Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1362

Five Aspects in Closing IT Gaps

Organizations large and small are on the journey of digital transformation. The overly rigid business hierarchy with command-and-control management style came through the industrial revolution with the perspective that everything, including organizations, can be viewed as mechanical in nature. In the "Birth of the Chaotic Age" with explosive information abundance, it makes a very strong case that command-and-control organizations with bureaucratic culture are inherently incapable of handling, processing, managing the sheer volume of information we are faced with. IT as the information steward of the business, how to close the gaps and help to build a hyper-connected and high-innovative digital organization?
Be aware of blind spots: “Blind Spot” is due to a lack of sufficient resources or silo thinking. Silo thinking creates blind spots. The senior leader should have the ability to see the big picture, to complement the team’s viewpoint. Most teams operate with an incomplete and relatively small view of the world. IT often gets criticized because it does not deliver value to the business and its focus is not on the business where it should be. Many companies are trying to do more with less. Unfortunately, the IT department seems to be one of the first teams to be impacted by any budget cuts, and many IT organizations get stuck at the lower level of maturity as an order taker. This results in a team that has to spend all their time to “keep the light on” rather than focusing on developing STRATEGIES that advance the business and give them a competitive edge in the marketplace. If IT Departments are going to move up the maturity curve, they have to be aware of the variety of blind spot (either in performance management or talent management, etc.) They must alleviate themselves of the mundane, daily tasks that weigh them down. High performance cannot be achieved unless the IT department improves their act and must engage the business, not the geek in the tech tower. IT must engage the business more to avoid blind spots.
Outside - in customer viewpoint: The majority of IT organizations are pushing inside out, which could create the gaps between what the customer needs and what IT really delivers. When to look at the customer experience from the inside out, there is nothing wrong with that, because you are the ones that can change the inside. However, the outside-in view is more important, because the customer's experience is about how they encounter, observe, or undergo a company's events or stages. You lay out a journey which is helpful, positive, and sharing experience with customers. They may not like, appreciate, or really care about the journey, or simply may not go through the journey in the "correct" way. If the sequence of events is based on "outside in" data, and the end result is to transform the company or organization to increase its customer-centric maturity and build a culture to focus on creating value for their customers, then you can call it a sequence of experiences or simply a strategic plan which helps to mind the gaps and build a customer-centric IT organization.
Cognitive difference:  IT talent capability/skill gaps are fact, not fiction. to bridge the gaps, it starts from the mindset. IT needs both agile generalists with business acumen and dedicated specialists with technical excellence. It’s best to bring a group of people together with the cognitive difference such as different backgrounds, capabilities, strengths etc. together in order to obtain such a way of divergent thinking for sparking innovation and solving complex IT problems with flexibility. It will better go more convergent to really hone in on the "why." Once you figure out what the true problems are and ready to ideate that needs to be divergent thinking. Finally, when down-selecting ideas and eventually prototyping that would be more convergent thinking. Innovation. So, in a certain degree, the process to transform a novel idea to the business value, is a combination of divergent and convergent thinking, the systematic and synthetic processes. It all comes through bridging the cognitive difference and managing innovation in a structured way.
Change readiness: Most of the organizations today are the “sum of functions,” not yet being a cohesive whole yet. To close the gaps and optimize the operational excellence, Change Management becomes an ongoing business continuum. Change readiness can be determined via a validated instrument, the change profile-scan. Too many organizations are mechanistic, control and command hierarchies. If you organization fits the description, get out fast or initiate change within. It's not the change that needs management. It's management that has to change its paternalistic view and give space to what the professionals they hired for the works. Companies don't think about change. People in companies do, from different positions. Mostly the management wants to see a different (better) result of all combined efforts. So dynamic and changing organizations cannot operate with stable unchanging people. Most people are quite willing to put the effort in change. What they don't want is 'to be changed by others.' So let them be part of the direction, speed and way you are heading.
Contextual understanding: The business system is complex and the organization is contextual, without contextual understanding about people, process, and technology, the blind spots and gaps are inevitable. Context aids us in understanding what’s relevant and what’s not. From a practical perspective, 'seeing' the context you are 'part' of, allows one to identify the leverage points of the system and then 'choose' the 'decisive' factors, in the attempt to achieve the set purpose. Context needs to be split into two dimensions in terms of understanding the scope - functional and physical, and a third aspect (to assist planning. risk assessment etc.) is to understand the environment in which the "something" will be developed and then operate. Hence, to manage a high-performing IT organization or the business as a whole, IT leaders and managers need to have a contextual understanding about the interconnectivity of the business success factors underlining the surface and focus on building cohesive business capabilities in which IT as a key enabler.
At lower maturity level, IT is aligned to support business with still a lot of gaps in between. However, when moving up the maturity, IT can be an integral part of the business, by identifying the blind spots and  close the gaps, IT can become the game changer , and innovation drivers to bring the new opportunity for business growth; nonetheless, that enablement and its effectiveness can be measured and value attributed which the business recognizes and endorses. IT is the business.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Three Principles for Communication Effectiveness

