal with this is to have many 3D sessions (Discuss, Debate, and Decide) with the key stakeholders in the project. The key stakeholders are the customer for whom you are delivering the project. It may not be the "user" because it can be the "buyer" who speaks for the user. You must be clear on what the "user" needs are as well. Especially if the "buyer" is not fully engaged with the "user". It can be tricky to manage, but it's crucial to do it. Data is King when you’re in the 3D session.

Hence, depending on the situation, the customer will be more driven by cost/time or scope. The tradeoff can be made through in-depth understanding of project nature, ultimate business strategy and goals, project management methodology or disciplines, and have 3D sessions to decide your key constraint.

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Big Data vs. Big Question: Which Comes First

You should first analyze what your business objective is; and be open for the new discovery as well.  

Big Data is still serendipity in most of organizations, and majority of Big Data projects fail to reach business expectation, what’s the best scenario to debunk Big Data puzzle, Big Data vs. Big Question, which one shall come first?

Any analysis needs a purpose; whether Big Data or not, and you usually start with an objective question or hypothesis. Raw on its own has no value in business intelligence. How valuable the data is has nothing to do with the fact whether it falls in the category of Big Data, huge in volume, variety, velocity or voracity. Whether is structured or not. We can still apply analytics, data mining techniques to identify hidden patterns and answer Big Questions with Non Big Data but qualitative and relevant data.

You have to have an idea of what you want to explore. Big Data becomes valuable when it can be converted into knowledge that can answer Big Questions. Setting the machine running and see what comes out is not a viable approach since you still need to tell the machine something to get it running. The important thing is to have a number of questions/hypotheses and test them all - which ones does the data support or disprove? Having a single question might not be enough as your data may never answer it; that is not the fault of the data, just the fault of the question, so you need to try some others. The argument that you need to have a good question to test is based on the reality that questions are potentially infinite. To test all random questions by exhaustive mining would be expensive and that the search for answers, like needles in a haystack, would also be fairly compute intensive.

Most big data projects consume a lot of money and time so you should be very clear on if it is really worth spending that money and when will it exactly give you the ROI. and if that requires a lot of data churning and then step 2) should it be very clear on what output you want from that analysis/churning, and then obviously the cost/time involved in getting that done. You can't be looking for a needle in the haystack, you need to have an idea of what you want to solve first before deciding if big data analytics can do the job. There is no point in simply searching for correlation without a problem or hypothesis in mind; be open for the new discovery, but keep focus on business objectives as well. You may get the correlation but if you fail to find the causation, you big data project fails.

The right buzzword du jour is ACTIONABLE. "Action" being defined in this message as the step that follows knowledge. Uncovering a nugget of knowledge only has value if you can do something with it. If you begin with a question, there's usually an idea of what plan of action you will take depending on the answer. Always keep open mind and curious eyes. Work on discovering unexpected nuggets only when there are no burning questions needing answers. The unexpected nuggets too often have taken a lot of effort just to get the attention they merit because decision making action takers are usually too focused on current objectives to grasp the value of an unexpected nugget.

Sometimes you have to "dig and explore" to find out what you don't easily know or recognize. Framing the right questions are perhaps harder than you think of; know how to formulate questions that have a basis in "predictive" rather than "reactive" thinking. Getting the answer to the "right" questions is the first step toward problem solving. What is worse - Not having the big questions to go with the big data or not knowing what to do next once you have the answers to these big questions? What are the right questions and how long to get an answer has been elusive. Big Data adoption rates and understanding ROI/deliverables are also hard to articulate.

There needs to be a balance. Opportunities trigger the direction and having right problem statement provokes the relevant questions to determine the right solution. This is applicable to all the varieties of data. (1) Start an analysis project with the important questions you want to answer. This will frame everything from the data you collect to the techniques you use. (2) As part of assessing the initial data set, be open to new ideas & findings that come to light either through correlation analysis or simply by evaluating the data. You may be asking the wrong question!

Big data usually brings about a serendipitous pursuit. A focused emphasis on strategic objectives and ensuing strategic data analysis is a much more worthy pursuit. But always be open to the new discovery. Big data is an enabler and not a panacea.

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Cross-Generational Mindset

The cross-generational mindset shifts from hindsight to foresight; from silo to holism; and from diversity to inclusiveness.

