CIO, how would you go to multi-speed IT ?
To meet CEO expectations, CIO should go to multi-speed IT. For this journey, we suggest to use IT Regime Management, a design management method, whilst leveraging the enterprise social network with trained consultants.
At the closing session of the 2016 Assemblée Générale of the enterprise network Cigref, a CIO urged to go to multi-speed IT.
As the 140 largest IT user enterprises and administrations based in France hold a Cigref membership and appoint their CIO as representative, the session attendees might have heard it as a general call by Cigref to its ecosystem to join the pioneer consulting businesses [1] who have already shared on the open internet their thoughts and recommendations towards multi-speed IT capability.
Multi-speed IT by Cigref
Indeed, the notion of multi-speed IT was addressed by Cigref in a late study on the digital transformation of the management of information systems (MIS) [2].
According to the study, an MIS which has multi-speed capability might be organized in three departments: a group of business geeks at the user outposts to deliver solutions on weekly or even daily rate basis, a main body IT professionals engaged into 6 to 12 months campaigns towards robust solutions and a "light cavalry having to provide quick solutions at the right cost without being burdened by service quality commitments".
Design Management phrases
The principle to differentiate governance to better fit various life cycles and quality levels is not novel. As a matter of fact, a research among IT management libraries could drive to a book published 20 years ago showing a four tiered typology of IT projects - "Phased Development, Platform, Rapid Application Development and Use'n Trash" [3] - that would likely be recognized today as Waterfall, ERP, DevOps and Platform Services.
Beyond this rephrasing to design manage the journey to the digital era, why is multi-speed IT on the CIO top agenda ?
An answer is suggested again through research.
A comparable phrase to multi-speed IT is Bimodal IT, under which the consulting firm Gartner brands its services; next is two speed IT, which seems to have emerged in the websphere a little bit before multi-speed IT.
A story of MIS digital transformation
The chronology of these three phrases suggests a story of MIS re-engineering.
Stage 1: Agile development methods are introduced into MIS to respond to startups which are bypassing the IT department and directly offering their products and services to business departments.
Stage 2: However, as these startups are growing as a threat to the core business of the enterprise, CEO dispatch out of the core organisation a few autonomous business units in view to emulate these startups.
Stage 3: A successful development of these business units bring their reinstatement into the core organisation.
Journey to multi-speed IT
Each enterprise should write its own story of its digital journey. And this journey goes thought MIS transformation.
Whether labelled as Bimodal IT, two speed IT or multi-speed IT, the MIS journey should revisit IT governance, which was set up 10 years ago: at that time, most IT best practices management were prescribing monolithic governance, that today would spelled "one-speed" governance.
For CIO, it is a sea change to manage.
To ease the journey, CIO can use IT Regime Management, a design management method [4], and engage change management consultants who are trained to levegage the power of social networks [5].
[1] Articles and studies of choice
[2] The new roles of the IS function - Missions, competences and marketing of the function, Cigref, 2015
[3] La fonction Télécom de l’entreprise – Re-engineering et métiers [Re-engineering the Telecom function], Tru Dô-Khac, Masson, 1997.
[4] L'IT Regime Management, un gouvernance de systèmes d'information lean, [IT Regime management, how to set up a lean IT governance] Le Cercle Les Echos, 23 mai 2012
[5] Les trois modèles du consulting : personne physique, personne morale, personne "numérique [The three consulting engagement models : face-to-face, branded best practices, social networks] , Le Cercle Les Echos, 30 mai 2012"
To meet CEO expectations, CIO should go to multi-speed IT. For this journey, we suggest to use IT Regime Management, a design management method, whilst leveraging the enterprise social network with trained consultants.
At the closing session of the 2016 Assemblée Générale of the enterprise network Cigref, a CIO urged to go to multi-speed IT.
As the 140 largest IT user enterprises and administrations based in France hold a Cigref membership and appoint their CIO as representative, the session attendees might have heard it as a general call by Cigref to its ecosystem to join the pioneer consulting businesses [1] who have already shared on the open internet their thoughts and recommendations towards multi-speed IT capability.
