Digital Transformation: The Challenge of Company-Wide Alignment
Most company leaders are aligned on WHY they need to transform digitally. Some are aligned on WHAT “digital transformation” really means. But very few are aligned, across the company, on HOW to orchestrate and execute digital transformation. If company leaders had any lingering hesitation about fully committing to the need for fundamental technology-enabled transformation, the […]
Building a ‘Team-of-Teams’ Culture in IT
The traditional hierarchical organizational structure in which most of us continue to work is a remnant of the early industrial age. This management approach was developed in the early twentieth century to address business efficiency and profitability in business cycles measured in years. Typical working environments in enterprises of the day involved applying many linear […]
Leading the Acceleration of Digital Transformation Part 7: The WHO – Structure, Leadership, Culture, Workforce
THE TEAM WITH THE BEST LEADERSHIP WINS. This is the seventh part of an ongoing series, where I’m using the framework of WHY, WHAT, HOW, WHO from my book Blind Spot: A Leader’s Guide To IT-Enabled Business Transformation – enhanced with stories and analogies – to help business leaders to understand the Digital and IT […]
Back To The Future Series: Alignment
Charlie Feld has always stressed the importance of making sure leaders have a shared vision throughout a transformation. 20 years ago, I had the good fortune to work for a company where Charlie Feld was the CIO and I can share first hand the positive impact of maintaining this alignment. Charlie spent much of his […]
Enterprise Architecture – Beyond Frameworks and Standards
In his ongoing series about Thriving in Dynamic Times, Charlie Feld recently wrote about the importance of Architectural Principles and Architectural Outcomes. In that article, he emphasized the need to “make the call” – avoiding endless debates on architectural decisions and getting on with the business of implementation. But once enterprise architects have made the […]
Common Traits Of Great Enterprise Architects
Consider what people around the organization think when they hear the words…Enterprise Architect. What comes to mind? That depends on who you are and what organization you belong to. It’s one of the more interesting questions I ask when talking with business leaders. Here is the quick list of some of my favorite answers. “Oh…you […]
Thriving In Dynamic Times: Turning Headwinds Into Tailwinds Part 7: The CIO’s Two Best Friends Should Be the CFO and the CHRO
As context and for convenience, here’s the original overview post in full. Although there’s a lot more to talk about, and we intend to carry on the conversation over the coming months and years, I would like to cap off this series with some thoughts on executive and cross-functional teamwork. As a CIO, I’ve always […]
IT Leaders Can Learn to be Game Changers
The Feld Group Institute (TFGI) is a leadership development organization with one mission: To help complex, enterprise-scale, legacy corporations achieve IT-enabled business transformation. The Institute provides training, mentoring and comprehensive support from a network of experienced IT operating leaders and management strategists. Together, we serve executives with a special focus on current and next-generation IT […]
Structuring a World-Class IT Organization
Creating a world-class Information Technology department requires more than scrum masters, servers, tablets, software, IoT, artificial intelligence and the technology lingo of the day – Cloud, Bi-Modal, Containers, DevOps, Agile. All of these are useful and have a place. However, we often lean on these new technologies and technology fads so much that we tend […]
The 30 Game Changers in Your Organization
I previously posted that great leaders focus on setting the agenda, building a great team and delivering with consistency. However, that is only part of the challenge for a leader, because none of that matters if you can’t “sell it” and if the business won’t consume it. That’s where “Street Smarts” are required, but I […]
Leadership Matters Most
I don’t think anyone would dispute that great leadership matters, and that it matters most at critical times. I also think we can win the argument that we’re in one of those critical times right now – as technology is dramatically changing at such a rapid pace and creating disruption, change and opportunities in virtually […]
What Great Leaders Do Great
In the five decades of my career, I’ve had the great privilege of learning from some fantastic leaders who created world-class cultures and leadership development programs – especially early in my career at IBM and PepsiCo. I’ve observed great leaders like Tom Watson Jr. at IBM and Wayne Calloway at PepsiCo. I’ve applied those lessons […]