Many company workforce span three generations—Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials —each with different leadership, communication, working and learning styles. For example, Boomers are commonly defined as demonstrating a strong work loyalty and drive to win; Generation X as tending to be more flexible and resilient; and Millennials as embracing social technology and diversity. At the dawn of the digital era, global businesses need to shed the tendency to bridge the generational differences and shape the cross-generational mindset with common digital traits and perceive a more complex and complete picture of their workforce, because we all belong to the C-the connecting generation with the convergent characteristics in the aspirations, ambitions, values, and attitudes. etc.

Cognizance: Millennials is the digital native, they are born in the digital era and actually they are the only generation for which the Internet, the mobile technologies, the social media, the smart digital devices, and the intelligent computer networks are obvious. While X gen and baby boomers are digital immigrants, they also present the high level of learning agility to not only play with the latest digital gadgets but more importantly, they are open-minded and embrace the digital way to think differently and work more effectively. All generations now are taking advantage of the digital media to share and create digital content, climbing the social ladders, beyond the traditional career ladders. They become more insightful with such empathetic cognizance as well, always capture insight and substance, rather than look at things on the surface; always put other people’s shoes on, understand perspectives different from their own, and build networks with people outside of their organization. They start working in harmony and thrive in a culture based on positivity, identify and maximize their personal strengths and teamwork rather than zero-sum competition and they get advanced by who really are, not just about who they know. And they are inspired and get motivated to reach a higher level of Maslow’s pyramid, in pursuit of purpose, autonomy, and mastery.

Flexibility: Based on Deloitte talent survey, among generational bands from Boomers to X Gen to Millennials, a top response was “provide flexible working conditions and better work-life integration.”Their voices add to a rising chorus, signaling important shifts in the cultural dynamics of the workforce. Today’s cross-generational workforces believe that business drives innovations which have the most positive impact on society. And that creativity and innovation are key ingredients that make an organization an employer of choice. They are ready to work for companies with flexible working conditions and better work-life integration. They value workplaces that contribute to their personal development as professionals. They prefer working for companies that invest in developing their capabilities and keeping their skills updated and relevant through continuous learning and development. They are interested to do meaningful work, work that matters, and they think they can make a real difference and generate impact for their companies and the society as well. In addition, these high potential digital talent has a high desire to be entrepreneurial, to move into leadership roles, and to have the opportunity to innovate and create. They see work as a series of experiences that help them develop continually over time.

Inclusiveness: At the digital era, the business functional border, the company border and even the profession border are blurred; indeed, the world becomes more inclusive, admit of the inclusion of wide variety of specializations under one umbrella. Today’s C-connected generational workforces have inter-disciplinary knowledge and "independence of thought", they are leaping from diversity to inclusiveness much more enthusiastically and fluently than the previous generations and workplace, because the businesses environment become so volatile, complex, uncertain and ambiguous, and the more you discover different logics and thought processes, the better you can improve to think different from various points of views and solve business problems with creativity and intelligence.

Indeed, today’s multi-generational workforces have to learn with each other, grow together, and embrace the multitude of the digital mindset and build a positive, creative, productive and hybrid digital workplace.

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How to Structure a Business-Friendly IT Organization

IT must be more business-friendly. Start with the structure.

Due to the changing nature of technology, the IT organization also has to continue to re-imagine, reinvent and reshuffle itself to adapt to the changes. But the goal for changes or IT transformation is ultimately for achieving business goals. So the point is what are the fair reasons to do IT reorganization and how to structure a business-friendly IT organization?

The organization needs to be realigned to ensure the people are in the right positions: They have a better focus to execute what is needed of them. The focus of duties makes it much simpler to hire and scale the organization as the business rapidly grow. Other than that scenario, you realign when the business strategy changes. The structure has to allow for agility and change, as the business grows and evolves. You need to also ensure, technology is providing a new innovation function or service, to look at new areas and new ideas.

It has been to build for the future: In one case, it was to make the organization more fiscally responsible and increase technical capabilities via utilization of managed services. In the other case, it was simply to introduce a structure that could support scalability for a fast-growing company. However, in many cases, reorganizations of any type are highly overrated. Introducing wholesale change into any organization will create disruption, communication challenges, and performance impacts no matter how well planned and communicated. So well planning is the prerequisite, and better leverage the talent within the organization to meet the current year goals for the organization and to position for the 5-year plan.