Communication is always important, although it is the means to the end, not the end itself. The end is for problem solving and idea brainstorming. A great communicator doesn’t need to be “the everyone’s tea,” but in order to communicate effectively and avoid the miscommunication symptoms such as “lost in translation,” you have to follow the right set of principles and deliver the messages persuasively and creatively.  
The authentic and candid communication  to harness trust and encourage problem-solving: Lack of trust is an often overlooked barrier to communication. If communication has to develop fully and authentically, it is essential that the person communicating should also be equally aware of what he/she wants to communicate, how he/she communicates and above all ensure that he/she has communicated correctly. Either heart to heart conversation with employees or touchy-feely chats with customers, the strategic presentations at the round table or negotiation with vendors,  The reality of messages is that they have to be "real." Though being candid doesn’t mean being rude or lack of empathy; it means to point out the issues or share the insight, but also be thoughtful to apply the good communication style and business manner skillfully. Most of the organizations today are process and control driven. Emphasis is on compliance with the result people forget to think freely. It is so important to develop an atmosphere with effective and candid communication. It is also important to foster an environment where feedback and communication are based on reality and not simply what senior management wants to hear.
The creative and empathetic communication to convey contextual intelligence: Communication is the tool to solve problems, and languages are the tools to make communications. Languages are whereas alphabets are compound within themselves. Symbolic representation becomes dynamic because of combinations and permutations. We can't treat language just as a system of words (and grammar) being just names of things. It means speaking fluently or articulating well are still not sufficient to have effective communication or being a great communicator. You need to understand the whole statement or even the complete article - all words together in common sense, not in their particular ratio 1:1 (meaning one name, symbol = one thing), it means the effective communication needs to be creative and convey contextual intelligence. If you take into consideration more than one language, such as translating something from one language to another. There is not always ratio 1:1. When you tried to use some internet translators or computer programs, knows, that it doesn't work in this sense of understanding. The computational approach in some cases is failed, at least not fully mature yet. You may say the same about metaphors. You need to understand the whole statement - all words together in common sense, not in their particular ratio 1:1 (meaning one name, symbol = one thing).

Strike the right balance between “Over Communication and “Less is More”: Some communication gurus advise to always “over communicate,” and others suggest about “less is more!” We live in the digital era with continuous delivery (either communication and other management practices) as a new normal. So it’s all about striking the right balance to communicate effectively and achieve the end goals. Thinking before you speak is an ongoing conscious effort. If you can develop the habit of perfecting in practicing patience and remain silent and spell/spill only when you must do think, use wisdom and logic and properly confirmed. There is a time to say and there is a way to say. There are certain things which must be said, although we must say it in a proper way. If your saying can stir the debate for innovation, or stimulate the energy for constructive criticism, and it may be worth the effort if you can express in the right way at the right time to the right audience.
Still you don’t need to be everybody’s cup of tea. The effective communication is not just for gaining popularity, but to convey wisdom. Create a working atmosphere to allow free expressing the creative potentials. The emotional well-being in the workplace allows everyone to express the best of themselves, encourage authentic and creative communication, but always keep the end in mind. As Einstein wisely put, you can’t solve the problem with the same thinking you created it. Through communicating problems with words clearly to other minds, and reframe the question with the new level of thinking, the fresh mind with a cognitive difference can perhaps solve the problem seamlessly.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

