This week I was part of the Digital Transformation panel at the Cloud & DevOps World @ Olympia. to be more accurate the session title was "Managing the digital transformation : how to affect change and transform culture in big business". As this was a panel we had a great moderator in Alex Hilton (@alexhilton_gb) from Cloud Industry Forum as well as the following co-panelists:
- Aaron Powell, Chief Digital Officer, NHS, Blood & Transplant (@aaron_nhsbt)
- Ameer Badri, Senior Manager, EMEA, Twilio (@ameer8)
- Simon Briggs, EMEA Lead Solutions Architect, SUSE
- Nuno Job, CEO, YLD (@dscape)
Sometimes at these events you only get a sparse audience but given that the event is in it's 8th year attendance was really good and there were around 150 people listening and asking questions.
From my perspective the topic played very well to the 2 Speed to 3 Speed messages I've been promoting and implementing recently. I do really believe that the choice is no longer Boolean in that you are one speed (Operational) or the other (Digital). In fact I have argued that you can't simply jump from one speed to another overnight, like any change it has to have a transition state (the Bridging Speed).
The panel was asked about the key factors in Digital Transformation, I made the point that its more about the people than the technology. If you don't believe me try giving legacy Operational Speed people new world tools and process without coaching and training and see what happens. Don't worry I'll save you the time, they revert back to what they know and feel comfortable with and change doesn't happen. Just because you are talking about technology it doesn't mean that its not business change, you still have to manage the change start to finish and ensure that there is guidance, knowledge management, champions and people on hand to help when the nerves hit people. It's a journey, you need to make sure that everyone gets on the bus.
The question was pitched around Operation Speed, will it still be around in time to come and should people in Operational Speed be worried or concerned for their future ? My point was that its a Digital world now, it's inhabited naturally by Digital Natives with us Immigrants evolving and adapting as we go. More and more solutions will start out digital by default and those with legacy situations to manage get the choice to:
- Transform it to Digital
- Leave it as Operational until the demand dies
So what will happen over time is Operational Speed solutions and organisations will reduce but they won't disappear. I thought 15 years ago when I stopped developing in COBOL that it would die off and be replaced. COBOL is still around today and will be for some time to come (as the cost to refactor is high). So those in Operational spaces still have skills to offer and they may be offered the chance to evolve or stay with what they know but over time the Operational Speed will reduce. Of course roll forward 5 or 10 years and what is deemed Digital today may well be seen as legacy :) So I guess then there will always be something deemed to be Operational/Legacy.
We do though all seek to react to our clients desires, we want the high pace that they want to see and that does involve more Digital thinking. It means Cloud, Agile & DevOps are necessary enablers to meet the demand line (Digital demand) and the organisation has to be able to meet and exceed the demand of clients.
I finished by saying don't be scared of innovation and don't be afraid to get into picking paths based on Informed Decision Making. What I mean by this is you don't have to pick the path to choose and follow based on architectural conjecture and sometime subjective views. Be bold and pit solutions and speeds against each other over a few sprints/weeks to see which appears to be the more viable and then drop the one that doesn't work. You'd be amazed at how a CEO and CFO will be prepared to invest a small amount of money that they know will be written off to approach the resultant solution with a higher level of confidence and a lesser risk.
To summarise my day I tweeted out the following picture:
If you are so inclined though you can also see it through Twitter
https://twitter.com/WorldlineUK_CTO/status/745364593510342656
No comments:
Post a Comment