Break down silos and enforce cross-functional collaboration: The digital business objective is to begin to break down silo walls and utilize the human potential of continuous improvement for a more grass-roots, by-the-people reorganization. These wins achieved by the cross-functional teams have a positive impact on business-side perceptions of IT as well as providing a sense of success often missing in many IT organizations. However, the main objective is to lay the foundation for service-oriented, non-siloed teams closely aligned with the business model and strategies.

Another driver is simply about performance: It's important to remember that reorganization solves some problems - but not all. It's important to get the right people on the bus and then make sure those people are in the right seat on the bus. IT teams are being driven to deliver a cohesive catalog of technology services which puts an even greater emphasis on cross-functional coordination. Measuring and tuning the organization to achieve this is sometimes necessary over time. This may also include IT reporting the relationship to the business in some cases. Here are some fair reasons to re-tune the organizational structure:

(   (1)   Change in a strategy that requires realignment of resources and future road-map.

(   (2)   Disappointing customer satisfaction results. 
    (3)   The adoption of new technologies. So there’s the need for an omnichannel presence with customers (mobile apps, social media, etc.)

(   (4)   The chemistry that has a significant impact on performance and productivity. 
     

The observation of the broken processes by the team is critical: A more gentle approach, particularly for an executive in a new position, is to spend the majority of onboarding time evaluating and understanding the business model and services. Identify technology-related processes and tools that appear to be the most 'broken', regularly challenging the business on efficiency and customer service delivery. Then come back to your teams and facilitate the brainstorming. They need to see what the business experiences objectively before collecting ideas and approaches. From those ideas and findings, take volunteers from across the IT organization and run an efficiency pilot working directly with the business. To ensure success, start with a 'solvable without huge capital investments' problem. As we all know, there are more than enough of those to go around any business. Problem-solving in teams, particularly teams that don't normally work together in a siloed IT environment is empowering. Repeat this process but instead of business efficiency, have the teams observe a waste-related effort within IT. 

There are two keys to successful Business-Technology integration: The first is having CXOs and Board that understands that technology is not a separate entity which exists just to keep the lights on. The second is to have a CIO who understands both technology and business and is given the authority of a true C-level to interact with the rest of the business. You need to focus on the practical side, that where the rubber hits the road to ensure internal collaboration - you can structure any way you want - the key to success is to ensure internal discussion, communication, agreement, and collaboration to deliver on the common goal - value to and enabling the business. This is how to break down the silos; understanding the inter-dependencies and start talking. It is also important to formalize those rules of the engagement part of clear roles and responsibilities.

Always keep the end in mind, change is not for its own sake, any restructuring effort has to be well planned, experiment, empower and engage, with the goals to improve IT performance and overall corporate maturity.

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How do you assess a Vision statement?

 Vision is about zooming into the future as if it were closer.

Vision provides guidance about what core to preserve and what future to stimulate progress toward. Vision is part of the answer to the following questions...What Business are we in, and Why? Looking at it that way, the vision is where the ultimate goal is set. As such, if working out the vision isn't the hardest thing, you're not doing it right.

Vision is crucial to your strategy. It will give direction, so your vision is your first step in creating your strategy. Then "baking in" your Vision into your DNA (culture) will be the second step of your strategy. Therefore, the strategy should always be incepted by a strong vision, a vision that makes a difference, not a mere tactic for temporal gains. 

A vision is an integral part of any company’s strategy: As you cannot plan your strategy if you do not know what your vision for the company is. Furthermore, no vision and strategy will ever be successful without the input from ALL staff in the total company. So often vision and strategy are treated as confidential and no "buy in" from shop floor level is achieved. Thereby negating complete participation at all levels.

Vision is a destination, and strategy is the roadmap: Vision Statement is very difficult to establish if the Company (and Executives and Shareholders) doesn't have a Strategic Analysis, a Strategy and the most important thing...a Purpose of Business. As the vision is like a journey you want to embark on, but you would need the knowledge to implement, this journey roadmap is "strategy."