How to Maximize IT Value

Business paradigm is shifting from the industrial era to an information/digital era, IT plays a pivotal role in such a transformation: the business needs IT to deliver services / solutions that drive productivity and effectiveness; the business wants fit-for-purpose IT solutions that enable them to be efficient in delivering services and products to their market at the right cost to deliver profits to the shareholders. Business needs IT to provide better information  as a nervous system to the business for improving profitability. Businesses are also looking for IT to add new innovative methods for management of complexity, data transformation, improving quality, agile construction etc. Therefore, how can IT meet the business expectation and maximize IT value to achieve long-term business goals?
CIO Leadership: IT is the spinal cord for the organization - integrating various departments ability to bring out a technology driven solution, motivating the IT team to constantly deliver despite not all applications getting used in the organization, driving adoption of applications.  As a leader, the CIO has to be able to inspire and encourage with his/her vision and generate conviction and enthusiasm for the missions of the company and the IT division, regardless of how exciting or mundane they may be. CIOs and executive team must have a clear understanding of the link between IT capabilities and business strategies, in order to capture the potential value of their IT investments. Prepare a strategic plan points the company in a direction where it can maximize its market position and reap as many benefits as possible. This direction must allow for economic, market or customer change and let business adapt swiftly. In short, the major task of the CIO today is to simplify and unify processes across functional boundaries, and often across the entire enterprise.The CIO has to be the technical visionary of the company, so she/he has to be able to not only articulate the vision, but communicate it in various forms and forums, including investor relations, business partners, business leaders, IT personnel, the other CxOs in the company, etc. so the CIO has to be flexible, adaptable, and able to adjust the lingo to suit the audience, sometimes soften it up and drop the technical jargon, other times diving into the bits and bytes level.
Prioritization setting: In most organizations, the business strategy is an archived document by which daily decisions are rarely driven. The first step is to create a situation where the main strategic performance drivers are well and commonly understood cross-functionally on the leadership team. This is where prioritization should take place; not on the solutions (projects, IT being only one ilk), but on the opportunities. The result of this exercise should be a roadmap of initiatives vs.one of projects. Setting the priority right helps to avoid IT overloading and under-delivery. Prioritization also provides a framework for focusing on the creativity. It's only if the actual work is micro-managed and regulated to the point where resources are not able to create, and then creativity becomes stifled. Prioritization is the process and method that one communicates either top down or bottom up and impact how a creative approach, idea, or project is received in an organization. From a management perspective, it means to have a respected intra-organizational agreement of priorities and resources, to have the teams and employees focusing on the most important things, develop the energy and excitement to achieve business results.
Guiding principles: To maximize IT value, it’s also important to have a set of guiding principles for the multitude of IT management. Principles are general rules and guidelines, intended to be enduring and seldom amended, that inform and support the way in which an organization sets about fulfilling its mission. From IT management perspectives, guiding principles let the organization know what to expect when dealing with IT, and serve as a yardstick by which to measure IT internally and externally, and can spur some great discussions with fellow C-suite members and business unit management. Principles are not about restrictive rules or bureaucracy, but about the fundamental guidelines on how decisions are made, how things are done here, and how to assess talent performance and overall IT performance., etc.
Maximizing IT value really means a lot: from “doing more with innovation” to “doing more with less” (efficiency); from enabling business strategy (capability) to adapting to the changes (agility); from  revenue growth to business resilience. Hence, in order to become a better business partner, IT value-based management needs to be driven by concepts like collaborative value or collective advantage and multi-layer ROIs. IT and the business have to speak the same language and communicate more creatively, and IT leaders must be both business strategist and technology visionary, always think in terms of the value-add to the business, and IT is the business.



Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

The Monthly Digital Leadership Brief Feb. 2016: Leadership is All about Future

Digital LEADERSHIP is the hidden GEM of the “Future of CIO” blog. From one generation to the next, the substance of leadership does not change, it’s about future, change and influence. However, the leadership trends will continue to emerge. Here is a set of featured blogs to ponder the future of digital leadership.
Three Trends in Digital Leadership? More and more organizations are heading to the digital journey, it takes digital leadership to encompass the right direction, empower the right talent and enable the long-term transformation. People tend to make leadership very complex, but in its most simple form, leadership is about the future and direction, innovation and improvement, and it is about how to practice and amplify positive influence. Now we live in the hyperconnected digital age with always-on businesses, interdependent ecosystem, and multi-level digital communication channels, what are emergent trends of digital leadership?
Three Elements in Innovative Leadership? Leadership is a key success factor for any organization's success. Due to the characteristics of "VUCA"-Velocity, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity of digital age, innovation is no long a “nice to have,” but “must have” business capability to keep growth momentum and adapt to changes. And the leadership in any organization must have the ability to guide, inspire, innovate, and motivate a group of people toward accomplishing shared visions and goals. What are important elements in innovative leadership though?
Three Traits to Bridge Digital and Global Leadership Gaps: We are at the age of digital dawn, now the physical barriers can no longer be the walls to separate people from communicating and sharing knowledge and insight, are we on the way to recognize the best of the best, or simply blend the variety of perspectives into the new ideas and solutions, and more critically, what are emergent traits to bridge global leadership gaps, and develop the new generation of digital leaders and managers who can gain respect, win hearts and minds not just locally, but globally?
Three Perspectives of Future of Leadership? Leadership is about the future, and it is the most crucial leading factor to accelerate digital transformation. Still, there are so many inquiries about the future of leadership. What has shifted in the context of leadership and management? Do leaders just fall into whatever their culture says leadership looks like or do leaders change the culture? Shall leaders lead at the front or from behind? Will leaders speak louder or think deeper? Is leadership becoming more “virtual” or physical? And what’re the most critical elements in digital leadership?
The Future of Leadership? From one generation to the next, the substance of leadership does not change, however, the trends and styles have to be continually adjusted in order to lead effectively. leadership is all about the future, and what’s the future of leadership?
The blog is a dynamic book flowing with your thought; growing through your dedication; sharing your knowledge; conveying your wisdom, and making influence through touching the hearts and connecting the minds across the globe. The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.3 million page views with about #2300 blog posting. Among 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking and innovating the new ideas; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes the time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify diverse voices and deepen digital footprints, and it's the way to harness your innovative spirit.

