By Justin Vaughan-Brown
Another Gartner viewpoint comes to mind—that of a “Pace Layer” strategy; organizations have systems of record, differentiation and innovation, with the first changing less often and using traditional approaches such as Waterfall, and the latter the most dynamic and Agile-focused. The London conference revealed that the reality can at times be more fluid, and at others, patchier. You can find examples of Agile adoption in certain systems of record, and equally signs of Mode 1 thinking in innovation systems. I like this acceptance of the fact that (like many things in life) the reality can be less uniform, less black and white and not so clearly defined. A recent Oxford Economics paper sponsored by CA, for example, found evidence that more established departments such as HR were actually ahead of cutting-edge ones such Marketing in adopting new development processes and tools.
A cop-out?
But Bimodal also has its detractors, one of the most vocal being analyst Jason Bloomberg of Intellyx. Last October Bloomberg penned a compelling blog that outlined the case against Bimodal IT, with Bloomberg going so far as to say, “Bimodal is simply an excuse to keep doing IT poorly”, and stating that it perpetuates siloed behavior. Bloomberg makes the very valid point that Agile is about small, customer-centric changes rather than a big bang launch that risks major systems collapsing. In essence, established IT doesn’t need to be afraid of innovation if it is staged, incremental and can address defects rapidly with a quick update.
One of the most interesting takes on the concept has been from Simon Wardley, who is also skeptical of Bimodal IT, as it groups IT into either “pioneers” doing the frequently changing, chaotic yet exciting cool stuff and “town planners” who take a “steady as we go” approach and do the dull, orderly yet essential things. He points out that this model misses a crucial group, the “settlers” who take the innovative approaches and tools initiated by the pioneers and develops them to a mature stage at which point the town planners are willing to industrialize these, ensure scalability and make them part of the furniture.
Read the entire article at http://blogs.ca.com/2015/06/30/bimodal-it-innovation-or-excuse/.
