Making IT Governance Effective in a World of BiModal IT

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?

1. 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?
2. How does IT Governance bridge the cultural gap between the operator and innovation cultures?
3. How do you develop a governance strategy for both types of cultures while not stifling either?
4. What changes would you make, if any, to the IT organizational structure, staff skills, or personal characteristics?

Pink 15

I made it to Pink Elephant's annual IT Service Management conference in Vegas last week; Pink15.  It was well worth the effort.  I enjoy their programming, and the content has never let me down.  I also get to meet some truly interesting people.  This year I managed to reconnect with a number of folks, including an ITSM specialist from Calgary who has recently taken on a new role with the Calgary offices of the AHS.

One of the most important things about Pink conferences is that they 'reinvigorate' my mindset and reset my energies... its like pushing the reset button.  This is particularly important this year as the reset button has been pushed on our ITSM initiative at home.  We've got a new CIO who is solidly behind the concepts and the initiative to the point where he has created a new IT Governance branch in the IT Division to house my team, the security team and the IT Cost Transparency group.

This is going to be fun!!