/ciol/media/agency_attachments/c0E28gS06GM3VmrXNw5G.png)
Follow UsBy Chris Curran
If your company is strategically dependent on
technology, chances are you've got a small IT research team in place with a
nebulous name like “applied research” or “technology transfer.” These groups
typically fall into several categories. The “IT researchers” conduct software
package evaluations in response to a business unit asking for “the best report
writer” or “best rules engine.” The “IT frameworkers” develop frameworks for
implementing standard software architectures, such as J2EE solutions, that are
really only relevant to the rest of the IT organization. The “prognosticators”
are busy developing perspectives regarding new technologies and how they could
be implemented within the company (but not always what value they can deliver).
But if that's all you're doing, you're probably not
getting all the value you need from your IT research function.
Businesses are focusing a greater share of their IT
investment on leveraging emerging technologies to create competitive advantage
(from 12 percent in 2003 to 15 percent in 2004 to 18 percent in 2005, according
to Forrester Research). But betting on emerging technologies to drive
innovation brings on a multitude of risks, as well as potential rewards.
We think it's the CIO's responsibility to alert the
rest of the business leadership to those issues. But it has to be done in a
well-governed fashion, in a way that resonates with senior business management.
Managing
the innovation lifecycle
The innovation process at many companies involves
identifying new technologies that should be investigated, as well as some form
of testing or prototyping. Unfortunately, this good work often doesn't see the
light of day. Why? The technologies are not clearly linked to a business
problem or do not target a capability that is of high importance to the
organization. This gap highlights the need for explicit linkages from business
planning to the enterprise architecture to technology innovation. By having an
explicit business blueprint--developed jointly with the business leaders--a CIO
can use the business capabilities prioritized within to clearly set the
research agenda and align the benefits.
While identification and prototyping is usually
tackled in some form, technology adoption and retirement are often neglected.
Project-portfolio management has received a lot of attention these days, but
only addresses part of the IT portfolio. Equally important, because it forms
the IT platform, is the management of the portfolio of technologies that an
organization uses to build and operate its systems. For example, one
organization's technology portfolio might include C++, C#, Smalltalk, Delphi,
COBOL, PL/1, and Visual Basic as its development languages/environments.
However, the IT department has no consistent perspective about what tool should
be used for what purpose, or if a given tool might emerge as a strategic asset
for future systems or become obsolete. There are some simple visual tools that
can help you understand and communicate the current technology portfolio and
associated future plans, such as listing your applications by functional area
and graphing them on a curve between end of life, last generation, state of the
market, leading edge, emerging from labs, or in the labs.
Probably the most difficult part of managing the
innovation lifecycle is decommissioning a system or tool until all traces are
removed in order to gain the cost savings associated with the retirement.
Creating
value, not overhead
There are a variety of organizational models that
govern emerging technology within an organization, ranging from centralized to
decentralized. A full-time “emerging technologies group” is the typical
structure in most organizations we've seen today, particularly in industries
that are strategically dependent on technology, such as financial services,
insurance, and telecom. The centralization improves coordination and provides
visibility into what is going on for the IT leadership. However, it's this
model that also often begs the question “what are those guys doing?” when
there's no tangible delivery. While there are no benchmarks that clearly
provide rules of thumb for how many resources should be staffed in the
technology innovation function, in Fortune 500 companies I've seen as few as
five people and as many as 30.
While new approaches for making these organizations
more visible and more valuable are emerging, there are six design principles
worth considering:
Add project management skills to the team
groups are full of organizational and technology expertise, but little if no
experience in delivering results. Adding one or two project managers can help
keep people focused on making timely recommendations and keeping on task in
developing prototypes.
Create a quarterly technology innovation report.
transparent. Like the best R&D functions, the emerging-technology function
can have the most impact when it engages the rest of the organization. A
cross-functional council, wide distribution of the group's recommendations, and
senior management support are all effective in generating cooperation.
Communicate your ideas and how they can add value in business terms using a
periodic report--online or through the corporate newsletter.
Form an alliance. Academic relationships and
other partnerships can be a great way to spark innovative thinking, but only if
you're disciplined in how you manage those relationships over time.
DiamondCluster, for example, for years has nurtured a network of Fellows that
includes Alan Kay, recipient of the Turing Award and the Kyoto Prize; Andy
Lippman, associate director of the MIT Media Lab; Gordon Bell, senior
researcher at Microsoft; professors Eric Clemons and George Day of the Wharton
School of Business; and other academic and IT leaders. Find a local university
or one that aligns well with your areas of interest, and develop a deeper
relationship, hold quarterly brainstorming sessions, and invite researchers to
present their ideas to your business leaders.
Align through your business architecture.
the ways to gain credibility for your innovation team's good work is by linking
the work back to the objectives of the business. Use your enterprise
architecture planning, definition of the business architecture, and associated
capabilities, specifically, to create boundaries for your innovation
activities. For example, an insurance company identified the ability “to see
all customer activity, policies, and claims in one view” as a capability of its
business architecture. It enabled them to look for innovative ways to address
this capability, ensuring linkage back to the business.
Supplement your workforce when you need it.
rise in co-sourcing and outsourcing, there's also an opportunity to apply this
labor model to innovation work. Consider creating a small “core team” of
employees--project managers, business experts, and technology experts--to set
and manage the innovation priorities, drive the research, and make the
recommendations. Then, use your sourcing partners to fill detailed research,
design, and prototyping assignments as needed. This way, when the project is
done, the resources go away. This approach can help to reduce the permanent
headcount of the innovation team without giving away the ability to do hands-on
prototyping and development. Another place to find temporary experts is through
your alliances.
Rotate staff. To broaden support, rotate staff
through the innovation team. This also will have added benefits of offering
staff a way to recharge their batteries after a tough implementation project,
improve skill development, and even get business people involved. Market assignments
to the innovation team as a perk and as something to improve their chances for
promotion and recognition.
Hopefully, some of these design ideas resonate with
you and your organization.
Sourced from Optimize