Read more leadership blogs here:Three "D"s in Digital LeadersThree "W"s in Wise LeadersThree "E"s in Effective LeadersThree "P"s in Purposeful LeadersThree "I"s in Insightful LeadersThree "V"s in Visionary LeadersThree "P"s in Paradoxical LeadersThree "C"s in Creative LeadersThree "A"s in Adaptive LeadersThree "T"s in Transformational LeadersThree "C"s in Character-based LeadersThree "C"s in Charismatic LeadersSeven Characteristics of Global LeadersLeadership Innovation: Compete for UniquenessCIO's Five Leadership TraitsTen Insights of Leadership Substances. vs. StylesHo, Ho, Ho of Leadership InfluenceFive Elements of Authentic LeadershipLeadership StyleThree Trends of Future of Leadership
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Digital Master Tuning #132: Three Digital Effects to Catalyze Business Maturity

Digital transformation represents the next stage of business maturity which will improve how the enterprise works and interact with its ecosystem, with the customer at the center of its focus. Digital becomes the very fabric of the modern business, being outside-in and customer-centric is the new mantra for forward-look digital organizations today. So how can businesses amplify positive digital effects and grow into the high-performing Digital Master?
The brand recognition: Consistency remains a favorite mantra for management. Consistency facilitates efficiencies in operations and the ability to deliver a shared brand promise across service, sector, and national boundaries. They are externally focused on value-creation and opportunity. They place more emphasis on customer segmentation and market analysis. Finding the right balance: They know the difference between eliminating waste and simply cutting cost. Low costs do not automatically translate into high profits. The best-performing companies not only understand what drives cost but, more importantly, understand how that spending creates value. They are getting closer to customers’ need, also looking beyond today’s solution. One of the major drivers of change continues to be the impact of technology. Digital technology now allows for both more focused communication and consequent customization than ever before. Speed, however, matters for everyone. The speed to market, the speed of change, the speed of operations.
The Culture of analytics: Digital means the abundance of data and the richness of information. The analytics, especially around user experience and performance analytics, is gaining ground, Your competitive advantage via data acquisition exists only so long as you can stay ahead of the bulk of the competition, and is inherently unsustainable; An analytical culture is the glue to make your data-driven, customer-centric strategy stick. However, analytics is and never was a magic wand anyway, it is just another way to take an informed decision. Data is like the raw diamond, raw diamonds get their use when becoming treated, processed into industrial diamonds. Only treatment makes them valuable, able to serve a purpose - help to make more effective decisions to create better business values. A culture that embraces analysis and is willing to change course based on its analysis is extremely difficult to either create or replicate, but that is where you're most likely to find a sustainable competitive advantage.
The wisdom of digital workforce: A professional is someone who has a high level of maturity and treats everyone as a human being. Being a digital professional doesn't just mean the face you post at work or the talk you have in the meeting. It’s more about the consistent image you deliver about being who you are or the mentality you have in or out of working hours. It becomes a life attitude. Being a digital professional means consistency. At the dawn of digital age, the bar is actually raised higher either being a digital leader or being a digital professional. Because, nowadays, the line between our professional life and personal life is blurring, thanks for the technology to make everything so transparent. Being a digital professional means the high level of maturity. Maturity and humane attitude are necessary qualities of any good human being, including professionals. The digital workforce continue to depoliticize working culture, dismantle bureaucracy, solve business problems via multi-dimensional thinking & multiple choice of solutions, think out of the box, pack it in a new box which then creates a new innovative idea. As our digitized world becomes hyper-connected, over-complex and interdependent, a digital professional is a person who is thinking independently with the capability to make a good judgment, who is clear about his/her responsibility and added value in the organization and the world, who has the expertise and integrity to substantiate what he/she stands for, who works according to the principles, but with the courage to break the rule, if it’s out of date.
The multidimensional digital effects provide impressive advantages in term of the speed of delivery, the quality of information for decision making, and the wisdom of digital workforces. High performers -Digital Masters understand what drives cost and what drives value, and they have both vision and passion, capability and capacity entering into the new world of the business - fast, always on, highly connected and hyper competitive.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Running IT as a Digital Transformer

