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In my last blog, I tried to explain the factors that impact the direction .. < Back Why IT departments must reinvent themselves - Part 2 In my last blog, I tried to explain the factors that impact the direction .. In my last blog, I tried to explain the factors that impact the direction that IT departments need to take to stay relevant in the current business scenario. In this edition, I share my thoughts on the change in the culture of work within IT departments. We believe that our IT departments should deliver the same way that Thoughtworks delivers to its clients. - David Whalley, Thoughtworks CIO Traditionally, IT departments operate differently from the ‘delivery’ teams within the organization. This happens due to the nature of work, which in most cases is dominated by support and maintenance. This excuses them from being seen through the same lens as the delivery teams. However, this is no longer an accepted excuse. In the last few months, we have moved towards restructuring our teams along the lines of how businesses operate. With the current focus on ‘value first’, it is no longer okay to operate differently from any other product team. The expectation is that IT departments transform themselves into a ‘delivery focused’ team. Does this mean they are no longer a support/operations team? Yes. It may sound strange, but I advocate for IT departments to turn themselves into an innovation led and delivery oriented organization. Even though the primary focus of IT departments is on operations and ensuring that the business systems are running smooth, we need to constantly question the way we work. While it is important to keep the lights ON, IT departments need to lead the way by bringing business insights to their stakeholders, not just take orders. Here are some simple things these teams can do: Have a strong governance framework that helps prioritize your work along with your stakeholders. Make all your work visible to key stakeholders so that right prioritization can be done Let the work be driven by the value that it generates for its users. If you are doing any work that does not offer value to the stakeholders or the team, question why you are doing it Host internal planning meetings with the teams for weekly prioritization and to track the work progress. Define clear milestones and stick to them Host regular retrospective meetings for continuous improvement Establish proper communication channels for sharing your work and communicating with stakeholders. Establish a fast feedback mechanism that allows mid-way course correction and altering of priorities as needed Host regular showcases for your work and allow teams outside IT departments and immediate stakeholders to give you feedback With the focus on value creation, ask more questions on bringing efficiency, automation and self-service channels to the users And, most importantly, empathize with your stakeholders and partners, understand their needs and talk to them in the language that they understand Internal IT teams have a unique advantage within organizations because they know the internal business processes, know how the systems act and manage their infrastructure. This makes them best placed to understand the impact of changing business scenarios than anyone else in the organization. If you think of any business vertical, any technology or innovation/ideation that happens within an organization, you would find that IT teams play an important role in them. This makes me believe that with the right focus, internal IT departments can really make a difference in the way organizations operate and do businesses. Considering how important it is for T teams to work like delivery teams, there are some aspects of work and team culture that needs shaking up. From my experience of leading teams across multiple organizations, including Thoughtworks, I have found that changing the culture of the team, is not easy: However, to start the change, you can: Ask yourself if you are working on the most important task of the day Check the value of your work and the outcome you get out of it, repeatedly Share and communicate your plans to a wider group Ask if there are any alternatives to the repetitive stuff that you are doing? Is it delivering enough value to justify it? Can it be automated? Can it be done by users themselves? Can it be stopped? Think of ideas that can help you improve your own workplace and office and help you learn more skills Learn to co-create and collaborate across offices, across regions and teams The team first, always! Don’t limit your ideas to what only you can deliver. Learn to harness the power of collaboration and join people with different skills Tell yourself and your teams that it’s OK to fail as failing early and failing faster and changing course is better than failing too late into the cycle Turn your organizations into a continuous learning organization While aiming to change the culture of the team, IT teams need to be able to cover the entire spectrum of scope that includes ‘Create / Build / Configure / Implement / Roll out / Own and Support’ of their infrastructure and products. When the focus is shifted from BAU and maintenance to innovation and value creation, the work becomes more interesting and challenging. This allows IT teams to start making an even bigger difference than what they have been thus far. Previous Next

Podcasts on technology, business, innovation, digital transformation, strategy & leadership Videos. BizzTalk talk show - Leadership journey This was hosted by BizzTalk where I spoke about my leadership journey. Duration: 20 mins How to make Marketing and Sales Investment Impactful Using AI An interesting Panel Discussion onHow to make Marketing and Sales Investment Impactful Using AI delivered by Dr. Shivani Rai Gupta - Principal Data Scientist at Jio, Tejpal Singh Founder and Managing Director at STAD Enterprises and Swapnil Deshpande - Chief Digital Officer at Thoughtworks. Duration: 37 mins 52 seconds Empowering developers to innovate and improve effectivenss This was a webinar hosted by Times Techies where I was joined by Vivek Kant (CTO, Finserv Markets). We spoke about the developer effectiveness and platform thinking and how we can improve it. Duration: 1 hour Building a culture of sustainable innovation This was a webinar hosted by Hackerearth where I spoke about how one can build a sustainable innovation culture within the organization. Duration: 1 hour 3 minutes

Podcasts on technology, business, innovation, digital transformation, strategy & leadership Podcasts. Breaking down the barriers to the innovation In conversation with Alexey Villas-boas on how we can break down the barriers to innovation. Original link to thoughtworks.com Creating developer platform for a network enabled organization In conversation with Rebecca Parsons & Alexey Villas-boas about behind the scene story of NEO (a platform for network enabled organization) Original link to thoughtworks.com

