Calisthenics For Digital Business

In my last blog post on this topic (now edited), I outlined why I believe Digital Business will be so disruptive, and that we are seeing the emergence of an entirely new competition.  This new game won’t be one in which the big eat the small, but rather one where the fast eat the slow. That thought isn't original with me, but I think it is illustrative. In a world where consumers have choices, and in which platforms and capital are cheap, your organization’s competence at sensing (or learning) the consumer’s interests and responding effectively in a timely way will be the defining competitive advantage. I recently saw Jason Silva perform (I think that’s the right word) at EMC World 2015, and it was amazing. To get you in the right mindset - please do take the time to watch these four very short videos. Regardless of whether you agree, I guarantee you will find them entertaining. 

There is tremendous reason to believe that this will be incredibly disruptive. (yes, I know that word is getting tiresome, but it fits so well.) I’m going to call it the Digital Tsunami. Yes, it’s a tad dramatic, but there are parallels. Both start slow and gradually, and will eventually crest and pass like all waves. However, underestimate a big one at your peril. The sheer speed, weight, and destructive power are impressive to behold. I really do believe that the majority of organizations aren't reacting at all, and are focused on making self-soothing sandcastle “strategies" and hoping small tweaks will be enough to help them weather the storm.

However, to extend the tsunami analogy a little further - eventually these companies will wake up to the reality that they missed the warning signs, and the wave is bigger and more destructive than they anticipated. At that point, it’s likely to be too late. Those who had the foresight to prepare while they could are going to fare much better.

Effective preparations take time. Why was Blockbuster unable to build their own Netflix? Because by the time they realized they had seriously underestimated their upstart competitor, it was too late. They couldn’t experiment and iterate fast enough. Like a man trying to sprint to higher ground, they found running in the sand to be slow going initially. All organizations need to adopt a greater sense of urgency about this. (As a quick side note - It’s been gratifying to see the progress that EMC is making to deal with our own industry changes.)

So, what would preparing for the digital tsunami look like? Three mutually reinforcing general categories, all focused on building the capability of the organization in preparation for what may come:


1.  Learn to “sense” what's happening through real-time access to information and prescriptive analytics

2.  Learn to “respond” to (or act on) those insights by building excellence in software development.

3.  Remove the barriers to innovation and agility within your organization now, and begin anticipating a world that demands highly personal and magical products.

Just as in sports, we need to build our muscles, endurance, and agility in a general way now, in preparation for the more specific challenges that are to come. So, what would workouts for digital business look like? Not all of what follows will be applicable to your organization depending on what sector you work in, but I believe organizations are replete with individuals who want to be challenged, and layers of bureaucracy that can be dispensed with. 

Many of the thought experiments below can be explored very inexpensively. Why not offer a week of bonus time off to anyone who can show you a solution to one of these challenges for less than $500 in company outlay? 

If you are a CEO/CIO/CMO/VP Sales, or similar leader - give your folks a shot. Ask your hi-potentials if any of them want to take on one of these challenges as part of a cross-functional team. Give those teams who are willing to step up a $500 visa gift card, and ask that they present their findings in two months, along with receipts. The only caveat would be to ask that they be wary of putting any sensitive data (HIPAA, financial, etc) at greater risk of breach. Beyond that  - what’s the worst that could happen? I guarantee you’ll be shocked at how happy and motivated some of your folks are to take the ball and run with it, and how much happier they are to feel like they are making a difference. I’ll bet the findings about who steps up and who won’t make eye contact would probably be worth $500 to most leaders, all by itself. I’ll bet breaking down departmental walls and establishing cooperative relationships based on shared experiences would be worth the money, too.

Here are the sorts of things organizations should be thinking about. Believe me when I assure you, that every single example I’ve listed below is already being done to good effect. Nothing here is science fiction. If you think I’m joking - hit me up on twitter (@always_pivoting) and challenge me on that. I’m not saying that these are all things every company should do, or even very many of them. However, if your people have the capability to do these sorts of things and have developed these competencies, you will be much more prepared than most. Find their equivalents for your organization, and start putting in some time in the weight room. Yes, it won’t be free. Yes, some glass will get broken. Some toes will be stepped on. The saying goes - no pain, no gain. But trust me when I tell you that some pain of your own choosing now will prevent worse pain later. 

Learning to Sense

Know The Consumer

Can you tell when they walk in your door or before you pick up the call - who they are, what they have bought from you, what they make, where they live, what their interests are, who they are influenced by, and how many people they influence? 

Can you tell how much they are using (utility value) of their purchases from you? 

Can you tell if they have never been to your store or any of your stores before?  

Can you tell from other customer's purchase histories what this customer might need or want next?  

