As enterprises around the world struggle with their digital transformation efforts, many are finding that their innovative digital teams are moving much faster than their hidebound IT organizations. Rather than struggling to convince traditional IT to get with the digital program, they are taking advice from IT research firm Gartner, and encouraging their existing IT to continue in their desultory ways.
“CIOs need to respond to the cataclysmic technology shift within their own organizations,” claims Peter Sondergaard, SVP and head of research for Gartner. “The IT organization can’t turn into a digital startup overnight and, besides, there’s a raft of business-critical responsibilities that it simply can’t (and absolutely should not) divest.”
The answer – according to Gartner, anyway – is to split the IT organization into two parts, slow ‘mode 1,’ responsible for traditional IT services, and fast ‘mode 2,’ which emphasizes agility and speed – what it calls bimodal IT. “This capability allows the IT organization to respond to the digital divide within their organizations by operating in two modes that are comprehensive and coherent, but deeply different, while exploiting the benefits of both,” continues Sondergaard.
However, while many CIOs and other executives are happy to follow Gartner wherever it is leading, many others are realizing the dangers of following Gartner’s advice. “My disapproval of bimodal IT assumes that CIOs are trying to use it to fix a problem by using a flawed approach,” opines Simon Wardley, Senior Principal, CSC Leading Edge Forum (opinions his own). “It is more being used to ‘bolt on innovation’ in much the same way that some companies are not adapting to digital but instead ‘bolting on a CDO.’ This is akin to adding lipstick to the pig.”
The central challenge with bimodal IT that Wardley is emphasizing is that it encourages IT management to shift their transformation efforts away from the slow, mode 1 IT. Transforming traditional IT is difficult, Gartner would seem to imply, so don’t bother. Gartner may be telling CIOs what they want to hear, but not what they need to hear.
Read the entire article at http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2015/09/26/bimodal-it-gartners-recipe-for-disaster/.
Intellyx advises companies on their digital transformation initiatives and helps vendors communicate their agility stories. As of the time of writing, CA Technologies, Compuware, and OpenLegacy are Intellyx customers. None of the other organizations mentioned are Intellyx customers. Image credit: Guttorm Flatabø.
