The term
BiModal IT seems to have originated with Gartner, but it is conceptually
something that IT governance professionals have been wrestling with for several
years. Mode 1 is the Traditional, Mode 2
is the Nonlinear approach.
You're probably dealing with the collisions of the different modes right now. How is your IT Governance effort making it work? How effective is your IT Governance in keeping it all on track? How effective is IT Governance in the BiModal organization?
How would
you answer the challenge? Put it in the
context that within an effective IT organization delivering services with a
view to innovation and transformation of both itself and the business, there
are three cultural modalities identified;
Operational culture which uses the traditional methodologies of
waterfall, RUUP and basic progressive project management rule sets to get stuff
done and keep the lights on in an orderly, predictive fashion, Innovation
culture which uses rapid deployment, AGILE and other nimble
development/management techniques in order to be responsive to the needs of the
business and to bring something new to the table. Then there is the Guardian culture which is
essentially the stable platform provided by an informed and effective office of
the CIO group that enables both of the other cultures. The challenge is, how do you integrate all
the cultures and the modalities? Can you
rely on IT Governance to make it work?
And if so, how?
Try answering
these four questions for your organization?
- What do you see as the major hurdles to overcome as the maturing IT organization evolves both the cultures of solidly run operations, and agile innovation?
- How does IT Governance bridge the cultural gap between the operator and innovation cultures?
- How do you develop a governance strategy for both types of cultures while not stifling either?
- What changes would you make, if any, to the IT organizational structure, staff skills, or personal characteristics?