Can you tell where this customer is looking online, where they frequent, what news sources they care about, and what other services they consume? 

Could you assess whether this customer is happy with you, or upset?  

How could you capture more complete data about their experience with you?  

Can you assess on a daily basis from data how likely your B2B customers are to renew service contracts with you?  

Can you tell where the consumer was before they came into your store, and where they went afterwards? 

Can you continue interacting with a customer after a sale? How could you create opportunities and conduits for conversation? 

Know Your Self

Who are your best customer service people? Who from CS has the highest correlation to csat escalations and complaints? Who has the least? 

Can everyone see all the aspects of the customer experience? Does that person in CS know the customer is coming up on renewal time? Does the VP of sales know this customer recently had two customer satisfaction events? Do the contracts renewal people know you delivered two shipments to them late recently? Does the sales executive covering that account know about the three support issues they recently had? All that data exists within your four walls. What stands in the way of the people who need the information getting it? 

Which of your products drive the highest % of profit? Which ones compete at the high ends of their markets, which are more susceptible to substitute (alternative replacement) products? Which ones are the low price/feature entrant in their segment? 

When was the last time your company intentionally sought unbiased feedback from existing and (more significantly) potential customers? What about customers of competing or substitute products?  

How literate are your decision makers in regards to social media? Is anyone tasked with paying attention to the meetups, social chatter, memes, and communities of practice that exist around your products or segments? How are those lessons being filtered to the people who could do something useful with the information? Do the people in those positions understand the value of that data, or does that very experienced VP still disdain “Tweetbook" as pointless "thumbs-ups" for people’s restaurant preferences? I had the good fortune to hear Peter Sheahan speak at an EMC event in person. I highly recommend you watch the whole video, but in regards to the point I’m trying to make - check out the section beginning at about 17:00.

Know The Playing Field

If there was a sudden demand for an item you sell or a service you offer, how long would it take for you to pick up on it? 

Could you determine while still within the current reporting cycle whether low or high demand for a product or a service was because of your performance, or a trend in the market in general?  

What would be your first indicator that customers were buying a substitute product (another class of thing) in place of something you sell?

What would be your first indicator that customers were buying your product as a substitute in place of some other class of thing?

How fast could you detect the leading results of CNN running a positive article about you?  

Are you able to identify mentions and articles regarding you or your products within 2 hours of publication? Social posts within 10 minutes of publication?  

Could you quickly sample public sentiment about your brand or product?  

If there was a public relations victory or debacle next week, would you be able to accurately quantify and communicate internally the impact within 48 hours of the event, and every 6 hours after that? 

Know Your Competitors

What would be your first indicator that a new entrant came into your market?  

Can you accurately assess your competitor's performance in your product markets, and the trend line?  

Can you assess public sentiment toward your competitors on an ongoing basis?  

Do you know who your competitors largest net promoters/mavens are?  

Can you see what social feedback is happening within your competitor's walls?  

Can you tell who your competitor's best and worst employees are?  

Timely and Effective Responses

Internal improvements

How fast does a developer get access to the raw materials they need? 

What are the lead times from when a developer has code ready to test, until that code is running and tested in a production-like environment? (Definitely do watch Jez Humble’s excellent talk on DevOps - wish I could find the video of this presentation at EMC World- sigh.)

How rapidly could you sense a change in demand, and scale to meet it? 

What is your success rate with IT changes?  

Not counting the coding and testing time, how rapidly can requests for features or enhancements go from request to production? Quarterly? Bi-annually? Less often? If you had to change a single line of code currently running in production, how long would that take you?

How could you offer your products or services on-demand instead of by selling them?  

How could you directly offer the end result your customers are buying your product or service to produce? How would you go to market? Who would you need to displace? To bring on-side?     

If you are a B2B2C, how could you move to B2C?  

How could you deliver your entire value chain (from the perspective of the customer) in 10 minutes?   

What parts of your raw-to-cash process add no value at all?   

Customized Products 

Can you dynamically tailor a product to a specific customer's tastes? Color, size, optional features, etc?  

Can you offer a customer rapid delivery (<24 hours) for something they want that you don't have in store?   

Can your products be easily personalized to the individuals name, location, social media interests?  

More and more of world consumption will be outside of the Americas and Western Europe, as more rural Asian and African consumers join the conversation. You will want the benefits of scale, but the flexibility to adapt quickly to local tastes and trends which will be every bit as transient and peculiar as those in your home market. How can you release to your local teams all the latitude on personalization, marketing, and product mix that they will need to respond to local conditions without obtaining unnecessary approvals?  

Enchanted Objects

How could your products or services communicate with other products or services your target consumers use?  

