Transforming IT Means Transforming Your Team

Guest blog by Rich Richardson, who served as VP & CIO of Peter Kiewit & Sons, a $12 billion construction and engineering company, for five years. Rich is currently founder and president of Unravel-IT, an IT consulting firm.

We CIOs work amid a daunting set of challenges and contradictions, what Martha Heller calls "The CIO Paradox." Our teams need to be as prepared for these challenges as we do. A top CIO priority must be shifting the team’s focus from delivering and maintaining systems at the lowest cost to partnering with business unit leaders to solve business problems. When you add to this shift the increasing velocity of change in technology, we can all recognize a need for a game plan to help our teams be successful.

Soon after I became VP & CIO of a $12B+ construction and engineering company, I presented to the CEO and board of directors a focused technology strategy to lead us toward our goal of creating an integrated construction lifecycle.

During our planning meetings, the CEO said, “Technology should be a differentiator in the way we work and I believe it will be a legacy improvement for us all.” He also said to me, “The company is moving toward total dependence on technology, so be sure that you and your teams are ready for the change.”  He also added, “Oh, and watch the cost!” Who knew that was coming? ;-)

I walked away from the meeting with the following question going through my mind” “How do I develop a team that continuously masters new technology while delivering increasing value to the business, and managing costs, all at the right pace?”

I immediately realized that I needed to get organized about “getting my teams ready for our IT transformation.” I started by establishing five key indicators by which I would assess the team’s progress:

1. Business Engagement – What percentage of time is the team engaged with business partners on technology education and opportunities?
2. Business Feedback –  Would our internal customers promote our services to others?
3. Technology “Freshness” – Is new technology being introduced at the pace we’ve targeted?
4. IT Process “Freshness” – How often are processes evaluated to ensure they meet business needs and are relevant?
5. Team Development – How much training and development do team members participate in per year on average?

Know Where Your Team Stands

When we started on our journey, our scores across these five indicators were quite low.  Business Engagement was disorganized and unfocused;  some of our technology was 30+ years old and new technology was introduced only when forced by failures and outages; IT processes either did not exist or were so cost-driven that they did nothing to ensure reliability of service; team development activity was random and unstructured.

The organization had not clearly defined job titles, job descriptions or expected performance levels.

Looking at the team’s current capabilities, we found we were solid in the infrastructure and support areas but weak in the software engineering, architecture and leadership skillsets.

We inventoried all current technologies based on fulfilling the total lifecycle of our business. At the time we had well over 1000 applications that were decentralized across the business, mostly custom developed.

Making Transformation Happen

With our performance indicators in place, and knowledge of the status quo, here are the high level steps we took to transform IT -- and the IT team:

1. Vision: We established a clear vision of simplified business processes and standardized technologies.
2. Brand: We established a tagline that the team and business could rally around: “OneIM”. It was about being one team focused on delivering technology innovation for the business.
3. Ownership and accountability: We reorganized the IT department around hardware, software, support and governing disciplines.
4. Alignment: We developed performance measures based on business outcomes, not directives.
5. Talent Development: We created a talent development program made up of the following major areas:
   • Process
   • Technology
   • Delivery
   • Support
   • Business acumen
6. Vendor partnership: We partnered with technology and service providers to generate expertise needed to deliver the IT transformation on time, set a baseline where we wanted to go, and further define our talent needs.
7. Communication: We implemented a business engagement plan that included communications, technology ownership and performance measurements that ensured a feedback loop, and also generated new business objectives.
8. Revisit Key Indicators: We continually tracked progress against the five key indicators above. When any of the key indicators needed adjusting, we did so to ensure a continuously improving methodology.

Conclusion

We are in a time of rapid change in our industry. As leaders we must create a clear path and a set of behaviors for how our teams must operate to ensure both personal and professional success for all during this new age of transformation. For the CIO, this requires the creation of a vision of where IT and the business are going, and communication of your vision through branding and marketing. Results must be reported out to the entire business so that the impact of your team’s efforts is known. Finally, develop your teams so that they become comfortable creating, delivering and communicating amid constant change.