We live in a fast paced digital world, and every day more and more technologies affect the way we live, think, and love. Great opportunities, dangers, and disruptions are around every corner. Digital transformation is inevitable, transformation means to change the "nature" of something, albeit that the increasing pace of technological advances has clearly impacted the nature and scope of opportunities. Hence, IT has become mission critical, it is imperative for IT and business leaders to work effectively and efficiently together to ensure that they are leveraging IT across their organization to attain enterprise-wide transformation; not just using IT as a digital extension, but running IT as a digital transformer.
IT as a  strategy enabler and “digital transformer”: There are very few businesses today can state that IT does not play a significant role in the day to day operations or even long-term strategic positioning, To effectively enable business strategic execution, IT must sit at the table as a business line and be a key player in the development of business strategy before execution. IT strategy is a significant part of the business strategy, and not simply as a tool or mechanism to support business goals. Hence, organizations need to take that into consideration when establishing strategic goals to manage their digital transformation. Further, IT department should not live in a silo, or a function running as a help desk and support center only. Both strategic and tactical objectives should be set to achieve the digital strategy and business objectives, these are then broken into objectives for the IT department. The CIO should sit on the executive board, not because IT is important, but because it is business critical that the CIO and the IT department effectively enables and facilitates the business strategy and objectives, and ultimately leading digital transformation.
IT-business integration: IT involves co-creating business strategy. This will allow IT to shine in both roles as enabler and driver. What should be focused on is the integration of IT into the business decisions and processes. IT proactively works as an integral part of the business to capitalize on opportunity via leading the transformation, or IT delivers the best solution to the business problems which meet the business’s requirement or tailor the customer’s needs. IT should facilitate business partners with the right solutions and helping to implement them. Neither of these is wrong or right and choosing which is best should be dependent solely to the situation at hand. It takes time, vision, and the willingness drive to change. While companies recognize the need for IT to integrate into the business, it is a task that eludes many organizations. The sustained change will require cultural changes at all levels. Most of all, everyone must be willing to commit. It takes a very concerted and organized effort and a strong desire on both sides to make it happen. Over communication is a key. It also generally starts at the top with senior executives leading the way by setting the goals and strategy and ensuring that they are adhered to through measurement and metrics. Keep the focus on communication. Making sure every move in putting actions to non-core and core initiatives is properly communicated to IT and beyond in a systematic way.
Digital CIOs as information master: IT is shifting from a technology custodian to an information steward to manage the full data-performance life cycle : data --> analysis --> decisions --> performance effectively. Analytics is means to the end, not the end. The digital CIO should focus on the information content and context; how that information can be tapped from the underlying data and be utilized to turn it into valuable strategic insight, how the information and insight can be penetrated through the business and be actively used in managing business processes and building business capabilities to execute business strategy solidly. Today, the CIO is not just managing IT to keep the lights on but is managing the information to enable enterprises to become nimble and gain the competitive edge, to ensure the right people getting the right information in the right position, and to harness innovation catalyzed by IT  and lead to the digital transformation.
Digital transformation represents a break with the past, with a high level of impact and complexity. Transformation efforts need to be undertaken as the means of getting to a defined different capability to accomplish a defined goal. Otherwise, they cannot have the clear focus and business rationale that is essential to gaining any traction in changing an embedded culture. Regardless what you call it (alignment, enablement, collaboration, integration, harmony, etc), let’s work on identifying opportunities for enhancing the IT-business relationship and improve IT maturity. The only part of it that can be passé is the word itself. At digital age, CIOs need to be a 'bridge' - a relentless networker and a creative communicator to lead the organizations on the digital journey. CIOs have to advocate their organization, and IT value has to be driven, indicated and understood at all levels of the organization. This is accomplished through establishing strong interdependent relationships, operational excellence, customer satisfaction and superior sets of digital capabilities in order to move up the organizational maturity.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Agility vs. Flexibility