Could you offer choices in home automation standards, preferred API sets, and desired reports? 

What things do consumers do before and after they use your product or service? How could you remove the friction of using your product with that knowledge? 

How could your product or service anticipate what they consumer will want, and when they will want it?  

Fueling Innovation

Do all employees have the ability to form their own ad-hoc data projects? 

Can you get feedback from customers on product features and style, and rapidly funnel that into product development? 

How could you get the most, and best ideas into production with as few egos and approvals involved as possible? How could you do it in an evidence-based, data-driven way?   

How can you create separate units or channels through which internal teams can innovate without politics, fear of cannibalization, and vested interests squashing the nascent idea?  

That’s a long list. Again - these are just meant to start you thinking along the lines of what future capabilities you may need. These are meant to be exercises. When you see business opportunities that matter to you - there are great ways to get started. But for now, pick a few of the above that resonate the most with you, and start your own internal “digital olympics.” Start getting your organization in shape now by doing some digital business calisthenics. In the book It’s Not The Big That Beat the Small, It’s the Fast That Eat the Slow, the authors talk about how fast organizations don’t have to prognosticate far into the future, they just have to act on emerging trends before their peers. 

Because remember, in the coming Digital Tsunami - survival isn’t mandatory.

A Few Additional Voices. . . .

Although I meant for my next post to start breaking down how organizations can become adept at the trends that comprise digital transformation, well. . . . it's the end of 4th Quarter, and time has been a bit tight recently. However, in the meantime, two people yesterday sent me phenomenal articles that illustrate exactly this discussion. So, go read about it from sources far more authoritative than I.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomgillis/2013/11/11/why-the-cios-time-to-lead-is-now/

http://customerthink.com/marketing-and-millennials-using-big-data-in-the-fight-for-younger-buyers/ 

Many thanks to Joe Osborne (@JoeJOzzie) for the Forbes article, and Scott Blahauvietz (@GoScottB) for raising the topic of how millennials are consuming differently than previous generations.

Get To Where The Puck Is Going

Anyone who has talked to me recently has probably endured an enthusiastic pitch about where I think Digital Transformation is headed, and I'm more excited about that than ever. However, in my day job, I spend a lot of time talking to IT folks about what they need and what they are trying to do, and those two conversations are disturbingly divergent.

Wayne Gretzky famously said "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been." I have the luxury (which I recognize as such, and for which I am very thankful), of working for a company that pays me to learn new technologies, identify trends, and talk to interesting people. In my opinion, the puck that all businesses are chasing has changed directions, and only a few have picked up on it. Worse, because IT folks are so overworked, many haven't had a spare moment to look up from their immediate project trying to deliver what the business has already been hounding them for.

So let's talk about where the "puck" of profits and consumers is headed - right at most businesses' foreheads, and it's going to put a lot of companies on their backside. Lest you think this is unfounded hyperbole, see this article, although I could include a much longer list. Here's why:

Since time immemorial, anyone wanting to make a reliable profit has had to do four things:

1.  Get timely access to information.
2.  Figure out what is wanted by the consumer.
3.  Make it known that "I have that thing."
4.  Engage and transact before someone else beats them to it.

Merchants and customers on the busy Bosphorus Strait, not far from where my brother lives today. I'll bet the guy standing really wishes he knew how much the lady would really be willing to pay for a ride across at this moment, and the boy behind the oars wonders if he can get her attention to say his boat is a Kuru cheaper.

While the how of that process has changed over the centuries (I picture caravans of camels, town criers, tall ships, stevedores with hooks, ads in old-timey newspapers), the tasks themselves remain unchanged. For the past decade, we have thought in terms of customer surveys, market research, TV/ print/billboard ads, and either bricks and mortar retail, or e-commerce. 

It's easy to read case studies or look back on some shift in history, and smugly assume "we would have seen it coming. Surely today we are too sophisticated to fall for that." It's gratifying to think of ourselves as the inevitable conclusion of a long chain of suckers, culminating in our much more advanced and educated society. Whereas in fact, our grandchildren will be smugly scratching their sensor and screen filled helmets, wondering how we missed it, during our brief and somewhat quaint moment in time.

There is a massive shift that has been underway for a few years, but  is now reaching critical mass.  Emerging influences that had been nascent or faddish are becoming mainstream, and growing numbers of previously-blissful companies are receiving rude awakenings. Why? Because the basis of competition in their industries is changing, and along lines that are unfamiliar and oblique to their understanding of the market, internal culture, and existing business processes.

1.  Organizations are creating smart, new products that carry on the conversation after the purchase, and produce streams of real-time data that can be harnesses to improve awareness of what's happening, and the timeliness of automated responses.

