Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

Use of public cloud providers has become increasingly common, as companies embrace the considerable cost savings of software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and platform as a service (PaaS).

What are the elements of a typical business technology strategy? The following lists the five key areas:

• Business strategy -- overall market, product, production, distribution, service, etc., objectives

Back in the 1960s, then-Prime Minister of England Harold Macmillan was supposedly asked by a journalist what might blow his government's policies off course: "Events, dear boy, events," was his response.

Today we have no shortage of people opining away at the cause-and-effect relationships between educational inputs (schools, teachers, pedagogy) and outputs (student knowledge and success) with nowhere near a sufficient understanding of how the human brain actually works.

I have what some people call a "Man Van." It has 4WD, alloy wheels, big ice-grip snow tires, tinted glass, and a 200-watt stereo. David E. Davis, past editor of Automobile Magazine, once wrote that his Man Van was his favorite car, even compared to his Ferrari and Dodge Viper.

Agile software development and agile project management have shown considerable success in helping organizations develop better software and better manage development projects in the face of changing requirements and evolving technologies. In one sense, agile is about managing rapidly changing project factors and requirements.

I was speaking with some fellow CIOs and other business leaders recently about their sources of competitive advantage. A few were not able to articulate clearly from whence sprang their source of sustainable advantage in the market.

Agile software development and agile project management have shown considerable success in helping organizations develop better software and better manage development projects in the face of changing requirements and evolving technologies. In one sense, agile is about managing rapidly changing project factors and requirements.