Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders
Leadership and teaming skills are front and center in times of rapid change. Meet today’s constant disruption head on with expert guidance in leadership, business strategy, transformation, and innovation. Whether the disruption du jour is a digitally-driven upending of traditional business models, the pandemic-driven end to business as usual, or the change-driven challenge of staffing that meets your transformation plans — you’ll be prepared with cutting edge techniques and expert knowledge that enable strategic leadership.
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Insight
It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones responsive to change.
-- Charles Darwin
Successful IT organizations go far beyond providing efficient systems and service to the businesses they support. Instead, they create strategic advantages for their companies through their integration with the strategic business objectives that drive their companies' success.
In today's fast-paced global economy, you would be hard pressed to find a company that does not rely heavily on technology for its basic survival and operations. Computers, especially PCs, dominate almost every aspect of a company's operations. For IT professionals, this reality has created and will continue to create many opportunities in both the technical and managerial areas. Now more than ever, businesses need strong, visionary technical leadership.
IT has its unique wisdom to contribute to the strategic conversation of organizations. But what gives IT real strategic leadership is its ability to tap and extend the wisdom of the organization as a whole.
The relationship of IT to the business has evolved significantly over the years. Originally, IT functioned as a tool builder. In that role, areas of the business operations that were tedious and rote were targeted for automation. In order for it to make business sense to build these tools, it would have to cost less to implement and maintain the technology that could do the work than it would if people continued to perform the activities manually.
The business, project, and operational environments facing us today are becoming increasingly complex, interrelated, and interdependent. Without an adequate understanding of these complexities, today's programs are at increasing risk of partial or complete failure. But how does anyone acquire this understanding?
I read with interest recent Advisors by Cutter Senior Consultants Jens Coldewey and Bartek Kiepuszewski (see "An Agile View of Software Engineering," 16 October 2008, and "Put Agile Projects on Firm Foundation -- System Analysts' Responsibility," 2 October 2008).

