We all say digital transformation is a journey. We know it's not a project with an end date or a static outcome and more like a portfolio of initiatives and roadmaps that evolve over time.
So, one common question I get when keynoting about digital transformation is, "How do we define and measure the success of digital transformations?"
DevOps may have missed a key alignment between Dev and Ops responsibilities and ways of working.
DevOps aims to help IT organizations align the speed and innovation coming from agile development teams with the performance, reliability, and security sought after by Ops. And technology practices like CI/CD, IaC, and AIOps, along with the mindset of continuous planning, shift-left security, and continuous testing practices, have shown incredible value to businesses executing digital transformations. IT departments using these practices have increased deployment frequencies, improved the MTTR of major incidents, reduced cycle times, and delivered new innovations while driving efficiencies.
So here's my question. Are we ready to say that IT has reached its peak performance?
It’s never been a more challenging time to be a CIO and IT leader. Ensuring systems are performing well, secure, and managed efficiently is more important than ever because every business depends on reliable technology.
The IT service desk feels more pressure to improve the mean time to recovery
(MTTR) to incidents and provide excellent customer service to hybrid working
employees who require more customized and reliable technology to do their
jobs. And business leaders have almost no tolerance to unreliable
technologies, poor-performing customer experience platforms, or repetitive
issues in revenue-generating systems.
Many people are experts in processing data, managing big data sets, performing data analytics, and storytelling with data. And then, there are true data experts who have experience working across industries, technologies, and different data complexities and provide lessons and wisdom on how organizations can become more data-driven.
One of those data experts is Krishna Tammana, Talend’s CTO, who also has
experience working at Splunk, Dun & Bradstreet, E*Trade, Sybase, and
several startups. So when I was given the opportunity to interview
Krishna on becoming a data-driven organization and improving data health, I
was excited to learn from one of the best in the industry.
It's hard to get everyone excited about your initiative to modernize apps with improved user experiences, automate tasks in a workflow, or roll out new dashboards to improve decision making.
Even after sharing your vision, gathering feedback from stakeholders, and sharing progress in sprint demos, there are always detractors in the back of the room or with their video off during Zoom calls that just don't buy the need for transformational change.
CIOs, CDOs, data governance, and application development leaders own the challenge of growing analytics capabilities and improving end-user experiences that deliver business impacts. But, they must recognize that modernizing applications, developing integrations, and addressing data quality will be challenging as organizations compete for top talent.
Recent research shows that leaders need people, practice, and technology
strategies beyond pursuing the most elite talent. We know that data
scientists, full-stack developers, and DevOps engineers are in high demand, so
anchoring the future on recruiting and retaining them can be challenging.
Labor Day has new meaning in our house. I have tremendous new respect for all people who earn their living from hard, sweaty, dirty work.
And yet, while I call this my personal disaster recovery, it really isn't that personal or that significant of a disaster.
My family and I came home to Hurricane Ida's wreckage after it dumped an estimated seven inches of rain in our town. Our garage and backyard had three feet of water, and our basement settled at about two feet. I am told that the floodwaters came up from the ground and lasted approximately four hours.
