Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

Back in the Y2000 days, I got into a little trouble for going against commonly held beliefs. A number of industry pundits claimed that the Y2000 challenge wasn't a technical problem, but simply a project management challenge of considerable magnitude. Classic project management theory says that in the project-constraint triangle, one is bound by work, resources, and time.

Trying to achieve effective business-IT alignment is inherently a risky activity. It implies the undertaking of important decisions, under conditions of uncertainty. Typically, alignment decisions have long-term impacts, they are difficult to undo, and we are never sure whether they will produce the desired outcome. This scenario of uncertainty applies whether we're deciding on a radical change to our IT infrastructure or on a gradual change to our business processes.

There's an amazingly overlooked iceberg of problems in end-user computing. Spreadsheets are developed by people who are very skilled in their main job function, be it finance, procurement, or production planning, but often have had no formal training in spreadsheet use. IT auditors focus on mainstream information systems but regard spreadsheets as user problems, outside their concerns.

Those who know something of my career in computing know that I started as a technology analyst covering the artificial intelligence (AI) market in the early 198