Bimodal IT and two-speed IT miss the point

We can't trade-off reliability for speed in the medium term. Models that make this assumption are inherently flawed. If you really want to think in terms of a two-pronged approach, think strategic and utility as I describe in my post on business-capability centric orgs. Martin Fowler seconds it.

Rework IT for digital success

In an earlier post, I had argued how IT has become strategic owing to the demands of a digital business. Strategic IT cannot justify itself with IT metrics such as velocity or even with delivering to plan. It has to make a difference to business outcomes. IT agility takes on a new meaning in this light. It is not enough to claim that our development teams are agile. Engineering agility and delivery process agility are necessary but not sufficient for digital success. Read further

Why is IT getting in-sourced?

Key thoughts: (full post)

• Ten years ago, many businesses did not consider IT to be a core competency. But it's strategic now. Like it or not, businesses are now forced to pay greater attention to IT. The attention economy is largely digital, and IT systems mediate the relationship between attention-hungry sellers and spoilt-for-choice buyers.
• When IT becomes strategic, we can no longer evaluate the success of IT efforts using IT metrics (e.g. did we deliver to plan?). Strategic IT has to make a difference to business outcomes. This needs much closer collaboration between IT and business than is typically afforded by outsourcing. It also needs cross-functional teams that span IT and business. Again, this is very difficult to achieve under the terms of a tightly worded outsourcing contract. Businesses that understand this new dynamic are bringing IT back in-house. They are outsourcing IT more selectively.

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