2.  Big Data is changing the granularity at which companies can understand who potential customers are, where they are, what they want, who they are talking to, and what it would take to make them change their buying habits.

3.  Digital Marketing is allowing savvy companies to engage customers in new, focused ways that are more "pull" than "push." Rather than pushing one generic message out across the airwaves hoping it might hit a few receptive eyes, and frustrating everyone else, companies can now engage their ideal demographic in a much more targeted way as those people "pull" and consume content and services that are valuable to them.

4.  These mobile sensor and communication packages we still quaintly call "phones" are disrupting both supply-side and demand-side economics by pairing up buyers and sellers in novel ways, allowing more specialized and niche offerings to be profitable where they never would have previously been feasible. Not only is this bringing new entrants into markets who never would have been profitable before, but it is also defining new business models that are upending established assumptions. Anywhere there are perishable goods (hotel rooms, rental cars, tour experiences, consumables, electronics, software), buyers and sellers can now find each other directly, while circumventing established middle-men. Most of all, these devices are vacuuming up the data that we gladly feed them, because these apps offer just enough functionality to make us willing to carry them, interact with them, and invite them into every corner of our lives.

The reason the combination of these trends is so disruptive isn't because the technologies are new, but because they alter how the math of the very business models themselves are calculated. New market entrants can find new customers, for new and existing products, in new ways that were never feasible before. Some companies get it - but others are dismissing this as faddish, something unique to Millennials, or as inapplicable because they "aren't software companies." Without naming names, I can only say that from recent personal experience, I am flabbergasted by the near-sighted dismissal of mobile applications by companies in an industry that is being stood on its head by mobile applications! Everyone knows what Netflix did to Blockbuster, and what Uber and Lyft would have already done to taxis if not for legacy regulations, and what Tesla will inevitably do to car dealerships. But most companies are only reflecting on this long enough to conclude that they aren't in these markets, and therefore aren't susceptible. Rest assured, though, - someone, somewhere, right now, is considering ways to exploit the apex of these three developments to alter the basis of competition in your industry. 

What makes the combination of these trends so powerful is that they represent not just a new set of things companies need to have as table stakes (like a mobile app)  - but a vehicle for codifying and turbo-charging the "emergent strategy." (Seriously, go read that link).  Smart and fast companies are exploiting it using the Lean Startup Methodology, not just for software companies, but for all industries. If you read only one book this year, it should be The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.

I would make the virtuous cycle that Mr. Ries outlines (yes, I am in awe of the man), more generic and applicable to non-software companies by altering it very slightly:

Eric Ries lays out a compelling argument that this is the only way to run a software startup. I'm going to go out on a limb and postulate that operating with this mindset, and focusing on speeding through the cycle as efficiently and often as possible is the only way incumbents avoid being "Blockbustered." I am confident in saying that because all companies are becoming software companies. Marc Andreesen said it first here, and after much scoffing, people are realizing he was right.

Not only that - but the smartest companies are acknowledging that they don't have time to organically grow their own technology expertise in the C-suite, and are looking for help both from their own in-house technology folks, and outside the company.  Again - don't believe me - go read it for yourself. Even technology companies like Facebook occasionally bring in outside help.   The companies that these authors call "Digital Masters" have positioned themselves to run away from their competition. They have built a competitive advantage in this new era of emergent strategy by building the capability to speed quickly through the steps of the Lean Startup Methodology. The authors point to strong leadership endorsement from the top, and investments in developing digital expertise as the main factors.

I would be just one more voice of doom and gloom if I stopped here. But please believe me when I say that this challenge is very surmountable. The gap can be closed. Regular companies can develop competency in this area relatively quickly, if they are willing to do some soul-searching and invest. Much of what the "big boys" at Google, Facebook, and Netflix have spent a decade or more developing in terms of technology is available off the shelf with enterprise support, today. Getting started on this virtuous cycle is both easier and more affordable than you would believe, and with the tools and technologies you have today. I recently helped start a team at EMC called "Pathfinders," focused on how to help companies navigate their way through this market transition, which is why our logo resembles a compass rose. It's a team of six very talented people, and me. ;)

I call on a lot of technology organizations, but am rarely encountering any topic that matters to the business. Compounding this problem is a bunch of vendors running around claiming their all-flash array or other widget "transforms business." If you work in IT, trust me when I say that we hear business leaders begging for their IT teams to help with this coming transition, and would rather buy pre-built infrastructure than have their people wasting time on local optimization instead of focusing on overall IT throughput. I'll be delivering a talk at Interface 2014 in Seattle next month, on how IT folks can get out ahead of whats coming, and skate to where the puck is going to be by developing the necessary skills and mindset now. We're going to follow that up with a workshop over dinner where we can dig into the steps, initiatives, and projects needed to get started, and how to go sell it to the CFO.

