Can lagging IT culture jeopardise digital transformation
Covid-19 and its effects accelerated digital business at an unprecedented pace, and CEOs continue to invest in digital capabilities as they look to take advantage of what many expect to be a fast, sharp recovery. CIOs and their IT teams are key to this digital strategy and execution, but is the IT organisational culture up to the task?
Many CIOs recognise that the way IT employees get work done today is not what the enterprise needs to meet its digital ambitions, but few know how to get rid of stubborn, unproductive behavior. They need a rigorous way to gauge what needs to change.
What is organisational culture?
Culture is not an academic construct. Culture is what drives the priorities of individuals within the organisation. It comprises the behaviors and actions that have become normalised over time to dictate how work gets done and prioritised.
The question for CIOs is what behaviors and actions are needed to ensure that the IT organisational culture is aligned to drive digital transformation and acceleration.
As business models change, so do the behaviors and actions that are most relevant. It is not surprising, then, that the IT organisational culture can increasingly lag behind what is needed to drive digital ambitions. But CIOs must intentionally and actively diagnose and address these culture gaps.
If you allow misaligned behaviors and actions to become normalised, the way work gets done becomes less and less fit for delivering on priorities, now and in the future. Worse still, your IT organisational culture can actually jeopardise digital ambitions.
In short, an IT organisational culture fit for your digital ambitions must get and stay aligned to the stated objectives of the business model. But how do CIOs do that?
Is your IT culture in step?
To develop a digitally mature IT organisational culture, CIOs should first level-set on how responsive IT teams are to the four key components of the business model and its corresponding business strategy today:
External customers, citizens
How knowledgeable and responsive the IT organisation is to external customers, citizens, constituents, their industry, sector environment and the external factors affecting them
Value proposition
How knowledgeable and responsive the IT organisation is to the external product, service environment
Capabilities
How the IT organisation prepares, orchestrates and measures its capabilities information, technology, people, skills, assets, ecosystem stakeholders to accomplish its mission
Finance
The IT organisation’s knowledge of and responsiveness to overall enterprise finances revenue sources, costs, risks, funding model, financial KPIs
It is also valuable to gauge the intensity of the IT organisation in terms of its intentions awareness and understanding of influential factors and environment and actions the team’s dedication to making things happen.
How fit is your IT organisational culture to drive digital ambitions?
Having assessed the degree of alignment with the business model, CIOs need to plot an improvement path for the IT organisational culture based on its current level of maturity.
The Gartner assessment tool measures maturity on the following scale:
#1 Unaligned
Our IT culture is not aligned and is not aware that it is not.
#2 Awakening
Our IT culture is not aligned but is somewhat aware that it is not.
#3 Settling
Our IT culture is performing on digital business needs but is far from fully aligned.
#4 Aligned
Our IT culture is aligned with today’s digital business needs.
#5 Forward-looking
Our IT culture is aligned with today’s digital business needs and ready for the future.
The objective is to get to level 5. You might choose to stop at a lower level if you think you’ve already done the heavy lifting, but that will mean there is still room for improvement. So even if you pause, continue escalating the cultural alignment when you see fit, knowing that lack of alignment threatens to hamper your progress in the interim.
Sample actions to shift the IT organisational culture for digital
Once your IT teams have completed the cultural assessment to gauge their digital fitness, you will need to act to close whatever gaps are critical to your digital success.
Here are some examples of actions you might need to take.
External customers, citizens
Share specific information about how your enterprise segments external customers, citizens and why, and the different channels to reach them. Also, give them a clear picture of the industry and competitive landscape.
Value proposition
Organise a hackathon or quiz game among your team members, with specific questions about segmentations of products, services and their expected growth, the various channels your enterprise uses to deliver them, the main competitors in each segment and their competitive levers. Make it a quarterly ritual.
Capabilities
Share the IT strategy with team members and talk about strengths and weaknesses in organisational structure, technological resources, people’s skills and competencies, and interactions with the rest of the enterprise and external parties. Highlight what’s missing for the IT organisation to drive the organisation toward its digital goals.
Finance
Appoint tiger teams to assess how robust and flexible your IT budget is in both its structure and content to face foreseeable future needs. Share the conclusions with the entire department and devise a rationale to present to the CFO and CEO.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- As business models change, so do the behaviors and actions that are most relevant.
- It is not surprising, that the IT organisational culture can increasingly lag behind what is needed to drive digital ambitions.
- CIOs must intentionally and actively diagnose and address these culture gaps.
- IT organisational culture can actually jeopardise digital ambitions.
- An IT culture fit for digital ambitions must stay aligned to the objectives of the business model.
If you allow misaligned behaviors to become normalised, the way work gets done becomes less and less fit for delivering now and in the future.
