Another year gone, where does the time go? As the year draws to an end I find myself reflecting on the good, the bad and the ugly of the past 12 months and as I do so I reckon there are 6 key trends or issues that have set the context for 2021 and most likely will set the context […]
The trend is clear, more and more IT services are being delivered through as a service (XaaS) style offering. In a XaaS model all of the technical work is done by the XaaS provider rather than the corporate IT team. In addition most of the user support is being done by SMEs embedded within the business. These roles also often […]
In many organisations the lack of digital skills is seen as an issue of staff capability when in reality the lack of digital skills is often a leadership issue. Most of my conversations with executives about digital skills, or perhaps more precisely the lack of digital skills, go something like this (note this is deliberately over simplified and just a […]
No one wants Covid-19 and there is very little in the way of a Covid silver lining but it just might be the best thing that’s happened to digital transformation in a long time! These are strange and unusual times as half the world is now in lock-down as we fight Covid-19. It has also been an extremely busy time […]
This was the question that the Thriving Through Digital group considered in a recent discussion. It was an interesting and wide ranging discussion touching on issues such as the role of experience in a changing environment, silo thinking from leaders that make organisational change difficult, an inability to change or worse, active protection of the past, which have provided incumbent […]
This series of blogs is investigating the issues that traditional organisations, face in their journey to becoming digital organisations (in this context a traditional organisation is an organisation that was born and matured before digital was “a thing”). One of the major issues that leaders of traditional businesses face is the need to operate their dominant legacy traditional business alongside […]
While there is ongoing debate about whether it was the chicken or the egg that came first when it comes to creating and sustaining change there is no debate. New routines precede new outcomes. As regular readers of my blog will likely know about 5 years ago I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes (if you’re interested you can read […]
This blog formalizes the insights, ideas and opinions voiced at the Thriving Through Digital lean beer conversation held in Auckland on 12 September 2018. The specific topic that we discussed at this session was “ How to start your digital transition.” You can find more information / join the group conversation here. In developing this blog I have considered the […]
This blog formalises the insights, ideas and opinions voiced at our lean beer conversations held in August in Christchurch and Auckland. The specific topic that we discussed at this session was “Execution Strategies”. The actual notes of these conversations can be found here. Digital transformation is the organisation change initiative of our time. Depending on the survey you read anywhere […]
After many discussions about “digital” with the CIO and members of their IT leadership team it was time to take the digital conversation to the next level. Today the CIO and I were meeting with the CEO to begin to discuss the need for the organisation to develop a “digital strategy”1 for the organisation. After the initial introductions and […]
This blog formalises the insights, ideas and opinions voiced at our lean beer conversations held in July in Tauranga and Auckland. The specific topic that we discussed at this session was “what is digital and what is a digital organisation?”. The actual notes of these conversations can be found in this post to the “Thriving Through Digital” LinkedIn Group. […]
This blog formalises the insights, ideas and opinions voiced at the Thriving Through Digital lean beer conversation held in Auckland on 6 June 2018. The specific topic that we discussed at this session was “what is success [for digital], how do you justify the investment and how do you measure impact?” You can find more information / join the group […]
If you follow my posts you most likely know that I have recently published my first book (you can get your copy from my website – https://owenmccall.com/). Personally, I found the process of writing a book to be difficult and challenging and I am glad that is is over. I am so glad that it’s over that I have decided to write another […]
I have had lots of conversations lately with CIOs and Senior IT leaders about moving to agile. There was a CIO who has invested heavily in training and support for their team, but is experiencing push back on agile practices from the executive who still expect business cases and predefined scope and benefits. A long term industry colleague who is […]
I have recently had the privilege of talking to a large number of non IT executives who have responsibility for their organisation’s technology. While all of these people are very capable, talented executives none of them have specialised in the management and use of technology. At some level (while they won’t necessarily admit it) most of these executives are a […]
A few weeks ago I got a call from a client “Owen, we presented our digital strategy to the board yesterday. It went well but the board wants us to go quicker and are prepared to invest in that. Can we talk?” “Of course we can talk” I replied, “but before we dive into it, what exactly does the board […]
I reckon that for most large incumbent organisations (that is those born in an analogue age) going digital is a bit like embarking on a significant house renovation and extension. But first let me take you back to the beginning of 2004. My wife and I decided to buy an old villa in Auckland. We were new to Auckland and […]
In the third most popular TED Talk of all time Simon Sinek urges leaders to start with why. Sinek’s message was fairly simple. Great communicators communicate very differently to most people. Whereas most people communicate from the outside in, by describing what they do, great communicators communicate from the inside out by describing why they do what they do. That […]
I have been thinking a lot about projects and project management lately. Why? Because effective project delivery is critical to delivering value from IT and as an industry we don’t do a great job of delivering our projects. We are all aware of the statistics. Most commentators report that 50% of our projects fail and to make matters worse the […]
There we were halfway through the workshop with the IT leadership team and our attention shifted to the team’s project delivery performance. The insight from the executive was very clear. They saw the IT team as the department of no! It didn’t matter how good an idea it was IT would find a way to make sure it didn’t get done. […]
The internet is not 100 percent safe, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be using it to support you to take your business forward. And rather than worrying about all those things that you don’t understand I think you should think of the internet in the same way you think about driving. Think about it, is driving safe? Of course […]
For more than a decade now the proportion of organisational technology spend being managed outside of the IT team has grown rapidly. Most industry analysts reckon that the split in IT spending is nearly 50/50 between IT controlled and spent outside of IT. There are many reasons offered as to why this move has happened, however it is hard to […]
My daughter Sarah has just passed her learner’s driving licence. It is a very exciting time for her and a somewhat nervous time for myself and her mother. The day after she passed I took her out for her first ever drive. I decided that having her actually drive on the road with other cars was a step too far […]