Co-Creating the future of IT management - exciting developments in the pipeline.

These are some of my personal observations from the MITSymposium 2015. I wasn’t there to attend many sessions, I was there to meet people who can influence the industry and to get a feel of what is happening. My key finding: ‘There were some exciting examples of co-creation that can help shape the future of IT management’.

The theme of this year’s National IT and management symposium in the Netherlands was building digital trust. The opening keynote was by Geert Ensing ex CIO of ABN AMRO. Geert sketched the trends that necessitate ‘digital transformation’.

“It is not a question of if, and when, but a question of how fast can you transform”

However digital transformation requires new skills and capabilities from both the business & IT. The board room needs to invest in more digital capabilities as well as effectively govern IT. Not all boards are taking their role in Governing IT seriously, as was confirmed in a recent Isaca study, at the same time IT needs to shift the focus of attention from operations and become a ‘digitalization guide’ for the business.

Not so fast! Becoming a partner for the business requires trust and credibility. Many IT organizations do not have the trust and credibility to be invited into the boardroom, nor the right skills or talents,  and IT communication skills are somewhat lacking.

We are faced with a sort of catch-22 dilemma here. The business often doesn’t know what it doesn’t know about digital transformation and IT, ideally placed to help realize this, doesn’t always have the boardroom entry or influence.

I asked Geert afterwards about this dilemma, one of his Conclusions was ‘The CIO (and ALL IT staff) must be more outside-in focused than inside-out’. Indeed one of the top scoring ABC (Attitude, Behavior, Culture) cards in global assessment workshops is ‘IT is too internally focused’. The CIO must have sufficient business understanding to be the trusted partner?

I also discussed this dilemma at the conference with Aleksandr Zhuk from the BRMI. ‘IT must become a trusted partner in the conversation’, 'IT must think Boardroom’;  build ‘Business cases’ not ‘Technology proposals’. IT must do something to gain the trust and credibility if they want to move up the maturity chain from ‘Order taker’ to become ‘a strategic partner’ for the business (see the BRMI maturity model). Finally IT must stop thinking and fostering the culture of them and us! IT is the business!

BRM is one of the most critical capabilities that needs to be developed to overcome this dilemma and enable IT to become a business partner. Perhaps, in terms of the ABC cartoon below, the BRM’er becomes the marriage guidance counselor.

The BRMI has launched a range of BRM training and certification to help develop the required capabilities, some partners (Service Management Art) have added experiential learning in the form of business simulation games to help tyranslate theory into practice, as Aleksandr stated ‘participants (in the simulation) forget they are playing a game, they are living BRM in the game learning how to make the journey to become a more trusted partner for the business’.

In his presentation at the Symposium Aleksandr went on to add ‘Digital trust is a human thing’. Confirming it is about Attitude, Behavior, Culture. ‘Keep your word’ being a central value at every level in the organization. This confirms our own findings of the numerous business simulation sessions we conduct globally ‘sticking to agreements’ is a key take-away. BRM is about ‘promoting trust between internal and external parties’ , ‘helping break-down organizational silos and the them & us culture’ and helping ‘bridge the divide between business and IT’.

Exciting examples of co-creation to shape the future!

At the Symposium I spoke with Frits Bussemaker (CIONET), Herman van Bolhuis (CIONET and bITa Center) as well as Alejandro Debenedet (ex itSMF International) and Jan van Bon. I heard about exciting developments that involve engaging with more than 5700 CIOs as well as 225.000 practitioners through the latest co-creation between CIONET and ITWNET. In June 2016 this partnership will be hosting CIO CITY & NXTTCH16.

In another example of ‘co-creation’ Brian Johnson, one of the original authors of ITIL and architects of ITIL V2 has joined the ASL BISL foundation and will be lead author on the rewrite of the BISL best practices – focusing around Information management, a core capability in digital transformation. Additions to the best practices will include data governance and the information eco-system (e.g. multiple IT vendors, cloud).

The BRMI has launched BRM Connect, a series of global events (USA, Canada, Netherlands, Australia) together with partners, positioned as ‘networking and professional development events series’.

Another exciting co-creation started in Belgium is the iSMF and Isaca organizing joint sessions to promote IT Governance (COBIT) and IT Service Management. I hope other itSMF and Isaca chapters will follow suit. Here are the discoveries from an Isaca session in the Netherlands to raise awareness for COBIT.

All in all some exciting industry developments starting up in the Netherlands and Belgium.