Agility is the ability of business to adapt rapidly and cost efficiently in response to changes in the business environment. Agile provides greater flexibility and it requires great discipline especially at team member level. Great power comes with great reasonability.
Agile is a silver mirror, not a silver bullet: Agile is often considered as a silver bullet, a quick and easy fix to complexity issues prevalent in software development, but in fact, it is a silver mirror. You have to do continuous reflection. It advocates self-organization, working without hierarchy, progression etc. Moving to agile brings the cultural change in an organization which the management needs to understand and support. Isn't Agile about flexibility? Transparency? Why are you not able to have open and constructive conversations about the situation? Why do you have to act beneath the company’s radar screen? Agile is a state of mind, it is about embracing change, taking risks, thinking out of the box and practice the management disciplines with flexibility.
Agile does not define processes and practices but guidelines first: Agile is the set of principles, Frameworks based on these guidelines have processes and practices, but they are not rigid and fragile.  The frameworks define control limits (upper and lower) in which processes can wiggle.  It's much like learning to play an instrument, before you can solo you need to master the basics of your instrument in order to understand how it works, it's limits and more importantly how you interpret that instrument within the context of music performance you are in. You may have the flexibility or freedom with how you play the instrument but it always needs to be within the context of where you are at, playing the same instrument with different styles and context in an orchestra or a jazz band. Agile is a discipline, so you won't understand the point of the practices and principles until you've actually mastered them to a basic level.
Agile does not mean laissez faire. The flexibility and freedom are based on the well-defined principles. Agile is a mindset and to operationalize this mindset there are some frameworks. Many agile teams think they have the freedom to do what they want regarding Scrum or Agile. In reality they do have that freedom, however,  it really helps to have some guidelines with which to start your journey. The analogy on flexibility-You have flexibility to cross the street anytime, but you can do it only when the traffic light permits you to do so. Often the problem is not people customizing their process. They should do that. The problem is when they try to change the process in order to ignore an organizational issue that prevents agility. For example, point estimation is not a mandatory practice, when managers and teams want to avoid problems, all you can do is explain the likely consequences and setting the guidelines.
Agile is flexible, but it’s doesn’t mean there is no discipline, on the opposite, it takes more engineering disciplines. You don't really understand how to work together without some guiding principle and framework. It's human nature to embrace the easy things you like and attempt to ignore those that require work, discipline and change. Hence, there is no "soft" approach teaching cherry pickers by gradually leading them to accepting the fundamentals. Cherry pickers are usually pursuing their own agendas: if agile is a success they will claim it. If it fails, it is your problem. Being real agile takes both discipline and accountability to get things done. At the end of the day, it's all about delivery with quality, and the underlying commitment teams must make to do it consistently. One thing that really helps is having the organization decide what they want to achieve by using agile,, then get them to measure success or failure against that goal with some good metrics. The key here is to make results measurable. If there are no agreed metrics in place, it just comes down to arguments and opinion.

Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Three Clarities of Running a Customer-Centric IT

Customer Experience Management is key to every business. It is not just important, it is vital for growth, development and to make sure you stay in business. IT has both internal and external customers. it has to deliver the quality service to delight internal users and engage employees to improve productivity and creativity. IT now also becomes an integral and one of the most critical elements to build digital capabilities for digitizing every touch point of customer experience and building a customer centric organization. So how to run a customer-centric IT organization?
It is important to capture customer insight, not just getting information and understand it partially: Customer-facing applications are critical as at the end of the day they generate revenue for the business. If there is an outage it normally has a direct impact on revenue and consequently attention of the top management. But how to build and launch a successful team to provide first level support of an external customer facing application? How to frame the right questions to get the best feedback from customers. It's tricky to find the right mix between open-ended questions to get feedback we wouldn't have thought about and more precise questions to actually get the customer to think of something he/she wouldn't have thought about. Shall you ask broader questions or shall you initiate more narrow questions, every company just has to take a good look at which information would be the most valuable to them and tailor their questions accordingly.The value of customer feedback is in transforming it from information to insight and using this to interpret customer needs.
Customer-centricity is not equal to perfection, but about “Fit-for-Purpose”: The focus on perfection is indeed flawed, both as a practical matter and for the environment that is created. If you communicate your stance that you expect perfection as opposed to strive for it, then you will create timid underlings who will fear errors as oppose to reach for success. The next practice is to live as "customers." Digital is the age of empathy. The more difficult challenge is not just launching a successful team, but maintaining their motivation and focus. Point out that customer inquiries are not just support related, but can foster new and better ways the application can perform and optimize every touch point of customer experience.  It is also important to building a culture of risk tolerance inspires the exercise of people's natural initiative and curiosity while fear of failure chokes it off. The customers and client generally want is a no-nonsense, fit-for-purpose, and hassle free solution to their needs, combined with as little interaction with the seller as possible. Fit-for-purpose" - is equally true for human relationships as for solutions to other needs. Improvement and achieving the right balance in any truly customer-centric organization requires all team members to believe that things can be improved.
Every IT project is business project to either delight customers/employees or improve operational excellence:  One of the mistakes that IT even make is to run IT project as a pure technical challenge, without “keeping the end in mind” - the customer needs and business goals. So being customer-centric is a strategic objective, not just a performance indicator. A valid strategic objective and the strategy mapping allow you to first understand your customers and what they value, and then identifies how to best characterize that value through project portfolio management, define key indicators, and then define those measures appropriate to best assess the performance of these indicators because they show you how well they satisfy or delight customers. The fact is that KPIs are part of a conversation and not in themselves the conversation. Customer satisfaction to be a KPI and the defined area should possess a goal and measurement indicator stating that businesses are hitting or missing the objective. It’s the essential to run IT as a business.
When you really understand or attempt to capture the insight about what the customer actually want, that is when you can really develop an experience that fits them and their needs or desires. Running a customer-centric IT would follow the same principle to gain customer empathy. Building customer facing applications is both strategic to delight customer with new solutions, and also tactical to improve project success rate via building the mature team and experiment the best practices or the next practice, with the goal to run a customer-centric IT organization.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