The HBR article above closed by saying "The distinctions between industries will become less pronounced than the differences between market leaders and laggards within the same categories." Your company wants and needs you to step up and help them be a market leader. In my infinite spare time, I'll be writing subsequent posts detailing how to start acquiring the skills and mindset necessary to be ready to catch the puck. However, if you'd like to talk about how you can help lead at your company, hit me up on LinkedIn, or Twitter. I'm a free resource, and am overjoyed at the privilege of doing this job!

IT Can't Win By Only Playing Defense.

One of the myriad benefits of my current role with EMC is that I get to work with the IT groups from hundreds of companies, and get exposed to a lot of different environments and viewpoints. It's been very interesting to see how different teams are responding to the pressures being placed on IT today.

In the majority of the companies I have worked at or been exposed to, there is an . .. . interesting relationship between IT and the rest of the company. If you work in IT, you know what I'm talking about. It sounds something like:

"IT is a cost center."
"Our budgets are shrinking."
"Data centers are old technology, and all of this will be running somewhere else soon."
"IT is slow, and unresponsive, and it's inhibiting the company's ability to innovate."

I've heard people say "perception is reality." I think a better way is to say that often perceptions create reality, in that they become self-fulfilling prophecies.

If you believe IT is [only] a cost center -  then your only response is to seek to drive down cost.
If you believe that IT budgets must shrink -  then your only option is to choose where to cut.
If you believe that on-premise data centers are obsolete - you are unlikely to invest in modernization.
If you believe that IT is slow and unresponsive, why would you provide training and budgets to change that?

Here is a law I believe wholeheartedly:  "Over time, all organizations get the IT service they deserve."

If you believe that technology isn't a competitive differentiator, why hire anything more than the candidate asking the lowest salary? You are sure to have your assumptions affirmed after a few hires.

My father led a challenging organization (ask me sometime - it's an interesting story), and he was constantly reading everything he could get his hands on around organizational theory and leadership. As a result, from a young age I received dinnertime lectures on Covey, De Pree, and Collins' writings and theories. Dad used to spend a lot of time talking about how short-term leadership can "hollow out" a company to show short-term savings. A new VP comes in, postpones maintenance and defers training ("because after all, IT is a cost center"), shows a few million saved, and gets promoted to a senior VP role with a nice pat on the back. In his short-sighted wake, IT is now further behind and deeper into technical debt. This becomes a negative, downward cycle.

Here is another law I believe:  "Rest assured that if you value yourself cheaply, the world will not raise your price."

IT has every reason to have a seat at the table, and more than most. The senior leadership of companies going forward will need a solid background in technology more than ever. Companies today cannot attract customers, transact business, communicate, or operate internally without technology. It is as fundamental to business as calculators, pens and paper were decades ago. Who are you to require a higher budget? Who else needs it more? Show me the big initiatives that engineering, marketing, sales, and operations have at your company and I'll show you a litany of requests for IT services before any of those projects can begin.

My father used to spend a lot of time theorizing about the differences between "management" and "leadership," and I've come to realize that he was pondering an important distinction that gets far too little thought. He finally decided that in simple terms - Management is getting daily things done. Leadership is deciding what we ought to be doing. In a world where IT has become so central to getting things done, a key role of IT leadership is to intercept the existing dynamic (see above) and outline how IT can help, and what it needs in resources to succeed. Why do anything else?

To accept what you know to be a losing proposition in constantly declining budget and headcount, and make cuts in areas you know to be strategic is to essentially resign yourself to just delaying the inevitable. Once you are on the downward spiral of missed deadlines, failed projects, and disappointed expectations, will the business be more inclined to give you the budget you need three years from now? Your only option in that world is to play defense, and dodge the axe of outsourcing as long as possible.

****Disclaimer:  Easier said than done, I know. Everyone has to take cuts at some point, and that's part of the benefit of on-premise, in-house IT. Try getting AWS to postpone their bill! It may be that in some years things get deferred. However, this shouldn't become the norm. There should be some discussion and understanding that this is a temporary setback, and needs to be remedied by a year of plenty, and that sustained cuts and deferrals aren't in anyone's interests.****

The best IT shops I visit today are characterized by a few common elements:

1. The business understands that effective use of technology is a key differentiator, and so is willing to invest in order to do it right.
2. IT leadership recognizes that they have to deliver value to deserve a seat at the table, and strongly advocates for the resources necessary for success.
3. From top to bottom, IT staff recognize that they are competing for their (internal) customers, and their jobs.

