The Last Word - Change Leadership in an Uncertain World

The primary challenge facing today’s IT leadership is to balance the overlapping waves of technology acceleration and business volatility to drive asymmetrical returns to the enterprise.

Today we find the discipline of information technology at a crossroads. Thirty years of technology acceleration have driven great efficiencies into the historically arcane and artistic process of business management. Tasks that once required hundreds of employees and days of processing are now accomplished by the mere click of a mouse. The digital divide that separated IT manager from business executive has crashed down, and we now see an MBA leading IT as likely as a technologist.

And yet, despite these dramatic process changes, we consistently find today’s modern information technology organization afloat on a sea of uncertainty. At best, IT is making slow progress through the uncharted waters of business combinations and consolidations, virtualization, and service orientation. At worst, IT has been plundered of resources and responsibilities with capabilities divested to the business units or outsourced to the far-flung corners of the globe.

But life in IT does not have to be this way. Never before, has IT had such powerful tools and flexible processes at its fingertips to provide real business value and change the course of the enterprise for the better.

• IT no longer lacks investment—In the history of IT services and solutions, there has never been a more equitable playing field between client and vendor. The market force of the Web is rapidly driving software to reasonable service delivery models, and some of the most powerful technologies are now open sourced.
• IT no longer lacks skills—More people around the world have more skills and a better understanding of technology enablement than ever before. You can source a Web site from Poland, an architectural review from India, and second-level support from Detroit. And you can do it all from your home office.
• Most importantly, IT no longer lacks the ear of the business—Every executive in the enterprise is accessible and, in fact, wants to see IT succeed. Your business partners socially network, blog, Twitter, and Flickr. They are there to partner with, not fear or ignore.

Yes, friends, the time has arrived for IT to put strategies in place that harness the power of technology to counter these waves of uncertainty. If you don’t know where to start, I’d suggest avoiding the traditional IT hierarchy. Instead, seek out someone at your company who blogs on IT. Even better, find the person who established your organization’s Facebook community. I’ll wager that he or she has been thinking about how to harness technology to drive value to your company.

Jonas Lamis is the founding editor of Architecture & Governance Magazine and executive director of SciVestor.