Multi-speed IT by Cigref
Indeed, the notion of multi-speed IT was addressed by Cigref in a late study on the digital transformation of the management of information systems (MIS) [2].
According to the study, an MIS which has multi-speed capability might be organized in three departments: a group of business geeks at the user outposts to deliver solutions on weekly or even daily rate basis, a main body IT professionals engaged into 6 to 12 months campaigns towards robust solutions and a "light cavalry having to provide quick solutions at the right cost without being burdened by service quality commitments".
Design Management phrases
The principle to differentiate governance to better fit various life cycles and quality levels is not novel. As a matter of fact, a research among IT management libraries could drive to a book published 20 years ago showing a four tiered typology of IT projects - "Phased Development, Platform, Rapid Application Development and Use'n Trash" [3] - that would likely be recognized today as Waterfall, ERP, DevOps and Platform Services.
Beyond this rephrasing to design manage the journey to the digital era, why is multi-speed IT on the CIO top agenda ?
An answer is suggested again through research.
A comparable phrase to multi-speed IT is Bimodal IT, under which the consulting firm Gartner brands its services; next is two speed IT, which seems to have emerged in the websphere a little bit before multi-speed IT.
A story of MIS digital transformation
The chronology of these three phrases suggests a story of MIS re-engineering.
Stage 1: Agile development methods are introduced into MIS to respond to startups which are bypassing the IT department and directly offering their products and services to business departments.
Stage 2: However, as these startups are growing as a threat to the core business of the enterprise, CEO dispatch out of the core organisation a few autonomous business units in view to emulate these startups.
Stage 3: A successful development of these business units bring their reinstatement into the core organisation.
Journey to multi-speed IT
Each enterprise should write its own story of its digital journey. And this journey goes thought MIS transformation.
Whether labelled as Bimodal IT, two speed IT or multi-speed IT, the MIS journey should revisit IT governance, which was set up 10 years ago: at that time, most IT best practices management were prescribing monolithic governance, that today would spelled "one-speed" governance.
For CIO, it is a sea change to manage.
To ease the journey, CIO can use IT Regime Management, a design management method [4], and engage change management consultants who are trained to levegage the power of social networks [5].
[1] Articles and studies of choice
[2] The new roles of the IS function - Missions, competences and marketing of the function, Cigref, 2015
[3] La fonction Télécom de l’entreprise – Re-engineering et métiers [Re-engineering the Telecom function], Tru Dô-Khac, Masson, 1997.
[4] L'IT Regime Management, un gouvernance de systèmes d'information lean, [IT Regime management, how to set up a lean IT governance] Le Cercle Les Echos, 23 mai 2012
[5] Les trois modèles du consulting : personne physique, personne morale, personne "numérique [The three consulting engagement models : face-to-face, branded best practices, social networks] , Le Cercle Les Echos, 30 mai 2012"
Articles and studies of choice
- The new roles of the IS function -Missions, competences and marketing of the function-, Cigref, 2015, page 24
- A two-speed IT architecture for the digital enterprise, Oliver Bossert, Chris Ip, and Jürgen Laartz, McKinsey, 2014
- Two-Speed IT: A Linchpin for Success in a Digitized World, Antoine Gourévitch, Benjamin Rehberg, and Jean-François Bobier, Boston Consulting Group, 2012
- DevOps multi-speed IT, IBM Cloud Architecture Center, IBM, 2016
- Gearing Up for Growth Using Multi-speed IT, Nicholas Bayley and John Shacklady, Accenture, 2015
- From Train to Scooter, Ron Tolido, Capgemini, 2011
- Tech Trends 2016, Deloitte University Press, 2016, pages 6-13
- Bimodal IT, Gartner IT Glossary
Adapted and translated by Tru Dô-Khac from
"Directeur(ice)s de systèmes d'information, comment irez-vous vers le multi-speed IT ?", Tru Dô-Khac, Le Cercle Les Echos, 23/11.2016
De la fonction informatique bimode au multi-speed IT
