I’ve been working with a new (to me) client on leadership development for their IT leadership group. The company is large, complex and global, and going through a major transformation of their IT operating model. A fundamental question arose in a workshop I was facilitating. For a whole bunch of very good reasons (including many business changes, including a major merger followed a couple of years later by a de-merger) they are probably at high Level 1 Business-IT Maturity. As such they are experiencing a great deal of pain and stress – keeping things going largely on “heroics” rather than good, stable, repeatable processes. They are therefore highly focused on getting to Level 2, in the language of our Business-IT Maturity model.
The big question for me is, “Is Level 2 the right ambition for the IT leadership team?” I certainly acknowledge the nature of maturity models, and the fact that these models describe a developmental journey – i.e., you can’t skip stages (at least, in a sustainable way). So, yes, they need to get to Level 2, but would their approach, journey, and motivations be different (better? more compelling? quicker time to value? great business impact sooner?) if their ambitions were Level 3, even though they recognize the proper sequencing of programs and activities that takes them through Level 2?
Thoughts on a postcard please…
Filed under: Demand Maturity, IT Management, IT Maturity Tagged: | Business-IT Maturity, IT leadership, IT transformation
[...] Ambition Factor – Part 3 I raised a real-life question about ambition in earlier posts (see The Ambition Factor and Ambition Factor Part 2). If you are level 1 business-IT maturity, where should your ambition [...]