IT Governance - Stay with the Basics

With a fast changing world, it's easy to lose sight of the basics. That can be costly. Some of the basic elements to remember  are:

1. Stay in sync with business needs. Failure to do so could result in a proliferation of ad hoc "shadow" systems being developed.
2. Don't let brand loyalty get in the way of good decisions, especially when more than one brand will get the job done.
3. Remember right-sizing. Scale the jobs to what is needed.
4. New tools will only work if there is the proper substructure in place, such as trained people who know how to ask the right questions.
5. Go with phasing where possible, rather than big bang implementations.
6. Do not make decisions in isolation.
7. Be careful not to make decisions just for the sake of technology. The lustre of new shiny technologies can quickly wear off.

A good expanded summary of these elements can be found here.

Questions about Human/Machine Relationships

An article by Julie Teigland in the Ernst & Young website makes a number of fascinating predictions about the interaction of humans and robots in the future (probably the nearer future than most of us think).

1.     CEOs will manage a workforce that consists of both people and machines. 

As AI driven robots increase in their capabIlities and learn to work alongside humans, they will increasingly become a part of the work teams in organizations. It will get increasingly difficult to distinguish between the contributions of humans and robots – and thus more difficult to treat them differently.

2.     More and more of us will be gig workers.

We’re already seeing the gig economy. As this trend grows, hiring, management, and other HR practices will need to change radically.

3.     We will wear microchips.

As people wear microchips or have them implanted, it will become harder to distinguish them from humans. And harder to treat them differently. For example, when evaluating the performance of a human with a chip installed, do you evaluate the human or the chip?

4.     Work will become synonymous with education.

Change will happen so quickly that traditional education will become more ineffective. So learning on the job will become the norm. As this evolves, working and education will become synonymous.

5.     The days in the office will disappear. 

Virtual reality will become more common to the extent that people will be able to attend meetings, work in the office and attend social events without going anywhere. They will just don their helmet and they will be there.

Digital Strategies that Win

A recent global survey by McKinsey & Co looked into the digital business models of the top companies; those who had most successfully used technology to advance their business.

"Among their findings, they determined that there are four areas of marked difference in how companies with the best economic performance approach digital strategy, compared with all others:

1. The best performers have increased the agility of their digital-strategy practices, which enables first-mover opportunities.
2. They have taken advantage of digital platforms to access broader ecosystems and to innovate new digital products and business models.
3. They have used M&A to build new digital capabilities and digital businesses.
4. They have invested ahead of their peers in digital talent."

There is a variety of ways in which companies increase the agility of their digital practices. If one is to generalize, it means they pay more attention to digital opportunities from top management own. Executives gain greater knowledge of technology, and management structures their departments with the skilled people needed for change. They monitor and assess the availability of new digital platforms, recognize the  importance of digital talent, making sure they are positioned with sufficient talent to be able to take advantage of new opportunities and use M&A to build those capabilities. 

It comes down to awareness, agility and capacity for innovation. For more on this, check out this article.