Now, I think all of us can agree that the above three elements are every IT leader's dream! However, very few inherit this situation, or find it naturally occurring in the business world. It's a rare species. Usually, it has to be created. The key to creating this dynamic is the decision that IT needs to go on the offensive. To get more salary, major league teams have to show a plan for how they are going to win more games. Once they win more games, more people attend, and ticket sales go up. Once the money is rolling in, the business side of the ball club is willing to think about growth, and investment. 

What does going on the offensive look like? IT has to find something the business cares about, and deliver quickly and reliably. If you are going to pick something the business cares about to get started, pick something as close to the decision maker's hearts as possible. 

Easier said than done, right? Here's a simple idea that has caught my imagination. A wise man told me that if you have all the facts and data, making the right decisions is relatively easy. The challenge is that we rarely have many facts or useful data. What if IT had access to Ph.D -level data scientists who understand business, and had them interview every VP about what it is they wish they knew? "What answers do you wish you had in order to run a more effective business?"  What if IT could have those Ph.D Data Scientists examine the company's data, and determine how to answer those questions, using the existing tools and technologies the company already owns? What if they then held a session with all the company leadership showing all of the questions, ranked by feasibility, and value, and highlighted which ones could be answered, and then gave the answers? What if all of that could be done in three weeks?

At the end of it, the leadership has a strategy for how to go about using information and technology to directly drive revenue and make better decisions which is what IT is all about in the first place. IT has undeniably brought value to the table, and delivered in rapid fashion. Best of all, it hardly took any time or cycles from IT, and didn't come with strings attached to large capital outlays for infrastructure. 

This theoretical service actually exists, and is exceedingly affordable. Pivotal Data Labs is an amazing part of the EMC/VMware/Pivotal Federation of companies, and has an amazing pool of world-class professors, consultants, and true data scientists that are accessible to customers. We're talking about less than $60K to get access to the types of talent that helped Goldman Sachs create their money-making models. Three weeks to having made a case that IT is worth investing in. 

Yes, I work for an IT vendor, but I'm not asking you to get more budget to spend on large storage arrays. I'm not asking you to buy Greenplum, or Pivotal HD. If you need those things at some point in the future, fine, we will be here for that. Increasingly, we are less about the hardware, and more about helping you compete in a world that demands flexibility, choice, and speed-to-value through self-service, automation, and software. Let's do it on the hardware you already own, or some whitebox stuff you buy at Fry's. Skeptical? I'd be happy to explain how we can help you do that - and I'm a free resource.

However - the above is just one idea. The larger point here is that IT must go on the offensive. By only playing defense, one can't hope to stay ahead of the pressures and disruption that businesses are going to experience in the coming decade. IT leadership has two choices - to shrink from engaging and to try to dodge the outsourcing axe as long as possible, or to try and take their budgets into their own hands, and make a strong case for why the effective use of technology is more critical than ever.

Many thanks to the great leaders who I have witnessed doing exactly that, and to my father for thinking out loud at the dinner table.

Creating Shared Vision, Part II

So - after a long period of doing other things - family vacation, training, multiple work trips, diving with sharks in Belize (it was so cool!), I finally decided that this is the afternoon I would sit down and finish this thought. If you haven't read the first part of this post - go read that first. This is the second half, where we get down to conclusions.

To review the challenge: how can 20 or 30 people of disparate and highly specialized disciplines quickly develop common vision and understanding on complex projects that no-one fully understands, and that aren't repeated?

1. Top-down "command and control" [often] doesn't work, because frequently if the leadership has the vision for what the final outcome will be (and they don't always), they almost always lack the deep technical expertise to deploy/build each part. IT projects are often very, very complicated and technical.
2. Bottom-up is too slow, because each person approaches the problem from a completely different viewpoint, because of their different areas of responsibility, and it's not possible for everyone to learn everything. . . . . and this is where the endless meetings come in.
3. Organic learning effects don't work, because most IT projects are one-offs, where that project with those technologies and team members will probably never happen again (I'm primarily talking about infrastructure projects, here).

So. .. . . how can IT groups quickly agree on the why, what, and how? (PMO can figure out the when, usually)

I think the answer is to find a reference model outside the organization. Unless you are Google, chances are someone else has done a similar project before. Better yet - find someone who has done a similar project many, many times, and who has deep expertise in each domain, but also sufficient scope to not only be able to explain each part, but also how they all go together.

Let's go back to the theoretical group trying to consolidate many smaller IT departments (part 1). 

• Security has their concerns, and doesn't understand the other pieces
• The virtualization, storage, and networking folks have pet peeves and issues they want to ensure get addressed.
• The VP often knows what's wrong with the current, and maybe what needs to be done to fix it, but may not be able to articulate a feasible technical solution that can accomplish that.
• The finance folks are worried, and I have to admit they often have reason to be.
• The VP of X is annoyed because project Y is being postponed until after this one.