Item List ART & SCIENCE OF CAREER & LEADERSHIP Read More BUILDING FOR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content. Read More ENTERPRISE INNOVATION & COLLABORATION Read More LEADING THROUGH DISRUPTION This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content. Read More SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content. Read More WORKSHOP ON “UNBLOCKING INNOVATION” Read More

Leadership. Trust does wonders to people A little story of a conversation between me and one of my product managers .. Read more .. Three models of building successful teams If you think of some of the most successful football club teams in the world .. Read more .. Guide for career progression - 3Ps process Do you know the effective way of moving forward in your career? If no, read more .. Read more .. Seven tricks to feel motivated at workplace and in life Have you ever felt de-motivated, dejected, disappointed or down hearted ... Read more .. Learning Emotional Intelligence There are two kinds of emotions that one can experience. Simple enough to guess ... Read more .. What exactly is a "collaboration"? When we gathered to discuss about Collaboration, questions came about What exactly is Collaboration? How we can achieve it? .. Read more .. How would you define leadership? On the face value of the question, it looks very simple to everyone, however ... Read more ..

Innovation. Putting innovation theory into practice In the first three parts of this series, we’ve explored the ideas of .. Read more .. Innovation in practice One of the core principles of our Innovate to Impact framework ... Read more .. Innovate to impact framework Every organization wants to innovate. Not everyone succeeds. .. Read more .. Building innovation engine In the always-on, digital economy change happens fast. Any business that .. Read more .. Learning innovation ! – Part II– Incremental & Radical Innovations The Incremental & Radical innovation techniques are most commonly used .. Read more .. Learning innovation ! – Part I – Innovation by Subtraction Many years ago I always used to think that innovation is ... Read more .. Innovation techniques – for the brilliant ideas in you Innovation is almost non-negotiable for every company today. Its important aspect that ... Read more ..

Strategy. Digital transformation – 8 inside characteristics of the modern & digital organizations The pandemic has changed the dynamics of almost every kind of business. . Read more .. Why IT departments must reinvent themselves - Part 3 In continuation from my previous blogs, here I write about the direction ... Read more .. Why IT departments must reinvent themselves - Part 2 In my last blog, I tried to explain the factors that impact the direction .. Read more .. Why IT departments must reinvent themselves - Part I IT departments are on the verge of being irrelevant to businesses. .. Read more .. Managing risks in operations & production support environment Tips on managing the risks on production environment Read more .. Be LEAN .. this year! The LEAN framework originates from the manufacturing system developed by Toyota called Toyota Production System ... Read more ..

Strategy. Digital transformation – 8 inside characteristics of the modern & digital organizations The pandemic has changed the dynamics of almost every kind of business. . Read more .. Why IT departments must reinvent themselves - Part 3 In continuation from my previous blogs, here I write about the direction ... Read more .. Why IT departments must reinvent themselves - Part 2 In my last blog, I tried to explain the factors that impact the direction .. Read more .. Why IT departments must reinvent themselves - Part I IT departments are on the verge of being irrelevant to businesses. .. Read more .. Managing risks in operations & production support environment Tips on managing the risks on production environment Read more .. Be LEAN .. this year! The LEAN framework originates from the manufacturing system developed by Toyota called Toyota Production System ... Read more ..

Innovation. Putting innovation theory into practice In the first three parts of this series, we’ve explored the ideas of .. Read more .. Innovation in practice One of the core principles of our Innovate to Impact framework ... Read more .. Innovate to impact framework Every organization wants to innovate. Not everyone succeeds. .. Read more .. Building innovation engine In the always-on, digital economy change happens fast. Any business that .. Read more .. Learning innovation ! – Part II– Incremental & Radical Innovations The Incremental & Radical innovation techniques are most commonly used .. Read more .. Learning innovation ! – Part I – Innovation by Subtraction Many years ago I always used to think that innovation is ... Read more .. Innovation techniques – for the brilliant ideas in you Innovation is almost non-negotiable for every company today. Its important aspect that ... Read more ..

Item List ART & SCIENCE OF CAREER & LEADERSHIP ​ Read More BUILDING FOR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content. Read More ENTERPRISE INNOVATION & COLLABORATION ​ Read More LEADING THROUGH DISRUPTION This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content. Read More SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content. Read More WORKSHOP ON “UNBLOCKING INNOVATION” ​ Read More

Leadership. Trust does wonders to people A little story of a conversation between me and one of my product managers .. Read more .. Three models of building successful teams If you think of some of the most successful football club teams in the world .. Read more .. Guide for career progression - 3Ps process Do you know the effective way of moving forward in your career? If no, read more .. Read more .. Seven tricks to feel motivated at workplace and in life Have you ever felt de-motivated, dejected, disappointed or down hearted ... Read more .. Learning Emotional Intelligence There are two kinds of emotions that one can experience. Simple enough to guess ... Read more .. What exactly is a "collaboration"? When we gathered to discuss about Collaboration, questions came about What exactly is Collaboration? How we can achieve it? .. Read more .. How would you define leadership? On the face value of the question, it looks very simple to everyone, however ... Read more ..