CIO’s Digital Agenda XXXXII: IT Talent Management Innovation (III)

People are always the most invaluable asset in businesses. “Hiring the right person for the right position at the right time,” is the mantra of many forward-thinking organizations. The question is how would you define the right people? How do you define wrong, average, mediocre, good, great or extraordinary person? Or put simply, for what should they be right? Traditional Performance Management focusing on measuring what an employee does (mainly being told to do) in a quantitative way is not sufficient to identify high performance or high potential, should we see through talent from different angles and how to innovate IT talent management and beyond?
      IT Talent Management Innovation (III)How to Close the Gaps in IT Talent Management: People are always the most invaluable asset in any organization, and having the right person in the right position at the right time is always one of the biggest challenges facing any business. This is particularly true for IT, due to the changing nature of technology and abundance of information. Some fresh mindsets, new skills, or integral digital capabilities are needed every day because we live in a time of rapidly changing digital dynamic. However, people are often the weakest link in strategy execution as well, so how to identify and close the gaps in IT talent management more specifically?
What are the Top Skills in Being a CIO? Today's CIOs are both business strategist and technology visionary, they are always ready to understand new technologies impacting business, and make effective decisions in strategy execution or talent management. So what are the top skills that are most important in being a CIO?
Digital Knowledge Workforce  The idea of 'knowledge worker' was first described by Peter Drucker in his 1959 book 'The Landmarks of Tomorrow'. He also points out that knowledge worker productivity is the most important challenge for management in the 21st Century. After being through more than half of century, what’re the criteria for today’s digital knowledge workforce, when the business is transforming from industrial age to digital era?
Can or Shall a Digital Business or Professional have multiple Core Competencies: A core competency is a deep proficiency that enables a company to deliver unique value to customers. Is it possible to have multiple core competencies? Are business visions about possessing a competency, or many competencies, or is it about envisioning a positive future situation and embarking on a mission to produce it?  Competencies usually emerge from a blend of people, processes and culture... which evolves into a mindset - and can you really acquire that simply by adding people with relevant skill sets. Should you stick to your existing competencies for selecting any new venture, or should you actively go out and acquire those, if you like the nature of opportunity and there is an organizational passion for pursuing?
T-Shaped Talent with Innovative Thinking: With the border between different functions or disciplines continue blurring, the specialized generalists are in strong demand, or we normally call the “T-Shape” talent, and the innovative thinker -you start with a strong T and then sprinkle heavy dots randomly across the graph with varying strengths of lines connecting them and the occasional pulsing outlier dot. How do T-shaped people feel? What are their emotional strengths and weaknesses? What is their ability to make sense of a situation? Does this "profile-metaphor" take into account fit and affinity, rapport and empathy? Why is T-shaped talent so popular, and how to groom such type of talent?
The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.3 million page views with 2500+ blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom. Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes the time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify your voice, deepen your digital footprints, and match your way for human progression.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

What’re in your Digital Management Tool Box

What gets measured, gets managed.

