Organizational Transformation is the Key to Digital Transformation

Author:

John Mellars, Principal Consulting Analyst

Abstract

This document continues the discussion we began in the TechVision report “The End of EA and IT as We know IT” and further describes a new organizational model designed to be more adaptive and responsive to dynamic business needs. We believe that this will be key to not only the future of IT, but the survival of many businesses that are increasingly dependent upon better connections and relationships with customers, prospects, employees and partners.

To bring these concepts forward, we establish five principles for this transition and develop at length the reasoning, new roles, and important caveats for the organizational transformation we advocate. We believe the result of this transition is a more agile IT capability that is more responsive to the business, yet able to leverage the years of institutional knowledge and grounding in the key processes responsible for the governance of IT assets. We believe it is imperative that IT is leveraged by the business, and for the business, and we think this model provides an excellent blueprint for undertaking the transformational journey.

In this report, we propose a representative organizational structure to address the business imperatives resulting from the intensity of competition in the digital era. This is designed to improve competitive positioning by leveraging the benefits of a rapid application cycle time that maximizes customer intimacy. We introduce the idea of Business Integrated DevOps (BIDevOps) which adopts a highly integrated collaborative form of the DevOps model, now managed by product managers in the business units. These ideas represent the means to reduce friction in an enterprise, empower the Line of Business (LOB) units, and improve agility in the Digital World.