ITSM Uncovered

Computerworld UK — The IT department will need to be equipped with teaching skills if they want to be of value to businesses of the future, according to Forrester.

Speaking to Computerworld UK ahead of Forrester's Enterprise Architecture (EA) Forum EMEA 2011, EA research director Alex Cullen said that as businesses strive for greater speed and agility, and technology becomes easier for the business to procure, IT will no longer be the first point of call.

"Business people will be able to take advantage of cloud services without involving IT. They will need people to help them think about how to do it," he said.

This is where IT staff can demonstrate their value to the business.

"IT will teach business to procure in a reliable, scalable and secure way. Organisations will probably want staff based on their ability to teach," said Cullen.

"It's a big shift because people will think about the business first, and the technology second."

Cullen also believes that the IT department will become smaller, and while they will stay technical, their skills will be more focused on integration and sourcing capabilities.

"Change won't happen in the legacy applications - they will happen around them. IT will have to integrate those things, but they won't be the sole technology source," he said.

A key message from the Forrester Forum will be that the role of the enterprise architect in a decade's time will split in half, with one part remaining in IT in the way that is described above, and the other part moving into the business.

Cullen said this could lead to the creation of a new business role, such as head of planning and innovation.

He added: "The technology architecture will stay in IT and the business aspects of applications and information will move into the business."

Forrester's Enterprise Architecture (EA) Forum EMEA 2011 is taking place in London on March 15-16, 2011.

All contents © IDG 2010

via cio.com

I see this in two ways; Consultants to the business, or 'Teachers' both work in their own capacity. There was a time when Technologists held the golden key to the inner workings of technology. With the commercialization of technology, more and more people are becoming quite knowledgeable about the basics behind how technology works. It is almost an evolutionary thrust in which old-school technologists are fighting that shift from being the ones in the "know" to having to relinquish power and admit that they are not the single point for all that it IT. With a support background the choice is clear... teach or deal with the ramifications of unsupervised exploration, which more often than not breaks things.

I liken it to teaching someone to drive vs. having them take the keys for the first time and going for a spin. In the latter the odds of your premiums going up are pretty high.

On the other hand, as Consultants, you are able to leverage your knowledge and experience of technology to fully grasp and align technology solutions to business strategy. That is where the true value add is. Much effort is often used to shoe-horn technology solutions in place to deliver on a business strategy which has not had much exposure to newer technology solutions. For the technologist to reverse that trend by understanding the business vision/strategy then formulating a solution to deliver with a focus on stability, scalability and cost avoidance is something that is extremely valuable and rarely exercised in most organizations.

IT needs to stop viewing itself as simply a cost center and more as a true partner to business solutions. That comes in many ways, 'Teaching' and 'Consulting' are just the beginning.

The word of the day boys and girls is "INVESTMENT." In the implementation of an ITSM strategy for an organization, it always seems to be that the initial strategy by technology leadership is to look at investment focused on bringing in external resources. I would argue that maybe this is not the single smartest approach. Now, I am not implying that the role of a consultant is without value or merit. What I am saying is that outsourcing the implementation of such a large shift of culture and process is not something that can fairly be dropped on a consultant or two and expect them to wave their wands as if they have an MBA from Hogwarts Institute of Technology. This is usually quite a challenging endeavor to expect someone from outside an organization to come in and change to a culture they don't necessarily understand or are not willing to embrace that change.

In my own experience I have heard rumblings within an organization of many staffers viewing ITIL as leadership's attempt at trying out the latest "buzz-word" framework or attempting to force it down the throats of the IT staff who have seen these types of initiatives fail in the past. In these types of environments, the US vs. THEM mentality combined with a lack of understanding by the organization as a whole form a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.

Why is it then, that in other industries, membership into these organizations is accepted if not required. Auditors, CPAs, Lawyers, Doctors and the list could go on. But in Technology there is still the legacy belief in many organizations, more prevalent in the larger ones, that the in-house experience and knowledge pool can achieve anything that will improve the organization as a whole. After all, who knows the organization better, right? Wrong.

The problem is that as with or any organic entity which grows or evolves, it brings with it naturally that which it has learned before. If that base of knowledge is mis-management, inefficiency and dysfunction, then it will only become compounded as it grows. I call it my IT Evolutionary Theory. IT spawns out of an immediate need to conduct business, to that which grows quickly as work arounds are put in place to give the appearance of functionality. Then there is the survival mode where you begin to see the failures in technology due to a lack of awareness early on to put in place structured process designed for growth. You have now entered what I affectionately refer to as the "Wild-West." Any and everything goes in keeping the business up and running.

It is usually at this point where the business tolerance for failure reaches its limits. IT leadership is given the ultimatum to fix it, or be gone. In comes the interest Industry Frameworks! Often viewed as the silver bullet to make everything better again based on white papers, magazines or some presentation seen by senior leadership. However, as previously mentioned the organization at this point is so rooted in a culture of disorganization and inefficiency that finding anyone who actually understands how to begin to dig out of the mess is near to impossible. Leaderships answer? QUEUE THE CONSULTANTS!

Now, rewinding things a bit. What if, early on in the evolutionary chain, IT management encouraged membership in industry organizations like HDI or the ITSMf? Better yet, what if these companies spent the relatively minimal amount of funding to become corporate members, allowing staff to attended regular meetings and annual conferences? The upside is not often analyzed from the top down. What these individuals get from networking while attending monthly meetings, conferences, seminars and training events brings back into the organization a wealth of knowledge BEFORE things get too far gone. Proactive involvement from the ground up begins to take place, the culture itself evolves, far eclipsing anything a consultant can bring to the table during the "zero hour" knee-jerk make-or-break point. This is where a relatively minor investment over time in the very fabric of an organization can save a large investment to un-fluck a cluster.

Like any knowledge base, there is wealth in the sheer numbers of individuals who contribute content to it. These Industry forums are a gold-mine of information, experience and reassurance to any organization looking to improve or enhance their overall IT operation. So, note to Technology leadership... continue to provide relevant training, but more importantly, encourage and support organizational membership in external industry organizations and events. The return on THAT investment goes much farther than believing that you can manage evolution in a bubble. In most cases you already employ those "consultants" you need as you evolve. Give them the opportunity to champion growth and stability through supporting them. Who knows, they may just surprise you and save you a lot of pain and revenue in the long run.

Forrester: IT Staff Must Become 'Teachers' to the Business CIO.com

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