A CIO’s role demands a perspective beyond technology alone. Today, the C-suite role is centered around enabling decision-making with the effective use of technology, knowledge, and information. CIOs that have excelled at delivering results with agile practices are successful at propelling growth, driving efficiencies with automation, and creating winning customer experiences. In this article at Mckinsey & Company, Jason Inacio et al. explain the best practices CIOs must follow if they prepare to launch an agile transformation in their organization.
Best Practices to Follow
Top-Down Practices Are the Baseline
Agile practices are considered a bottom-up process. However, an enterprise-wide agile transformation demands a top-down approach as a prerequisite. CIOs must clearly define organizational goals, mission, cultural expectations, investment criteria, compliance guidelines, and operating principles for employees to understand the enterprise charter.
Long-Term Cultural Change
“Successful agile transformations extend far beyond speed, innovation, and cost savings,” say the authors. Tech leaders believe that long-term cultural change and digital maturity help agile implementation. CIOs must redefine the IT architecture during the agile transformation and develop capabilities to meet strategic priorities. These processes will help IT leaders enable their organizations to better adapt and thrive in the ‘new normal.’ The highly successful agile transformations offer benefits, such as efficiency, operational performance, and employee engagement.
Empowered Teams
True IT leaders believe that co-ownership and collaboration accelerate decision-making speed. This promotes connecting the right people from different groups and boosting productivity. During the transition to agile, IT leaders must build clear guidelines and frameworks to ensure consistency across customer-facing services and applications.
Lastly, agile transformation requires CIOs to provide their teams with various collaboration tools, self-service business intelligence dashboards, and product portfolio tools. Furthermore, it requires a new form of leadership. IT leaders must be exceptional listeners. They must also possess the ability to explain the why, what, and how of the agile transformation process. To read the original article, click on https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/cio-perspectives-on-leading-agile-change.