What if (and I'm just totally spit-balling here!), we were able to take each of these groups, and expose them to deep-domain expertise in their field, and each department came back 8 hours later with an overview of the larger project and goals, and actionable specifics around their part in it? What would that be worth in terms of saved time, stress, endless meetings, conflict, waste, and compromises resulting in sub-optimal outcomes? What would that be worth to YOU as a leader, to have a team that identifies itself as productive, and effective, rather than what IT often gets labeled with? 

That's one of the value propositions of a portfolio of solutions, and companies. Rather than having security figuring out how to integrate a disparate solution with a backup technology built by another vendor, and a highly specialized storage widget made for a completely independent use case - what if all these solutions were designed with each other in mind, and with a single vision? What if there were products (and expertise) in each category that all "snapped" together to accomplish the task? Essentially - what if you could task thousands and thousands of people to develop an integrated solution before you needed it?

That's what I love to see come out of a really well-run engagement with customers. Ideally, after an executive briefing (we often have a joint session, and then break-outs by discipline) their VPs are satisfied that the team understands not only where they want to end up, but also each piece of how they will get there. The individual disciplines have gotten to beat up on (it's OK) and ask questions of experts who understand how all the pieces fit together, but also speak the [security|storage|analytics|development] language, and understand the pain and criticality of the field.

Essentially, I believe an engagement with a vendor should be about only a few key things:

A. How are you going to help me compete for and keep my customers, and my job? (If you don't understand that YOU as an individual have customers, and don't believe that you need to compete for your customers, we need to talk. There is no such thing as a captive customer base anymore. Your competitors are gleefully extending the lead if you are standing still)

B. What is the vision your product(s) were developed around, and how complete is that vision?

C. How can you help me rapidly and quickly deliver on the answers to question #1? (hint: shared vision)

Because of my tenure and because I enjoy it, I often get called in to talk with people who are either:

Painfully aware of point A, and actively looking for an answer to point C, 

OR:

people who are unaware of point A, and believe the "new" and "best" thing for [storage|networking|analytics|development] is going to cure cancer and solve world hunger [at least for their department]. There will always be companies willing to agree ("it's transformational!"), and sell them that "thing." 

So - this is why I am resolved to always, always, always start with "what are we really trying to do to help you compete?"   Unless I forget, am having a bad day, or have been brought in half-way through. 

In which case. . . . . would you do everyone a favor, and ask us? 

"What is the EMC+Pivotal+VMware+RSA+VCE vision for helping me compete for my customers?"

(And - btw - give all your vendors/partners an opportunity to answer that question!) 

Creating Shared Vision

I should first say that I have made a career (so far) out of IT Infrastructure. Aside from a short jaunt doing something else, I have worked in IT since I first got an internship when I was 15. So - I understand how very difficult it is, and have done everything from IT helpdesk, to being the IT Infrastructure Manager for a small group of shipping and logistics companies. I've worked for everything from a non-profit, to Washington Mutual Bank which had 55,000 employees at one point. I've burned the midnight oil upgrading Exchange, and sweated bullets when I couldn't bring things back online, and my maintenance window was fading fast. So - at numerous levels, in various industries, in two different countries - I've been there. The complexity and pressure IT Infrastructure teams have to cope with these days is tremendous. I am not saying that the technology isn't important, or is easy. However - it's not the technology that is the challenge for most organizations. It's the people.

Specifically, the challenge is in getting to the technology. Ask any project manager or team lead, and they will tell you that by the time the project has gotten to the "pointing and clicking" phase (the "doing" if you will), that step is 95% done. Think back through your own career - How often have you seen a project fail because some technology wouldn't work? If you have - I'm willing to bet it's still the very smallest fraction of the projects you have seen fail for myriad other reasons:

1. Budgetary challenges - the company is willing to spend $750K on yet another triple-redundant item for some other department - but IT cannot get $150K to set up even rudimentary DR capability (ignoring that the other expenditure/item will be a moot point if IT isn't running, anyway)
2. Lack of organizational will - the group has 30 initiatives to get done, and enough throughput (people and time) to handle 15. Your project got pushed to next year (for the third time)
3. Project problems - people leave, resources aren't available, contractors are unfamiliar with your environment, team members can't get along - you know what I'm talking about.
4. Too many silos - I know this sounds like a buzz-phrase, but have you ever been on an email thread of  >50 "replies" that keeps growing in the number of people on the thread - all to get something completely trivial done? Should it really be that hard to get a simple request filled? Should it require approval from 5 different people, and information from five others so one person a week from now can check a box?
5. The corollary to #4 is too much process. Ever been at a company where any change required three weeks of paperwork, two approval boards, and a three week waiting period?
6. The end-users reject the new project, either by not learning or doing what is needed of them, or outright and explicitly.