The unified view of the future: Building a change vision is often difficult as it requires the alignment at the most senior levels and needs to link to the overall strategic imperatives of the company. Given that a change vision includes a coherent and powerful statement of what the desired future state can be and focuses on common goals, everyone must have the same definition of the future state. Only then can you develop a compelling change story that all employees can relate to. So assess vision statement thoroughly, and review the project portfolio based on the clarified vision and crafted strategy: 
• the objectives and key elements of the project/program/ initiative; 
• clarity around what it means for the program/transformation to be successful, and can lead to discussions on some specific implications for groups and people; 
• clear statements on the desired performance and improvements that will result from the change/transformation; 
• prioritization and integration of the program with other ongoing (and potentially competing and/or duplicating) company programs/initiatives

Vision coming from the intuition, it comes from the experience and looks at the reality with curiosity. Vision comes from the heart and must be discovered, not developed. Vision is required at any given stage of an organization’s life span, so do economies. Without a continuous envisioning of a better future, society is doomed. 

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Agile Maturity with Contradictory Coherence

The strategic planning and agility need to achieve contradictory coherence with such delicate balance.

At today’s digital dynamic with high-level of uncertainty and velocity, Agile as a management philosophy and methodology is expanding out and scaling up, should organizations adopt agile project methodologies also adopt agile strategic planning practices?

Applying strategic agility practice is to set priority right to execute with adaptation. The key question, whatever methodology one is applying, is whether one is devoting resources to the right projects and to the right degree and manner. Applying strategic agility practices to a great extent will help frame these questions and hence will render project agility much more effective and credible because it has a strong motivational factor to team members. Such strategic agility supplying the radar by which projects can be aligned and adjusted continuously to the fast evolving strategic reality. It is also clear that organizations into strategic agility should adopt agile project methodologies. This to ensure that their fast adapting project portfolio or strategic initiatives get executed in due time (or before the next transition loop is taking place)

The terms strategic planning and agility need to achieve such contradictory coherence. Can anything be really agile and strategic? A strategic plan implies deciding major moves the organization must make now to be ready for the challenges of the future. Agile means making adjustments right now to meet the situation of right now. Even in the fluid world of IT, if you are unable to commit to technical directions for long enough, you'll never be able to develop and maintain a capable staff to execute. In that case selecting total agility in your strategy also implies a longer-run decision of total dependence on out-sourcing of technical capabilities. It may also imply a total dependence on the environment to dictate what the company's next move is, it is somewhat the opposite of what a strategy is supposed to accomplish. 

Three levels of corporate agility: (1) Strategic agility: identify major opportunities and risks when they arise. (2) Operational agility: defined as an organization's ability to execute within a focused business model, consistently identify and seize opportunities more quickly than rivals. (3) Portfolio agility: The importance of 'portfolio definition' as a means of devoting resources to the right projects and to the right degree and manner and balance the value the projects are creating and the risk of failure because of complexity or size. Quickly and effectively shift resources out of less promising businesses and into more attractive opportunities.

Applying strategic agility practice has to be cohesive and adjustable. Therefore, a periodic assessment of overall strategic direction should not impede the use of agile in the specific projects that are launched. After all, the point of projects is to take on innovative work, and the point of agile is to decide which obstacles to bypass and which to slog through ... to maximize the progress towards the strategic objectives.

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The CIO as a Digital Orchestra Conductor?

"I want all the musicians to listen to the sound of the whole orchestra as they are playing their instrument." -Claudio Abbado -one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century

 It was possibly Peter Drucker who first said a manager's role was that of a "Symphony Orchestra Conductor." In this highly complex and competitive digital dynamic business environment, this description fits in today for any business leader or a manager in an operational or even functional role in any successful organization, particularly when matrix organizations are more in play.

The conductor is attuned to the needs of the listener. Although it’s a collective responsibility for both senior leadership team and BoD to lead business transformation and orchestrate digital symphony, when it comes to IT and how it relates to business, this should be the CIO's role in conducting the complex piece of music. With IT becoming increasingly a key tool in 'transforming' corporate, the CIO having a 'strategic mindset' should help corporate craft Corporate Strategy for the future. His/her being part of a 'Strategic Planning Cell' can help navigate progressive corporate moving in the digital journey.