There are two levels of goals to run a successful business, at the strategic level, organizations concern about the long-term business result, business capability building, customer satisfaction and employee engagement; at the operational level, the business needs to take care of quarterly financial result, employees’ weekly report, customers’ purchasing transaction and more. Today’s digital business is complex and dynamic, managing both levels of business goals are challenging for digital leaders and managers. Therefore, systematic approaches, efficient tools and well-defined measures and KPIs are all important factors to manage business performance from a variety of perspectives and keep track of strategy execution effectively. In practice, which tools are in your digital management tool box?

Strategy management tools: Strategic development is too often seen as a linear process, but it is, in fact, a cyclical process that needs constant attention and tuning within bounds. This process defines an approach which will leverage some popular strategy management tools such as Five Forces, SWOT, PEST, Blue Ocean, etc. So the “art” comes in both aspects - initial strategy formulation is a highly creative process, better strategic options usually result from a more creative and open process. When developing a strategy, one should always plan an execution of strategy, and prepare for “What If” scenario. Strategic scenario planning is to navigate through the digital dynamic, discover the path via unconventional or out of the box thinking, believing in yourself and most importantly in your team to achieve the high performing result. Strategy and execution are two completely different things and skill sets, but they are interlinked. Unless executed well, the greatest strategy will flop and without all dependencies and influences placed in the melting pot, risk-management of the greatest strategy will be a costly activity. The other important management tool is the balanced scorecard which offers a way for a corporation to gain a wider perspective on its strategic decisions by considering the impact on finances, customers, internal processes and employee satisfaction.  The Balanced Scorecard framework is a great way of selecting, scoping, and aligning specific projects to overall strategic objectives and the budget.  A well-defined scorecard should contain a good mix of outcome measures (or long-term strategic value) along with performance drivers to track the progress in the short term (operational value).

Business agility metrics: Metrics is a tool in the toolbox, but just because you have a hammer, not everything is a nail. What gets measured, gets managed. Metrics is not the end-all solution to management, but simply another set of tools, data, and information sets. Numbers permit one to collect and build out a quantifiable history for reference, particularly for trending. It is practical to measure, whether you are getting what you want to get out of being agile. In agile, measure directly what you want to achieve, what your organizational goals are like go to the market time, cycle time to develop a feature, anything that you truly want to see results from. Some of the key measures of Agile effectiveness are creating value, timely delivery, teamwork and productivity for the work done. By benchmark and comparison within the organization groups and their characteristics over a period of time may be the way to go.

Innovation management tools and metrics: Innovation performance indicators need to focus on measuring quality, quantity, time, cost, revenue growth, profit improvement, margin targets, product variety for stability, turnover, shareholder/owner return and talent sustainability, etc. Normally organizations look for KPIs measuring business results generated by innovation efforts. The innovation metrics in the context of business impact include such as, % of revenue from new products introduced. You could also change the variables and create something like % of the profit from new ideas implemented. But it takes quite some time for a new innovation drive to produce those measures. One of the solutions is to define innovation process KPIs, which demonstrate the growing capability of the organization to deliver more innovation with business impact in the future. The process KPIs could link to strategy, to make progress on the percentage of projects in the total innovation portfolio which contain a major part of external innovation. You choose those KPIs by deciding which are seen as critical to making progress on in order to deliver more innovations. Select the few (3-5) KPIs, to keep the measures simple and understandable.

Performance Management tools and measurement: Every function talent managers touch and activity HR handles have efficient tools and potential metrics for improvement comparison: engagement, cost control, return on incentives, recruiting efficiency, the number of stars rejecting outside offers, speed in revising performance objectives, clarity of organizational structure, depth of backups in succession plans. By tracking these measures, you can focus on where targets are not being met that support planned revenue and profit levels, and what actions might be taken to improve at the individual, functional, and corporate levels.

Change Management “tool set” and metrics: Oftentimes, the organization may not have the systems and structures in place prior to implementation to actually monitor and track the change. Measuring change involves first accurately identifying where you are now. Then, clearly identifying where you want to be once the change is complete. Both require the necessity to be brutally honest and to establish clear, understandable, and easily calculable metrics.That metric needs to be SMART, so people can see what the outcome will look like throughout their transition. Second, there should be a consideration for a balanced scorecard that measures the progress you want to achieve during the change transition, this keeps people focused. A balanced approach may be sensible as they move away from providing towards commissioning services; looking at finance, working in partnership with others, contracting services out, building relationships that can help to support new ways of offering services. How do you measure these in a meaningful way? Perhaps the answer lies in using a range of different tools rather than relying on a single method.

There are both “hard tools and software” in the digital management toolbox. But still, leaders are the tool master. Do not confuse the means to the end. Follow the “KISS” and “SMART” principles, and always keep the end in mind - to strike the right balance between long-term business strategy execution and short-term operational efficiency.



Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu