Scott Mills
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Action Points I. The Life Cycle of Adoption
Where do you fall in terms of adoption? Are you trying to create enterprise IT services to build foundational technology and be on the bleeding edge? Or do you prefer mission enabling technology or programmatic IT solutions and the leading edge?
II. The Bottom Line
Choosing a vendor is a rigorous process, but can be made easier by research, recognition of need, and relationship-building. There are so many small companies just waiting to become valued partners. Find ones that are able to really work with you to create the exact technology that will fit your needs.
III. Must-Haves for Cautious Adoption
There is a case to be made for staying behind the curve and letting all the dust settle before implementing new technology. Just because something can be done, doesn’t mean that it should. Taking time to wait until a technology hits the mature phase might be the best choice for your company.
The top IT leaders from Conservation International, Apex Systems, and Rentrak on:
Staying Ahead of the Curve: How to Ensure Your IT Organization Is in Touch with the Latest Industry Developments Scott Mills Vice President of Global IT, Conservation International Rob Waddell SVP, CIO, Principal, Apex Systems
IV. The Golden Rules for Developing IT
Innovative ideas can be found both in the marketplace and in-house. Allowing the IT team time to look, listen, and learn can yield incredible rewards in terms of new ideas and new technology. The next great idea is right around the corner. Wouldn’t you prefer it came from your company, not your competitors?
V. Essential Take-Aways
Even as you try to decide which technology to implement today, you have to keep an eye out on tomorrow. Creating a roadmap to help focus on future technologies may just help keep you on the right path in regard to current ones.
Contents About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.2 Scott Mills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.3 Rob Waddell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.7 Timothy Pitzer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.10 Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points. . . p.12
Timothy Pitzer SVP, Theatrical IT & Operations, Rentrak Corporation
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ew technology comes out daily; the key for every company is to determine when exactly to start using it. Are you on the bleeding edge, the leading edge, or are you a cautious adopter? Depending on the needs of the company and the technology, any one of those choices may be the right one. How do you decide which way to go? Listen to your IT team. Give them room not only to watch for new technology but even to create it themselves. There is no better resource for innovation than IT. At the same time, consider the unique needs of your business and industry, and seek input from others in the company. In the ExecBlueprint, three leaders in IT will discuss where they stand on the adoption spectrum and why. Is cautious adoption best to avoid potentially harmful glitches? Is early adoption a better choice to avoid falling behind while not taking extreme risks? Or is standing on the bleeding edge, allowing IT to build and leverage its own technologies, the best way to stay ahead of the curve? n
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About the Authors Scott Mills
Vice President of Global IT, Conservation International
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cott Mills is the vice president of global IT at Conservation International, a global NGO dedicated to protecting our natural resources and human well being. Previously, Mr. Mills was the vice president and chief information officer for AED (now FHI360), a global non-profit with a presence in over 100 countries. Mr. Mills combines over 20 years of experience working in the international NGO/nonprofit sector and higher education, including a stint as the CIO at Trinity College and director of Development Studies at Northwestern State University before
that. At CI, Mr. Mills is responsible for the strategic vision for IT and has focused his efforts on building an IT services and infrastructure that can be supported globally in some of the more demanding geographic environments in the world. In addition, the IT unit at CI has been streamlining the IT service management processes and implementing the ITIL® framework for process management as IT at CI shifts from an internally-focused cost center to an IT service delivery organization. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a master’s degree in Linguistics with post-graduate
work in Educational Technology; he has several technical certifications including in ITIL v2/v3 and IT service management, and he holds an executive certificate in Strategy and Innovation from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
☛ Read Scott’s insights on Page 3
Rob Waddell
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SVP, CIO, Principal, Apex Systems
ob Waddell currently serves as senior vice president, CIO, and principal at Apex Systems He has over 30 years of experience in information technology and joined Apex in December of 2006. He came to Apex as a partner with Tatum Partners, a CFO/CIO consultancy. Prior to joining Tatum, Mr. Waddell was VP of IT for Markel Corporation’s North America Operations. His prior Richmond-based experience includes the role of director of technology for a start-up, Experient Technologies, and five years with Capital One as a senior consultant to critical business applications and programs. His
tenure with Capital One began as a senior systems consultant through Metro Information Services, and he served on Metro’s senior leadership team. Mr. Waddell began his career in 1983 at SAIC working as a systems analyst on the Joint Cruise Missile Program (Tomahawk). In 1988, he joined McDonnell Douglas Aerospace to continue his work on Cruise Missiles as a senior systems engineer and site manager at CINCPAC headquarters. Mr. Waddell is a founding member and first chairman of the VCU School of Business IS Advisory Board and is a guest lecturer and mentor in the Executive
Master’s program. He has also served on the board of the Greater Richmond Technology Council. He is a native of Virginia and graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in Business Management and Masters work in IT. Mr. Waddell, his wife, Joan, and son, Matt, live in Richmond, Virginia. An avid runner, he has completed 27 marathons including 15 consecutive Richmond marathons and eight Boston marathons.
☛ Read Rob’s insights on Page 7
Timothy Pitzer
SVP, Theatrical IT & Operations, Rentrak Corporation
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or two decades, Tim Pitzer has been serving the motion picture industry by zealously fusing his passion for technology and applications. Beginning his career as a marketer, Mr. Pitzer quickly realized that powerful campaigns were inspired by painstaking research
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and encyclopedic information; math — more than glitz — drives success. With that mantra in mind, Mr. Pitzer built and leads a team of creative innovators in an ongoing quest to enhance and amaze. Today, Mr. Pitzer is responsible for developing Rentrak’s Theatrical products
worldwide, serving more than three dozen countries and supporting Rentrak’s global operations and offices.
☛ Read Tim’s insights on Page 10
About the Authors ExecBlueprints 2
Scott Mills Vice President of Global IT, Conservation International
The Global Technology Landscape At an international non-government organization (NGO) like Conservation International (CI), managing IT is very challenging due to the environmental factors and geographic areas where we work. With a presence throughout Africa, Madagascar, South America, and Asia as well as the Pacific islands with our headquarters in the U.S., Conservation International has to be able to carry out our mission to improve human well being by protecting our natural resources in some very different technology landscapes. From offices in Papua New Guinea with a few hours of power a day, terrible if any Internet connectivity and barely any cellular access, to a state of the art IT infrastructure in the U.S., we must adapt our technology services to still be effective. Despite this complex global environment and limitations, technology use at CI is both pervasive throughout all of our programs and operations, but also essential to our success. As the vice president of global IT at CI, it is my job to outline the strategic vision for IT and lead the global technology team at Conservation International, including the support of our enterprise IT services such as connectivity, security, application management, and IT service management. I also liaise
with our program teams and our field programs on what we call programmatic IT solutions, which are the types of technology (mapping and GIS, big data analytics and visualization, mobile applications for data collection, and remote monitoring systems) that we use in our programs and our projects that enable our mission to help protect our environment and improve the livelihood of our beneficiaries. In order to keep ahead of the technology curve to prioritize and utilize our technology resources within CI, we divide technology into two major categories: transactional/foundational technology or enterprise IT services and strategic/ mission enabling technology or programmatic IT solutions.
Setting the Technology Foundation and Leveraging the Latest Technologies At CI we have outlined a few key requirements that must be met for any enterprise IT service to work within our diverse, global environment. Enterprise IT services must be globally accessible and scalable, intuitive, functional, and user friendly, cost effective and sustainable, highly available and redundant, secure and legally compliant, portable and mobile.
Scott Mills Vice President of Global IT Conservation International
“IT at CI must be able to leverage the latest technology to bridge the gaps that come from working across nearly every time zone in a very distributed and decentralized organization.” • Has 20 years of experience working in the international NGO/non-profit sector and higher education • Held position as CIO at Trinity College • Previously VP and CIO for AED (now FHI360) • Earned an executive certificate in Strategy and Innovation from MIT’s Sloan School of Management Mr. Mills can be e-mailed at [email protected]
In order to effectively and efficiently deliver our enterprise IT services, we have focused our professional development resources not on the technology itself, but on
In general, my observation is that, in a global organization, the further away from headquarters, the more open people are to innovation and change. So as part of the professional development of the IT staff, we set aside resources and strongly encourage them to get out to the field programs and experience what they have to deal with trying to utilize technology. Scott Mills Vice President of Global IT, Conservation International © Books24x7, 2013
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Scott Mills
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Vice President of Global IT, Conservation International
the IT Service Management (ITIL® v3) frameworks and Project Management (PMBOK®) methodologies we must utilize to effective and efficiently deliver IT globally. For enterprise IT services, our goal is not to be on the bleeding edge, it is to: • Identify and implement proven methodologies and adapt them to our unique global environment as an international non-profit. • Understand the technology landscape (i.e., cloud computing) and how we can take advantage of these trends to deliver value to CI.
Cloud, Mobile, and BYOD: Riding the Wave Instead of Drowning For example we focus on taking advantage of trends like the consumerization of IT, bring your own device policies, and cloud services by embracing them, rather than fighting them. And in order to do that, we focus our professional development not on software or hardware technology certifications, but on giving the IT staff the skills they need to adapt and lead change management, user adoption, and IT service management. In the case of a methodology like ITILv3, we chose to have a few key staff within IT get full certification for ITIL and then they simplified and adapted the framework for implementation in our environment. Rather than train our entire IT staff, which would be cost prohibitive and not constructive because it would be too confusing to have all of IT trying to determine how to implement it, we had them get up to speed in © Books24x7, 2013
Key Requirements for Building Enterprise IT Services Globally Accessible and Scalable Intuitive, Functional, and User Friendly Cost Effective and Sustainable Highly Available and Redundant Secure and Legally Compliant Portable and Mobile ITIL foundations — terminology, concepts, etc., so our internal ITIL experts could use a train-the-trainer model to promote knowledge transfer, adaptation, and adoption of the framework within IT. In a global organization, it costs a fortune to maintain a global premise-based network. Especially with our global reach, installing servers and technology in remote areas with spotty connectivity and frequent loss of power, it is very, very expensive to keep the network running. We have been able to save a lot of money by moving to mobile and cloud computing, minimizing our dependence on the onsite infrastructure. This also enables us to
distribute our staff better as they aren’t tied down to locations based on the amount of hardware we have on site, but on where they can be utilized in the most effective and efficient way possible to support our services. Cloud computing is a much more effective model for us to maintain and add to our enterprise IT services without adding IT staff. As a result of this change, we have slashed our budget by nearly a million dollars over the course of the past 24 months just for operating expenses. Those are resources we can roll back into the professional development and engagement of our existing staff.
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Scott Mills Vice President of Global IT, Conservation International
Keeping the Innovation Edge CI also prides itself on being innovative and taking innovation to scale so it provides us with a strategic advantage and helps demonstrate the impact of our programmatic work. Our programmatic IT solutions must be mission driven, innovative and flexible, partnership friendly, and repeatable, measurable, and scalable. This means that CI must be able to discover new and innovative ideas, harvest them, and use technology as a catalyst for taking them to scale across CI. This requires a different skillset, a different mindset for technology, one more willing to try new technologies and to live on the bleeding edge than one needs for delivery and support of enterprise IT services. And it also requires a completely different mindset for professional development and to encourage a culture of innovation.
The Leading User Principle One way to encourage “thinking out of the box” and for our staff to look at ways to improve our technology solutions is to utilize the “Leading User Principle” which is outlined in the strategy and innovation methodology from MIT. The “Leading User Principle” paraphrased, states you should seek out the users who are modifying the product and find out why a product is not being used as intended as a way to improve or innovate that product. When people are not following processes, or are creating shadow processes (aka rogue or shadow IT), try to spend some time to figure out why they are © Books24x7, 2013
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Seeing the Future At CI, we envision a technology future that isn’t just mobile accessible, but is a mobile-only environment. We’ve experienced this future already as most of our staff is based overseas and many of them already work in environments completely dominated by smartphone and mobile technology, with little to no practical way for them to effectively use desktop or even laptop-dependent technology. We saw this future, not by traveling in time, but by spending many hours in economy class seats traveling to the farthest flung parts of the world to see how our programs really work in technology-constrained environments.
doing something different. If you keep an open mind, you may find these users are developing innovative tools or services that could be made repeatable, scaled up, and rolled out to the rest of the business.
Get Out of Your Comfort Zone and Go See the World In general, my observation is that, in a global organization, the further away from headquarters, the more open people are to innovation and change. So as part of the professional development of the IT staff, we set aside resources and strongly encourage them to get out to the field programs and experience what they have to deal with trying to utilize technology. As an unknown (but very wise) author said, “innovation comes from the edges, from solving real problems with constrained resources. Change happens at the frontier.” At headquarters, it is just assumed that everything will remain the same and technology is always on, always available. As a result, making the case for change is often harder to do with these employees and they are a bit more resistant to change. This is especially true with IT staff, so I push my director level and above IT staff to get out to the field so they can see technology that works in the
field and develop IT services that work for CI globally, not just in the U.S., where we have gobs of bandwidth. This has led to us requiring that all new IT solutions and services be operating system, browser, device agnostic, and most importantly, mobile accessible and fully functional. This has helped us focus our IT resources on filling in our skill set gaps on mobile technology and made us broaden our support services and competencies beyond the Microsoft ecosphere into Apple, Google, and Amazon as well as new cloud startups and mobile providers.
Identifying and Filling in the Gaps By following these guidelines and thinking strategically about our enterprise IT services and programmatic IT solutions, we are outlining a roadmap for Conservation International that is focused on supporting our effective and efficient operations and enabling our mission and achieving more impact. On the enterprise front we are filling in our gaps around IT service management, project management, and placing an emphasis on connecting our users to the cloud securely and with the tools they need, not what we dictate. We try to control only what we need Scott Mills ExecBlueprints 5
Scott Mills Vice President of Global IT, Conservation International
to and resist the urge to dictate to our users what we don’t need to. On the our programmatic IT solutions, we are focusing on mobile apps, GIS, “big data” analytics, and visualization because we’ve learned that our scientists, technical staff, and field-based users already are applying these to improve their work and demonstrate our impact.
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Building a High Performing Team Most importantly, we have learned that to capitalize on these newer technologies and to execute on this vision for CI, we must spend more time developing IT as a globally high performing team. We haven’t spent our limited professional development resources the way IT traditionally does, by focusing solely on a whole bunch of IT-specific training and certification courses for IT staff.
(continued) Instead, much of our time and energy has been spent building a cohesive team with a unified vision, buy in, and setting roles and responsibilities to replace the fragmented system that was previously in place. As a result, CI now sees IT not a just a bunch of technology geeks, but as experts in project management, service delivery, and even as partners in enabling our mission: protecting nature for human wellbeing … and protecting the future. n
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Rob Waddell SVP, CIO, Principal, Apex Systems
Early Adoption Our IT department is an early adopter of certain technology trends such as mobility and cloudbased services; however, we carefully consider whether such trends are aligned with what is important to our business. In addition, our rate of adoption really depends on how that technology solution fares in our pilot-based vetting process. We use the pilot approach to let things bake for a while and see how they play out with our user-based pilot committees. We refactor the committee input back into the decision-making process to help set direction. This approach recently played out very well for our assessment of mobility options for our sales force; we found a precise intersection of the right technology and data for our highly mobile account managers. As a matter of fact, this same approach is what led us to the full adoption of SaaS solutions for our most critical business applications. In doing so, this has put us in a position to leverage our key solution providers to quickly bring additional competitive-edge point solutions for rapid pilot evaluation and potential adoption. We will not shy away from working with something new, but we will never jump in and start using something in production without put-
ting it through our business-oriented vetting process first.
Filling Gaps We keep a lean IT organization, and our motto is to “eat our own dog food.” We are an IT staffing company, and we use the same model internally for our own IT department. Web development, for example, is an area in which I do not have an internal person assigned. Instead, we have built a strategic relationship with a local firm. We push out changes to them through our tightly controlled change management process, they execute changes, we test, and we put them into production, accordingly. On the other hand, we staff heavily when we need to execute projects that require more resources, so we will bring in suppliers and trusted partners on an as-needed basis. Right now we are exploring ways to embrace new technologies. I encourage the team to explore these through the providers of that technology, which helps me get a better handle on it with partners at the table. That said, I do not feel as if I am lacking in any particular technology. I have what I need; I can reach out to the suppliers and
Rob Waddell SVP, CIO, Principal Apex Systems
“We are careful early adopters.” • Has 30 years of experience in IT • Began career at SAIC working on the Joint Cruise Missile Program (Tomahawk) • Founding member and first chairman of the VCU School of Business IS Advisory Board • Earned Business Management degree from Virginia Tech Mr. Waddell can be e-mailed at [email protected]
they bring it back to me in a strategic way. We keep business intelligence initiatives close to the vest, because we do not want to give our competitors insight into our data. We have many strategic uses for BI;
When we are looking at our strategic technologies, we want to find the organization we believe will succeed, but perhaps has not succeeded yet. Maybe their technology is just emerging with some innovative processes coming out of that technology, but we feel confident we can help that organization become more mature because of our internal processes, and in return, we develop a strategic partner and gain innovative technology. Rob Waddell SVP, CIO, Principal Apex Systems © Books24x7, 2013
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Rob Waddell
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SVP, CIO, Principal, Apex Systems
however, two of them are very important to our competitive edge: classification of our products and profitability of our transactions, by numerous dimensions. We have been onboarding the right individuals to work in this area and continue to fill this gap.
Working with External Vendors Before bringing in an external supplier for some type of value-add technology or solution, it is important to really understand what you are getting. We all consult Gartner, Forrester, and the various researchbased providers of information. Beyond the initial research, it is important to thoroughly investigate their track record with clients. Ask the tough questions to understand how good they really are. We talk to no less than three of their references for 30 minutes or more to dig into their track record. The second strategy we use is to find a partner who is just emerging in their discipline. When we are looking at our strategic technologies, we want to find the organization we believe will
succeed, but perhaps has not succeeded yet. Maybe their technology is just emerging with some innovative processes coming out of that technology, but we feel confident we can help that organization become more mature because of our internal processes, and in return, we develop a strategic partner and gain innovative technology. If we feel the organization is a match, we like to help them grow as we grow. I believe that is something of a “holy grail” in terms of using suppliers to give your company competitive edge for an appropriate price. This is not always easy to do, particularly when you are working with larger organizations that want you to take what they’ve got (and what the masses have). The other advantage to smaller partners is that we are able to negotiate more affordable deals. There is an element of risk, because they are not necessarily fully baked, but we will only enter a deal if we feel good about what they have already done, they prove to be financially sound, and if we get the sense they are really driven and excited to work with us.
Growing Talent and Developing Skills To help us stay innovative, we like to bring in new, emerging talent. As one example, we bring young workers into our infrastructure teams through an internship program. Our goal is not to teach them technology—they are pretty good at that already. Rather, we like to grow them into technology and teach them how to work with our teams, how to run a successful project, how to have a conversation with an internal business customer, and how to think creatively on behalf of the business. They typically come to us with some core technical strength, and then we aim to round them out to have more project-based soft skills and to become more business-savvy team contributors.
IT Security It is important to mention that we have raised the importance and the visibility of IT security within the company. We have pulled in an outside firm that has been working with the Department of Defense on cyber terrorism initiatives. The
Objectives of Business Intelligence Classification of Products
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Profitability of our Transactions
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Rob Waddell
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SVP, CIO, Principal, Apex Systems
organization brought so much information to the table on where we need to be from a security perspective, based on today’s threats. They used COBIT, the best information security maturity model that fit our business and technology profile. On their initial assessment, we rated fairly well for an initial assessment; however, one of the gaps recognized was the lack of an IT Security Steering Committee (ISSC) to push important information security initiatives to our Configuration Control Board (Governance). I considered this so important that I immediately reassigned someone in my organization to own risk and compliance, and to
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Expert Advice We recently brought in a partner with a solution that was 90 percent of what we needed for a critical business application. When we negotiated the deal, we were also able to negotiate a free piece of software, which is basically a transportation port for all of our transactions to flow into our HR, finance, and BI platforms. By going through a mid-tier supplier and asking them some tough questions, we were able to identify and customize a solution that works perfectly for us. When we asked our partner if they had something along these lines, they told us they did, but nobody has really embraced it yet, and they don’t really push it. In the end, this solution has become a competitive advantage for us. Personally, I am not interested in reinventing the wheel, and my senior management team is aligned with me in this approach.
execute the mission of the ISSC. Incident management and cyber security are important issues to consider, and working with an
outside organization has helped us mature rapidly in this area. n
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Timothy Pitzer SVP, Theatrical IT & Operations, Rentrak Corporation
In my view, habitual behaviors of a customer base should only be changed for compelling reasons, and thus the introduction of new technology that touches the user-experience should be viewed through that lens. Timothy Pitzer SVP, Theatrical IT & Operations Rentrak Corporation
The Value of Cautious Adoption For over a dozen years, I have led teams of developers responsible for creating web applications designed to provide insight into motion picture viewership. The customer bases for these services have largely been movie studio distribution executives and management but often included other segments as well, and the applications needed the flexibility to serve several different verticals and strata within those verticals. I am an activist for platforms that are stable, where performance is benchmarked rela-
tive to meeting and/or exceeding client expectations. On the whole, my bias is to follow a more judicious approach to advancing the ball of a production environment, and I find that this is not so atypical for products and services in the mature phase of their life cycles. There are clearly benefits to this guarded approach. Historically, I have not immediately devoted resources to researching or applying new technology for its own sake. Just because we can do something novel, does not mean we should. Further, as a purveyor of business intelligence, adoption
Expert Advice There are many ways to permit an investment of time in an experimental framework away from production work. One of the most interesting of these implementations (albeit not the most stalwart) is often termed “the day of innovation.” With the day of innovation, a team of IT professionals are permitted to assign work to themselves on some type of recurring schedule. Often, there is a rule set about what kinds of projects qualify for attention during this day, but I have found it more valuable not to apply rules. I want access to the buzz-worthy efforts happening outside of my areas of focus, and my information technology staff are frankly the best ambassadors for those happenings. On the day of innovation, my team explores whatever individual topic they find compelling at the time. In the past three years where my current team has exercised this optional experiment, seven truly ingenious functional enhancements have surfaced and four of these inventions have cautiously been promoted into the production environment. While four innovations in three years may seem like a poor return on a full resource-day per month, in my view these represent four leaps forward that would have otherwise been introduced by a pioneering competitor. The truth is that the not-ready-for-primetime topics that have yet to see the light of day do reflect areas of focus completely outside my field of vision. The monthly activity allows me a better chance of staying abreast of interesting trends that my own team members find absorbing. © Books24x7, 2013
Timothy Pitzer SVP, Theatrical IT & Operations Rentrak Corporation
“I would not classify my viewpoint as an eager early-adopter of emerging trends.” • 20 years of experience in the motion picture industry • Built and leads a team of creative innovators • Currently responsible for developing Rentrak’s Theatrical products worldwide Mr. Pitzer can be e-mailed at [email protected]
of incipient technology often requires end-user buy-in on at least two critical levels. First, new tech often alters the user experience (at least, I have found this to be true for advances that technologists generally find exciting). I am quite sure that every information technology professional has stories about less-than-ideal experiences when fundamentally changing even fine points of navigation. In my view, habitual behaviors of a customer base should only be changed for compelling reasons, and thus the introduction of new technology that touches the user-experience should be viewed through that lens. Second, new tech often lives clientTimothy Pitzer ExecBlueprints 10
Timothy Pitzer
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SVP, Theatrical IT & Operations, Rentrak Corporation
A Balanced Approach
Innovation
side (again, this is generally true for advances that technologists get excited about). The shift to clientside computational processing requires that the right hardware be available within the shops of key customers. As an advocate of cautious change management, I do not find it surprising that some of the largest enterprises in the world still rely upon deprecated software, thus making it challenging to implement the most groundbreaking new approaches to old problems.
Balancing Cautious Adoption with Progress However, one of the truisms I value most is that ultimately, the actual damage that an enterprise will face if it over-commits to technocaution is the loss of fluency with emerging developments. The issue is rightly not “make a case for your
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Caution
innovation speed,” given that one size does not fit all, and nearly all answers will be justified to the respondent. Rather, the issue is how information technology infrastructures properly pursue innovation and technology adoption outside the realm of implementation. It is my opinion that the proper balance between innovation and cautious adoption must involve a development cycle that includes allowances for IT departments to experiment and innovate in a silo that is separated from the production environment. Budgeting time away from production enhancement is often greeted with cringes from a business team that feels pinched for resources (and virtually all mature business teams feel pinched for resources), but setting that time aside has proven itself absolutely central to a healthy information technology ecosystem.
Devoting Time to Explore an Experimental Framework Staying ahead of the curve cannot solely be measured by the version of technology that runs production systems. Rather, it is incumbent on all information technology executives to have a pulse-reading on developments in all kinds of industries. That would be a tall order without the help and assistance of the staff entrusted to advance and support our production services. A solid managerial plan, therefore, must include a formalized and thoughtful way to allow our staffers to contribute ideas and explore issues that may, in the end, prove to be “the next big thing.” n
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Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points I. The Life Cycle of Adoption In order to be on the bleeding edge, you must encourage a culture of innovation and professionals willing to try new technologies. Programmatic IT solutions must be: • Mission driven • Innovative and flexible • Partnership-friendly • Repeatable, measurable, and scalable The leading edge requires different skills and focuses more on professional development resources and efficient delivery of services. Resources are proven before they are adopted. Enterprise IT services should be: • Globally accessible and scalable • Intuitive, functional, and user friendly • Cost effective and sustainable • Highly available and redundant • Secure and legally compliant • Portable and mobile
II. The Bottom Line Vendors can provide a valuable service, but only if you know exactly what you want them to do. Before you pick a vendor, you should: • Consult Gartner, Forrester, and other research providers • Investigate their track record with clients • Check their references Picking a smaller vendor that is new to the field has distinct advantages. For example, it: • allows for a strategic partnership to be built • helps both sides to gain innovative technologies • deters the one-size-fits-all approach
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• enables the negotiation of more affordable deals
III. Must-Haves for Cautious Adoption Not all companies can afford to be on the bleeding edge, or even the leading edge. In some industries, security and business requirements require IT to wait until a technology is stable before it is implemented. Regardless of risk tolerance, technology should always be implemented for the good of the company and not just for the sake of technology. In almost all cases, it requires end-user buy in. Important considerations include: • The risk of creating difficulty for users. Any updates that change the user experience should be approached very cautiously. • Possible implementation challenges. Shifting technology to the client-side requires that the right hardware be available to key customers. • The importance of a flexible approach. While there can be a loss of fluency if too much caution is used, finding that sweet spot between innovation and caution is key to successful adoption.
IV. The Golden Rules for Developing IT There are many products on the market, but ones that truly meet your needs may be best created in-house. Allowing IT a certain amount of freedom to fiddle with ideas and be truly innovative will most certainly reap large rewards. Ways to improve innovation and experimentation include: • Giving staff designated time to do whatever they want. This could occur weekly, monthly, quarterly, but should not be limited to specific areas.
• Sending key IT members to professional development classes. They can then share what they learn with the rest of the staff. • Finding users who have modified the product to uncover what they have changed and why. This type of shadow IT can yield innovative tools that can be rolled out to the rest of the business. • Getting people out in the field. The further out in the field you go, the more open to innovation and change you become. Send people out into the field to learn what conditions are really like at other sites so they better understand the challenges of their users. • Building a better team. Teamwork is essential to success. A strong team will allow for better buy in, a unified vision, and a feeling of partners instead of rivals.
V. Essential Take-Aways A roadmap that focuses on enterprise IT services and programmatic IT solutions is the best combination of planning for both the bleeding and leading edge. On the enterprise side, you should focus on: • Filling the gaps around IT service management • Refining your project management • Connecting users to the cloud On the programmatic IT side, this includes: • Focusing on mobile apps • Looking at big data analytics • Applying what you have learned in the field n
• Allowing interns access to technology to allow them to build skills and better understand the needs and wants of the business.
Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points ExecBlueprints 12
Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points
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? 10 Key Questions and Discussion Points 1 1 2 2 1 3 3 2 4 1 4 3 2 5 1 5 4 6 3 2 1 6 5 4 7 3 2 7 1 6 5 8 4 3 8 2 7 1 6 9 5 4 9 3 8 2 7 10 1 6 5 10 4 9 3 8 2 7 1 6 5 10 4 9 3 8 2 7 6 5 10 4 9 3 8 7 6 5 10 4 9 8 7 6 5 10 9 8 7 6 10 9 8 7 10 9 8 10 9 10
Would you consider your IT department to typically be an early adopter of technology trends? Why or why not? Is this typical of your industry? Where is the skill level of your IT department compared to where you need it to be? Do you think this is typical of your industry? Are you concerned about the ability of your IT department to keep up with technology changes? What are the main skill gaps that you have identified in your IT department? How long have these skill gaps existed? Which of these gaps poses the greatest risk to your business? In the next 12 months, will you implement any educational or training programs to address the skill gaps in your workforce? Will this represent a change from your past practices? If so, how? Have you worked with any outside consultants to identify skill gaps or to strengthen your department? If so, what services did they provide? If not, do you anticipate doing so in the future? Have you outsourced any IT tasks or used vendors because of a skill gap within your department? What tasks needed to be performed? Is it more or less cost-effective to outsource these tasks? What are your best practices for communicating with your company’s senior leadership team about areas in which your team needs to develop? How do you ensure the rest of the C-suite understands the importance of technological skills? How do you, as CIO, stay abreast of the technology trends affecting your industry? Do you subscribe to industry publications or read blogs? Do you belong to any industry groups? How do you identify the trends most applicable to your company? What are the most important trends that you’re currently focusing on? Why are they important to your company? Why are they important to your industry? Is your company currently poised to adapt to these trends? In the next 12 months, do you plan on hiring new employees to fill skill gaps? If so, what gaps will you seek to fill? Do you anticipate any difficulty finding candidates with these skills?
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Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points ExecBlueprints 13
ExecBlueprints
™
in partnership with Aspatore Books
Action Points I. The Life Cycle of Adoption
Where do you fall in terms of adoption? Are you trying to create enterprise IT services to build foundational technology and be on the bleeding edge? Or do you prefer mission enabling technology or programmatic IT solutions and the leading edge?
II. The Bottom Line
Choosing a vendor is a rigorous process, but can be made easier by research, recognition of need, and relationship-building. There are so many small companies just waiting to become valued partners. Find ones that are able to really work with you to create the exact technology that will fit your needs.
III. Must-Haves for Cautious Adoption
There is a case to be made for staying behind the curve and letting all the dust settle before implementing new technology. Just because something can be done, doesn’t mean that it should. Taking time to wait until a technology hits the mature phase might be the best choice for your company.
The top IT leaders from Conservation International, Apex Systems, and Rentrak on:
Staying Ahead of the Curve: How to Ensure Your IT Organization Is in Touch with the Latest Industry Developments Scott Mills Vice President of Global IT, Conservation International Rob Waddell SVP, CIO, Principal, Apex Systems
IV. The Golden Rules for Developing IT
Innovative ideas can be found both in the marketplace and in-house. Allowing the IT team time to look, listen, and learn can yield incredible rewards in terms of new ideas and new technology. The next great idea is right around the corner. Wouldn’t you prefer it came from your company, not your competitors?
V. Essential Take-Aways
Even as you try to decide which technology to implement today, you have to keep an eye out on tomorrow. Creating a roadmap to help focus on future technologies may just help keep you on the right path in regard to current ones.
Contents About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.2 Scott Mills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.3 Rob Waddell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.7 Timothy Pitzer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.10 Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points. . . p.12
Timothy Pitzer SVP, Theatrical IT & Operations, Rentrak Corporation
N
ew technology comes out daily; the key for every company is to determine when exactly to start using it. Are you on the bleeding edge, the leading edge, or are you a cautious adopter? Depending on the needs of the company and the technology, any one of those choices may be the right one. How do you decide which way to go? Listen to your IT team. Give them room not only to watch for new technology but even to create it themselves. There is no better resource for innovation than IT. At the same time, consider the unique needs of your business and industry, and seek input from others in the company. In the ExecBlueprint, three leaders in IT will discuss where they stand on the adoption spectrum and why. Is cautious adoption best to avoid potentially harmful glitches? Is early adoption a better choice to avoid falling behind while not taking extreme risks? Or is standing on the bleeding edge, allowing IT to build and leverage its own technologies, the best way to stay ahead of the curve? n
Copyright 2013 Books24x7®. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part is prohibited without the prior written permission of the publisher. This ExecBlueprints™ document was published as part of a subscription based service. ExecBlueprints, a Referenceware® collection from Books24x7, provides concise, easy to absorb, practical information to help organizations address pressing strategic issues. For more information about ExecBlueprints, please visit www.execblueprints.com.
About the Authors Scott Mills
Vice President of Global IT, Conservation International
S
cott Mills is the vice president of global IT at Conservation International, a global NGO dedicated to protecting our natural resources and human well being. Previously, Mr. Mills was the vice president and chief information officer for AED (now FHI360), a global non-profit with a presence in over 100 countries. Mr. Mills combines over 20 years of experience working in the international NGO/nonprofit sector and higher education, including a stint as the CIO at Trinity College and director of Development Studies at Northwestern State University before
that. At CI, Mr. Mills is responsible for the strategic vision for IT and has focused his efforts on building an IT services and infrastructure that can be supported globally in some of the more demanding geographic environments in the world. In addition, the IT unit at CI has been streamlining the IT service management processes and implementing the ITIL® framework for process management as IT at CI shifts from an internally-focused cost center to an IT service delivery organization. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a master’s degree in Linguistics with post-graduate
work in Educational Technology; he has several technical certifications including in ITIL v2/v3 and IT service management, and he holds an executive certificate in Strategy and Innovation from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
☛ Read Scott’s insights on Page 3
Rob Waddell
R
SVP, CIO, Principal, Apex Systems
ob Waddell currently serves as senior vice president, CIO, and principal at Apex Systems He has over 30 years of experience in information technology and joined Apex in December of 2006. He came to Apex as a partner with Tatum Partners, a CFO/CIO consultancy. Prior to joining Tatum, Mr. Waddell was VP of IT for Markel Corporation’s North America Operations. His prior Richmond-based experience includes the role of director of technology for a start-up, Experient Technologies, and five years with Capital One as a senior consultant to critical business applications and programs. His
tenure with Capital One began as a senior systems consultant through Metro Information Services, and he served on Metro’s senior leadership team. Mr. Waddell began his career in 1983 at SAIC working as a systems analyst on the Joint Cruise Missile Program (Tomahawk). In 1988, he joined McDonnell Douglas Aerospace to continue his work on Cruise Missiles as a senior systems engineer and site manager at CINCPAC headquarters. Mr. Waddell is a founding member and first chairman of the VCU School of Business IS Advisory Board and is a guest lecturer and mentor in the Executive
Master’s program. He has also served on the board of the Greater Richmond Technology Council. He is a native of Virginia and graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in Business Management and Masters work in IT. Mr. Waddell, his wife, Joan, and son, Matt, live in Richmond, Virginia. An avid runner, he has completed 27 marathons including 15 consecutive Richmond marathons and eight Boston marathons.
☛ Read Rob’s insights on Page 7
Timothy Pitzer
SVP, Theatrical IT & Operations, Rentrak Corporation
F
or two decades, Tim Pitzer has been serving the motion picture industry by zealously fusing his passion for technology and applications. Beginning his career as a marketer, Mr. Pitzer quickly realized that powerful campaigns were inspired by painstaking research
© Books24x7, 2013
and encyclopedic information; math — more than glitz — drives success. With that mantra in mind, Mr. Pitzer built and leads a team of creative innovators in an ongoing quest to enhance and amaze. Today, Mr. Pitzer is responsible for developing Rentrak’s Theatrical products
worldwide, serving more than three dozen countries and supporting Rentrak’s global operations and offices.
☛ Read Tim’s insights on Page 10
About the Authors ExecBlueprints 2
Scott Mills Vice President of Global IT, Conservation International
The Global Technology Landscape At an international non-government organization (NGO) like Conservation International (CI), managing IT is very challenging due to the environmental factors and geographic areas where we work. With a presence throughout Africa, Madagascar, South America, and Asia as well as the Pacific islands with our headquarters in the U.S., Conservation International has to be able to carry out our mission to improve human well being by protecting our natural resources in some very different technology landscapes. From offices in Papua New Guinea with a few hours of power a day, terrible if any Internet connectivity and barely any cellular access, to a state of the art IT infrastructure in the U.S., we must adapt our technology services to still be effective. Despite this complex global environment and limitations, technology use at CI is both pervasive throughout all of our programs and operations, but also essential to our success. As the vice president of global IT at CI, it is my job to outline the strategic vision for IT and lead the global technology team at Conservation International, including the support of our enterprise IT services such as connectivity, security, application management, and IT service management. I also liaise
with our program teams and our field programs on what we call programmatic IT solutions, which are the types of technology (mapping and GIS, big data analytics and visualization, mobile applications for data collection, and remote monitoring systems) that we use in our programs and our projects that enable our mission to help protect our environment and improve the livelihood of our beneficiaries. In order to keep ahead of the technology curve to prioritize and utilize our technology resources within CI, we divide technology into two major categories: transactional/foundational technology or enterprise IT services and strategic/ mission enabling technology or programmatic IT solutions.
Setting the Technology Foundation and Leveraging the Latest Technologies At CI we have outlined a few key requirements that must be met for any enterprise IT service to work within our diverse, global environment. Enterprise IT services must be globally accessible and scalable, intuitive, functional, and user friendly, cost effective and sustainable, highly available and redundant, secure and legally compliant, portable and mobile.
Scott Mills Vice President of Global IT Conservation International
“IT at CI must be able to leverage the latest technology to bridge the gaps that come from working across nearly every time zone in a very distributed and decentralized organization.” • Has 20 years of experience working in the international NGO/non-profit sector and higher education • Held position as CIO at Trinity College • Previously VP and CIO for AED (now FHI360) • Earned an executive certificate in Strategy and Innovation from MIT’s Sloan School of Management Mr. Mills can be e-mailed at [email protected]
In order to effectively and efficiently deliver our enterprise IT services, we have focused our professional development resources not on the technology itself, but on
In general, my observation is that, in a global organization, the further away from headquarters, the more open people are to innovation and change. So as part of the professional development of the IT staff, we set aside resources and strongly encourage them to get out to the field programs and experience what they have to deal with trying to utilize technology. Scott Mills Vice President of Global IT, Conservation International © Books24x7, 2013
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Scott Mills
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Vice President of Global IT, Conservation International
the IT Service Management (ITIL® v3) frameworks and Project Management (PMBOK®) methodologies we must utilize to effective and efficiently deliver IT globally. For enterprise IT services, our goal is not to be on the bleeding edge, it is to: • Identify and implement proven methodologies and adapt them to our unique global environment as an international non-profit. • Understand the technology landscape (i.e., cloud computing) and how we can take advantage of these trends to deliver value to CI.
Cloud, Mobile, and BYOD: Riding the Wave Instead of Drowning For example we focus on taking advantage of trends like the consumerization of IT, bring your own device policies, and cloud services by embracing them, rather than fighting them. And in order to do that, we focus our professional development not on software or hardware technology certifications, but on giving the IT staff the skills they need to adapt and lead change management, user adoption, and IT service management. In the case of a methodology like ITILv3, we chose to have a few key staff within IT get full certification for ITIL and then they simplified and adapted the framework for implementation in our environment. Rather than train our entire IT staff, which would be cost prohibitive and not constructive because it would be too confusing to have all of IT trying to determine how to implement it, we had them get up to speed in © Books24x7, 2013
Key Requirements for Building Enterprise IT Services Globally Accessible and Scalable Intuitive, Functional, and User Friendly Cost Effective and Sustainable Highly Available and Redundant Secure and Legally Compliant Portable and Mobile ITIL foundations — terminology, concepts, etc., so our internal ITIL experts could use a train-the-trainer model to promote knowledge transfer, adaptation, and adoption of the framework within IT. In a global organization, it costs a fortune to maintain a global premise-based network. Especially with our global reach, installing servers and technology in remote areas with spotty connectivity and frequent loss of power, it is very, very expensive to keep the network running. We have been able to save a lot of money by moving to mobile and cloud computing, minimizing our dependence on the onsite infrastructure. This also enables us to
distribute our staff better as they aren’t tied down to locations based on the amount of hardware we have on site, but on where they can be utilized in the most effective and efficient way possible to support our services. Cloud computing is a much more effective model for us to maintain and add to our enterprise IT services without adding IT staff. As a result of this change, we have slashed our budget by nearly a million dollars over the course of the past 24 months just for operating expenses. Those are resources we can roll back into the professional development and engagement of our existing staff.
Scott Mills ExecBlueprints 4
Scott Mills Vice President of Global IT, Conservation International
Keeping the Innovation Edge CI also prides itself on being innovative and taking innovation to scale so it provides us with a strategic advantage and helps demonstrate the impact of our programmatic work. Our programmatic IT solutions must be mission driven, innovative and flexible, partnership friendly, and repeatable, measurable, and scalable. This means that CI must be able to discover new and innovative ideas, harvest them, and use technology as a catalyst for taking them to scale across CI. This requires a different skillset, a different mindset for technology, one more willing to try new technologies and to live on the bleeding edge than one needs for delivery and support of enterprise IT services. And it also requires a completely different mindset for professional development and to encourage a culture of innovation.
The Leading User Principle One way to encourage “thinking out of the box” and for our staff to look at ways to improve our technology solutions is to utilize the “Leading User Principle” which is outlined in the strategy and innovation methodology from MIT. The “Leading User Principle” paraphrased, states you should seek out the users who are modifying the product and find out why a product is not being used as intended as a way to improve or innovate that product. When people are not following processes, or are creating shadow processes (aka rogue or shadow IT), try to spend some time to figure out why they are © Books24x7, 2013
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Seeing the Future At CI, we envision a technology future that isn’t just mobile accessible, but is a mobile-only environment. We’ve experienced this future already as most of our staff is based overseas and many of them already work in environments completely dominated by smartphone and mobile technology, with little to no practical way for them to effectively use desktop or even laptop-dependent technology. We saw this future, not by traveling in time, but by spending many hours in economy class seats traveling to the farthest flung parts of the world to see how our programs really work in technology-constrained environments.
doing something different. If you keep an open mind, you may find these users are developing innovative tools or services that could be made repeatable, scaled up, and rolled out to the rest of the business.
Get Out of Your Comfort Zone and Go See the World In general, my observation is that, in a global organization, the further away from headquarters, the more open people are to innovation and change. So as part of the professional development of the IT staff, we set aside resources and strongly encourage them to get out to the field programs and experience what they have to deal with trying to utilize technology. As an unknown (but very wise) author said, “innovation comes from the edges, from solving real problems with constrained resources. Change happens at the frontier.” At headquarters, it is just assumed that everything will remain the same and technology is always on, always available. As a result, making the case for change is often harder to do with these employees and they are a bit more resistant to change. This is especially true with IT staff, so I push my director level and above IT staff to get out to the field so they can see technology that works in the
field and develop IT services that work for CI globally, not just in the U.S., where we have gobs of bandwidth. This has led to us requiring that all new IT solutions and services be operating system, browser, device agnostic, and most importantly, mobile accessible and fully functional. This has helped us focus our IT resources on filling in our skill set gaps on mobile technology and made us broaden our support services and competencies beyond the Microsoft ecosphere into Apple, Google, and Amazon as well as new cloud startups and mobile providers.
Identifying and Filling in the Gaps By following these guidelines and thinking strategically about our enterprise IT services and programmatic IT solutions, we are outlining a roadmap for Conservation International that is focused on supporting our effective and efficient operations and enabling our mission and achieving more impact. On the enterprise front we are filling in our gaps around IT service management, project management, and placing an emphasis on connecting our users to the cloud securely and with the tools they need, not what we dictate. We try to control only what we need Scott Mills ExecBlueprints 5
Scott Mills Vice President of Global IT, Conservation International
to and resist the urge to dictate to our users what we don’t need to. On the our programmatic IT solutions, we are focusing on mobile apps, GIS, “big data” analytics, and visualization because we’ve learned that our scientists, technical staff, and field-based users already are applying these to improve their work and demonstrate our impact.
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Building a High Performing Team Most importantly, we have learned that to capitalize on these newer technologies and to execute on this vision for CI, we must spend more time developing IT as a globally high performing team. We haven’t spent our limited professional development resources the way IT traditionally does, by focusing solely on a whole bunch of IT-specific training and certification courses for IT staff.
(continued) Instead, much of our time and energy has been spent building a cohesive team with a unified vision, buy in, and setting roles and responsibilities to replace the fragmented system that was previously in place. As a result, CI now sees IT not a just a bunch of technology geeks, but as experts in project management, service delivery, and even as partners in enabling our mission: protecting nature for human wellbeing … and protecting the future. n
Scott Mills ExecBlueprints 6
Rob Waddell SVP, CIO, Principal, Apex Systems
Early Adoption Our IT department is an early adopter of certain technology trends such as mobility and cloudbased services; however, we carefully consider whether such trends are aligned with what is important to our business. In addition, our rate of adoption really depends on how that technology solution fares in our pilot-based vetting process. We use the pilot approach to let things bake for a while and see how they play out with our user-based pilot committees. We refactor the committee input back into the decision-making process to help set direction. This approach recently played out very well for our assessment of mobility options for our sales force; we found a precise intersection of the right technology and data for our highly mobile account managers. As a matter of fact, this same approach is what led us to the full adoption of SaaS solutions for our most critical business applications. In doing so, this has put us in a position to leverage our key solution providers to quickly bring additional competitive-edge point solutions for rapid pilot evaluation and potential adoption. We will not shy away from working with something new, but we will never jump in and start using something in production without put-
ting it through our business-oriented vetting process first.
Filling Gaps We keep a lean IT organization, and our motto is to “eat our own dog food.” We are an IT staffing company, and we use the same model internally for our own IT department. Web development, for example, is an area in which I do not have an internal person assigned. Instead, we have built a strategic relationship with a local firm. We push out changes to them through our tightly controlled change management process, they execute changes, we test, and we put them into production, accordingly. On the other hand, we staff heavily when we need to execute projects that require more resources, so we will bring in suppliers and trusted partners on an as-needed basis. Right now we are exploring ways to embrace new technologies. I encourage the team to explore these through the providers of that technology, which helps me get a better handle on it with partners at the table. That said, I do not feel as if I am lacking in any particular technology. I have what I need; I can reach out to the suppliers and
Rob Waddell SVP, CIO, Principal Apex Systems
“We are careful early adopters.” • Has 30 years of experience in IT • Began career at SAIC working on the Joint Cruise Missile Program (Tomahawk) • Founding member and first chairman of the VCU School of Business IS Advisory Board • Earned Business Management degree from Virginia Tech Mr. Waddell can be e-mailed at [email protected]
they bring it back to me in a strategic way. We keep business intelligence initiatives close to the vest, because we do not want to give our competitors insight into our data. We have many strategic uses for BI;
When we are looking at our strategic technologies, we want to find the organization we believe will succeed, but perhaps has not succeeded yet. Maybe their technology is just emerging with some innovative processes coming out of that technology, but we feel confident we can help that organization become more mature because of our internal processes, and in return, we develop a strategic partner and gain innovative technology. Rob Waddell SVP, CIO, Principal Apex Systems © Books24x7, 2013
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Rob Waddell
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SVP, CIO, Principal, Apex Systems
however, two of them are very important to our competitive edge: classification of our products and profitability of our transactions, by numerous dimensions. We have been onboarding the right individuals to work in this area and continue to fill this gap.
Working with External Vendors Before bringing in an external supplier for some type of value-add technology or solution, it is important to really understand what you are getting. We all consult Gartner, Forrester, and the various researchbased providers of information. Beyond the initial research, it is important to thoroughly investigate their track record with clients. Ask the tough questions to understand how good they really are. We talk to no less than three of their references for 30 minutes or more to dig into their track record. The second strategy we use is to find a partner who is just emerging in their discipline. When we are looking at our strategic technologies, we want to find the organization we believe will
succeed, but perhaps has not succeeded yet. Maybe their technology is just emerging with some innovative processes coming out of that technology, but we feel confident we can help that organization become more mature because of our internal processes, and in return, we develop a strategic partner and gain innovative technology. If we feel the organization is a match, we like to help them grow as we grow. I believe that is something of a “holy grail” in terms of using suppliers to give your company competitive edge for an appropriate price. This is not always easy to do, particularly when you are working with larger organizations that want you to take what they’ve got (and what the masses have). The other advantage to smaller partners is that we are able to negotiate more affordable deals. There is an element of risk, because they are not necessarily fully baked, but we will only enter a deal if we feel good about what they have already done, they prove to be financially sound, and if we get the sense they are really driven and excited to work with us.
Growing Talent and Developing Skills To help us stay innovative, we like to bring in new, emerging talent. As one example, we bring young workers into our infrastructure teams through an internship program. Our goal is not to teach them technology—they are pretty good at that already. Rather, we like to grow them into technology and teach them how to work with our teams, how to run a successful project, how to have a conversation with an internal business customer, and how to think creatively on behalf of the business. They typically come to us with some core technical strength, and then we aim to round them out to have more project-based soft skills and to become more business-savvy team contributors.
IT Security It is important to mention that we have raised the importance and the visibility of IT security within the company. We have pulled in an outside firm that has been working with the Department of Defense on cyber terrorism initiatives. The
Objectives of Business Intelligence Classification of Products
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Profitability of our Transactions
Rob Waddell ExecBlueprints 8
Rob Waddell
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SVP, CIO, Principal, Apex Systems
organization brought so much information to the table on where we need to be from a security perspective, based on today’s threats. They used COBIT, the best information security maturity model that fit our business and technology profile. On their initial assessment, we rated fairly well for an initial assessment; however, one of the gaps recognized was the lack of an IT Security Steering Committee (ISSC) to push important information security initiatives to our Configuration Control Board (Governance). I considered this so important that I immediately reassigned someone in my organization to own risk and compliance, and to
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Expert Advice We recently brought in a partner with a solution that was 90 percent of what we needed for a critical business application. When we negotiated the deal, we were also able to negotiate a free piece of software, which is basically a transportation port for all of our transactions to flow into our HR, finance, and BI platforms. By going through a mid-tier supplier and asking them some tough questions, we were able to identify and customize a solution that works perfectly for us. When we asked our partner if they had something along these lines, they told us they did, but nobody has really embraced it yet, and they don’t really push it. In the end, this solution has become a competitive advantage for us. Personally, I am not interested in reinventing the wheel, and my senior management team is aligned with me in this approach.
execute the mission of the ISSC. Incident management and cyber security are important issues to consider, and working with an
outside organization has helped us mature rapidly in this area. n
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Timothy Pitzer SVP, Theatrical IT & Operations, Rentrak Corporation
In my view, habitual behaviors of a customer base should only be changed for compelling reasons, and thus the introduction of new technology that touches the user-experience should be viewed through that lens. Timothy Pitzer SVP, Theatrical IT & Operations Rentrak Corporation
The Value of Cautious Adoption For over a dozen years, I have led teams of developers responsible for creating web applications designed to provide insight into motion picture viewership. The customer bases for these services have largely been movie studio distribution executives and management but often included other segments as well, and the applications needed the flexibility to serve several different verticals and strata within those verticals. I am an activist for platforms that are stable, where performance is benchmarked rela-
tive to meeting and/or exceeding client expectations. On the whole, my bias is to follow a more judicious approach to advancing the ball of a production environment, and I find that this is not so atypical for products and services in the mature phase of their life cycles. There are clearly benefits to this guarded approach. Historically, I have not immediately devoted resources to researching or applying new technology for its own sake. Just because we can do something novel, does not mean we should. Further, as a purveyor of business intelligence, adoption
Expert Advice There are many ways to permit an investment of time in an experimental framework away from production work. One of the most interesting of these implementations (albeit not the most stalwart) is often termed “the day of innovation.” With the day of innovation, a team of IT professionals are permitted to assign work to themselves on some type of recurring schedule. Often, there is a rule set about what kinds of projects qualify for attention during this day, but I have found it more valuable not to apply rules. I want access to the buzz-worthy efforts happening outside of my areas of focus, and my information technology staff are frankly the best ambassadors for those happenings. On the day of innovation, my team explores whatever individual topic they find compelling at the time. In the past three years where my current team has exercised this optional experiment, seven truly ingenious functional enhancements have surfaced and four of these inventions have cautiously been promoted into the production environment. While four innovations in three years may seem like a poor return on a full resource-day per month, in my view these represent four leaps forward that would have otherwise been introduced by a pioneering competitor. The truth is that the not-ready-for-primetime topics that have yet to see the light of day do reflect areas of focus completely outside my field of vision. The monthly activity allows me a better chance of staying abreast of interesting trends that my own team members find absorbing. © Books24x7, 2013
Timothy Pitzer SVP, Theatrical IT & Operations Rentrak Corporation
“I would not classify my viewpoint as an eager early-adopter of emerging trends.” • 20 years of experience in the motion picture industry • Built and leads a team of creative innovators • Currently responsible for developing Rentrak’s Theatrical products worldwide Mr. Pitzer can be e-mailed at [email protected]
of incipient technology often requires end-user buy-in on at least two critical levels. First, new tech often alters the user experience (at least, I have found this to be true for advances that technologists generally find exciting). I am quite sure that every information technology professional has stories about less-than-ideal experiences when fundamentally changing even fine points of navigation. In my view, habitual behaviors of a customer base should only be changed for compelling reasons, and thus the introduction of new technology that touches the user-experience should be viewed through that lens. Second, new tech often lives clientTimothy Pitzer ExecBlueprints 10
Timothy Pitzer
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SVP, Theatrical IT & Operations, Rentrak Corporation
A Balanced Approach
Innovation
side (again, this is generally true for advances that technologists get excited about). The shift to clientside computational processing requires that the right hardware be available within the shops of key customers. As an advocate of cautious change management, I do not find it surprising that some of the largest enterprises in the world still rely upon deprecated software, thus making it challenging to implement the most groundbreaking new approaches to old problems.
Balancing Cautious Adoption with Progress However, one of the truisms I value most is that ultimately, the actual damage that an enterprise will face if it over-commits to technocaution is the loss of fluency with emerging developments. The issue is rightly not “make a case for your
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Caution
innovation speed,” given that one size does not fit all, and nearly all answers will be justified to the respondent. Rather, the issue is how information technology infrastructures properly pursue innovation and technology adoption outside the realm of implementation. It is my opinion that the proper balance between innovation and cautious adoption must involve a development cycle that includes allowances for IT departments to experiment and innovate in a silo that is separated from the production environment. Budgeting time away from production enhancement is often greeted with cringes from a business team that feels pinched for resources (and virtually all mature business teams feel pinched for resources), but setting that time aside has proven itself absolutely central to a healthy information technology ecosystem.
Devoting Time to Explore an Experimental Framework Staying ahead of the curve cannot solely be measured by the version of technology that runs production systems. Rather, it is incumbent on all information technology executives to have a pulse-reading on developments in all kinds of industries. That would be a tall order without the help and assistance of the staff entrusted to advance and support our production services. A solid managerial plan, therefore, must include a formalized and thoughtful way to allow our staffers to contribute ideas and explore issues that may, in the end, prove to be “the next big thing.” n
Timothy Pitzer ExecBlueprints 11
Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points I. The Life Cycle of Adoption In order to be on the bleeding edge, you must encourage a culture of innovation and professionals willing to try new technologies. Programmatic IT solutions must be: • Mission driven • Innovative and flexible • Partnership-friendly • Repeatable, measurable, and scalable The leading edge requires different skills and focuses more on professional development resources and efficient delivery of services. Resources are proven before they are adopted. Enterprise IT services should be: • Globally accessible and scalable • Intuitive, functional, and user friendly • Cost effective and sustainable • Highly available and redundant • Secure and legally compliant • Portable and mobile
II. The Bottom Line Vendors can provide a valuable service, but only if you know exactly what you want them to do. Before you pick a vendor, you should: • Consult Gartner, Forrester, and other research providers • Investigate their track record with clients • Check their references Picking a smaller vendor that is new to the field has distinct advantages. For example, it: • allows for a strategic partnership to be built • helps both sides to gain innovative technologies • deters the one-size-fits-all approach
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• enables the negotiation of more affordable deals
III. Must-Haves for Cautious Adoption Not all companies can afford to be on the bleeding edge, or even the leading edge. In some industries, security and business requirements require IT to wait until a technology is stable before it is implemented. Regardless of risk tolerance, technology should always be implemented for the good of the company and not just for the sake of technology. In almost all cases, it requires end-user buy in. Important considerations include: • The risk of creating difficulty for users. Any updates that change the user experience should be approached very cautiously. • Possible implementation challenges. Shifting technology to the client-side requires that the right hardware be available to key customers. • The importance of a flexible approach. While there can be a loss of fluency if too much caution is used, finding that sweet spot between innovation and caution is key to successful adoption.
IV. The Golden Rules for Developing IT There are many products on the market, but ones that truly meet your needs may be best created in-house. Allowing IT a certain amount of freedom to fiddle with ideas and be truly innovative will most certainly reap large rewards. Ways to improve innovation and experimentation include: • Giving staff designated time to do whatever they want. This could occur weekly, monthly, quarterly, but should not be limited to specific areas.
• Sending key IT members to professional development classes. They can then share what they learn with the rest of the staff. • Finding users who have modified the product to uncover what they have changed and why. This type of shadow IT can yield innovative tools that can be rolled out to the rest of the business. • Getting people out in the field. The further out in the field you go, the more open to innovation and change you become. Send people out into the field to learn what conditions are really like at other sites so they better understand the challenges of their users. • Building a better team. Teamwork is essential to success. A strong team will allow for better buy in, a unified vision, and a feeling of partners instead of rivals.
V. Essential Take-Aways A roadmap that focuses on enterprise IT services and programmatic IT solutions is the best combination of planning for both the bleeding and leading edge. On the enterprise side, you should focus on: • Filling the gaps around IT service management • Refining your project management • Connecting users to the cloud On the programmatic IT side, this includes: • Focusing on mobile apps • Looking at big data analytics • Applying what you have learned in the field n
• Allowing interns access to technology to allow them to build skills and better understand the needs and wants of the business.
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Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points
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? 10 Key Questions and Discussion Points 1 1 2 2 1 3 3 2 4 1 4 3 2 5 1 5 4 6 3 2 1 6 5 4 7 3 2 7 1 6 5 8 4 3 8 2 7 1 6 9 5 4 9 3 8 2 7 10 1 6 5 10 4 9 3 8 2 7 1 6 5 10 4 9 3 8 2 7 6 5 10 4 9 3 8 7 6 5 10 4 9 8 7 6 5 10 9 8 7 6 10 9 8 7 10 9 8 10 9 10
Would you consider your IT department to typically be an early adopter of technology trends? Why or why not? Is this typical of your industry? Where is the skill level of your IT department compared to where you need it to be? Do you think this is typical of your industry? Are you concerned about the ability of your IT department to keep up with technology changes? What are the main skill gaps that you have identified in your IT department? How long have these skill gaps existed? Which of these gaps poses the greatest risk to your business? In the next 12 months, will you implement any educational or training programs to address the skill gaps in your workforce? Will this represent a change from your past practices? If so, how? Have you worked with any outside consultants to identify skill gaps or to strengthen your department? If so, what services did they provide? If not, do you anticipate doing so in the future? Have you outsourced any IT tasks or used vendors because of a skill gap within your department? What tasks needed to be performed? Is it more or less cost-effective to outsource these tasks? What are your best practices for communicating with your company’s senior leadership team about areas in which your team needs to develop? How do you ensure the rest of the C-suite understands the importance of technological skills? How do you, as CIO, stay abreast of the technology trends affecting your industry? Do you subscribe to industry publications or read blogs? Do you belong to any industry groups? How do you identify the trends most applicable to your company? What are the most important trends that you’re currently focusing on? Why are they important to your company? Why are they important to your industry? Is your company currently poised to adapt to these trends? In the next 12 months, do you plan on hiring new employees to fill skill gaps? If so, what gaps will you seek to fill? Do you anticipate any difficulty finding candidates with these skills?
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Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points ExecBlueprints 13