In the digital music, IT needs to go beyond just playing the background music to support the melody, it’s being the sheet music: Take that away and you run the risk of the orchestra stopping altogether or, at least, playing the wrong tune! There needs to be some in-depth of technical understanding and business insight. The CIO must be attuned to the business' IT needs and works with all stakeholders to ensure they have the right tools to execute and business won't miss the opportunity to grow. IT must always be tuned up to enable business objectives and catalyze business growth for the long-term perspective.

The CIOs have to master at conducting such a hybrid digital orchestra: The "conductor" has to lead the in-house musicians and has to take into account the time lag (a fraction of a second) of the orchestras on another continent. This looks more and more like the situation faced by business (and other organizational) leaders. They have to keep the in-house order, and must, simultaneously, coordinate with distant contributors; otherwise, the "music" will jar the ears. The term is more generic and stresses the role of a team leader and the fact that he/she wouldn't be able to create a 'symphony' without the full participation of his/her team members.

The conductor should harmonize the symphony by taking effective governing approaches: The role of the CIO and its place in the governance chain is very mixed in different organizations. Somewhere in the governance chain ‘IT’ needs to be translated to ‘business.’ It is important for the CXOs to work with these roles in a business planning and support capacity to ensure that the information and IT services being delivered are what is needed for the business to play their music. In high-mature organizations, IT governance is converging with business governance and CIOs successfully conduct the music of ‘balance’ to inspire innovation and enforce standards as well.

“The CIO as a conductor” is only one of the interesting analogs to articulate the sophisticated role modern CIOs have to play, IT is a critical note in digital music sheet, and only business and IT work as a whole, the symphony can be orchestrated elegantly and harmoniously. 

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Is there such a thing as bad ideas or too many ideas?

There is the rich context of innovation and unstoppable fountain of creativity.

Innovation is the light every organization is pursuing. However, very few organizations can manage innovation idea and portfolio effectively, what’re the problems. Nowadays, digital provides an unprecedented opportunity to collaborate cross-boundary and co-create ideas regardless of your location, there is the rich context of innovation and unstoppable fountain of creativity. So if the problem is not lack of ideas, could the opposite be true: Is there such a thing as bad ideas or too many ideas?

There is no such thing as a bad idea: Albert Einstein said, "If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it."Ideas are seeds of creativity that can change a certain situation and future. Getting crazy ideas isn't a problem; having too much information may cause a problem if it is not processed effectively. Information may be one of the most time intensive pieces to the innovation puzzle (X). Information is growing exponentially and it is humanly impossible to explore all of the "art" out there about a subject or technology. The pitfalls include the more information one collects or considers the more trapped inside a box you become.

It’s not about too many ideas, but about the lack of effective process to accelerate idea validation: One of the issues about generating too many ideas is that one can get stuck in the rut of idea generation only. An idea is just an idea unless executed. Focusing or convergent thinking helps in terms of the execution of an idea. In other words, focusing helps validate or invalidate an idea. Companies need to have a process in place that allows for the submission of ideas that filters out the ‘craziness’ that sometimes occurs in brainstorming. To do that, provide a method for submitting idea's that asks the person with the idea to help quantify the potential benefits of their idea; what is expected for market size, the expected cost or profit, list the pros & cons of the idea, how would the idea benefit the customer, the company or the employees, etc. And then acknowledge the person who submits the idea! They may not be able to answer in much detail, but it will validate the good ideas from the mix. Then a product team can start the task of filling in the blanks that will allow all the ideas to be ranked for consideration. Hence, the answer to the question, is No, having many ideas is not dangerous if they are submitted with the best of intentions.

It's more a matter of focus and refinement to what you want to accomplish: Having lots of ideas is not a bad thing. The problems start when people start to choose the best idea for them to implement. If you remember that ideas are built on other ideas and that idea combination is a powerful technique, then having a big amount of ideas is a good thing as long as you then try and get the best attributes of the ones you like and combine them into one solid implementation/ outcome. 

Therefore, there are no such things as too many ideas, It all depends on what you want to achieve and in which circumstances. One of the real challenges to innovation management is how to accelerate idea validation and streamline innovation process. In a business enterprise context, the mantra of "there are no bad ideas" is often used as a catalyst to encourage a flow of ideas, which leads to innovation, which may lead to competitive advantage, which stimulates the growth of revenue and profit.

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