There are many more, but that's for another day. All of the above are project killers, for sure. But the one that I see again and again, and that I believe saps the productivity of IT like no other, is Lack of shared vision. Compared to this challenge, the others above are mere pretenders. Everyone has been both party to and victim of this merciless scourge of IT productivity.

Notice that all of the above are complete people problems, not technology problems. At a startup where two people could just get down to "clicking and doing" - and where there weren't a lot of decisions to be made, the technology project would be done in record time. It's the addition of more people, and more organizational issues that introduces the other challenges, and organizational complexity is something people create. 

Shared vision solves a host of ills. Typically - people want to succeed and will try, if they know what success looks like and how to get there. If everyone knows what they should be doing, and what the desired end-state is and why that is important, it greatly reduces the odds that problems #1-5 will be a significant obstacle. The Army spends a lot of time trying to train young leaders to distill and communicate "commander's intent" to their platoon or company. When difficulties are encountered, small units leaders can take individual action to circumvent or adapt to most problems, and still achieve the desired end-state. While they aren't always successful in these efforts, it's powerful when everyone is driving toward the same clearly-defined goal.

However - shared vision is incredibly difficult to create ex nihilo. Taking a group of people who have never done something before (of even trivial complexity), and explaining their individual roles in sufficient detail takes almost as much time as if you just did all the tasks yourself. Teaching a group of 30 soldiers a simple team task can take hours on end, and continual drill to keep it fresh. Obviously, that approach doesn't scale very well on tasks that can't be rehearsed.

This "top down" model completely breaks down when the task/project is something new, and that's the norm in IT projects, not the exception. To complicate this - how often do the leaders themselves actually understand (much less agree on) the desired outcome? That isn't necessarily a judgement on the leadership, because technology is changing so rapidly that it's nearly impossible for anyone to stay abreast of new developments across a wide range of disciplines and at sufficient detail for a "top-down" approach to work. Unfortunately - that is usually the way that most groups are organized - with an old-school, hierarchical, "command-and-control" structure with the authority at the top.

Take for example a fictitious organization that is consolidating a number of smaller IT groups into a shared services and shared datacenter model. At the point the technology folks were needing to make purchases and get to work in order to meet deadlines, the leadership was still trying to forge a common vision of what the purpose, scope, and desired results of the project were. No-one could buy anything or begin work until those decisions were made, and before those decisions could be made - everyone had to agree on a shared vision. The security folks could outline their requirements, but couldn't necessarily articulate what that would mean for the other groups, or vice-versa. The infrastructure folks weren't sure what they would be doing after the consolidation, and each group had concerns about what life would be like as a tenant on the final product. And all of this is completely necessary and normal. There's no judgement in what I am saying - all of those things do need to be done, and all of the people there are bright, dedicated, and impressively friendly and articulate, and they will get there. But, the end result remains the same, and is still sub-optimal - a lot of people are waiting on a few people, and the meetings continue day after day.

Another factor that needs to be considered is that very often the technical know-how and architecture expertise does not lie with the leadership, but rather with someone in an individual contributor role, or middle management. Frequently, the people who are best suited to making a decision around which technology or platform to adopt aren't the ones who have the title and corner office, but instead live out in the cubicle farm. These are typically the people who will be needed to make any project succeed, because they are the ones who will do the actual work, and are the subject-matter experts.

The pace of disruptive innovation in the technology world also negates the benefits of organic learning effects. Typically, if a company or team does something more than once, they develop some familiarity with the topic material, and the mechanics of completing the process, and they can deliver subsequent iterations of that same project in a fraction of the time initially required. As a case in point, consider the Boeing 787. The first unit took about 3.5 years to assemble and test. Today, Boeing is working to deliver 10 units per month. While learning effects are applicable across nearly any sector (doesn't have to be manufacturing), classical learning effects are dependent on the task being repeated a number of times.

So, how can IT groups short-circuit this process, and more quickly converge on a shared vision?

I'll throw it out there so you can mentally mull it over while I draft the conclusion to this!

(Click here for part II)

Why?

I meet with a lot of people, across a lot of different industries, in many states. You would think that every situation at each company would be a very different story, and while the people stand out, it is surprising how often the same themes come up again and again.

This blog is both for your benefit and mine. Writing it helps crystallize things rattling around in my head, and maybe something useful might end up in here from time to time that helps with something you're thinking about.