Accidental Cio - A Lean and Agile Playbook for It Leaders

An indispensable guide showing IT leaders the way to balance the needs of innovation and exploration with exploitation and operational reliability
 
Many books on modern IT leadership focus solely on supporting innovation and disruption. In practice these must be balanced with the need to support waste reduction in existing processes and capabilities while keeping the foundation operational, secure, compliant with regulations, and cost effective.
 
In The Accidental CIO, veteran software developer-turned-executive Scott Millett delivers an essential playbook to becoming an impactful, strategic leader at any stage of your IT leadership journey from your earliest aspirations to long time incumbents in director and C-suite roles. You'll find a wealth of hands-on advice for tackling the many challenges and paradoxes that face technology leaders, from creating an aligned IT strategy, defining a target architecture, designing a balanced operating model, and leading teams and executing strategy.
 
After the foreword from Simon Wardley, The Accidental CIO will help you:
* Understand problem contexts you will face using the Cynefin decision making framework, and how the philosophies of agile, lean and design thinking can help manage them.
* Design an adaptive and strategically aligned operating model by applying the appropriate ways of working and governance approaches depending on each unique problem context.
* Organize a department using a blend of holacratic and hierarchical principles, and leveraging modern approaches such as Team Topology and Socio-technical patterns.
* Develop and deploy an effective and aligned IT Strategy using Wardley mapping based on a deep knowledge of your business architecture.
 
With this knowledge you'll be ready to create an empowered IT organization focused on solving customer problems and generating enterprise value. You'll understand the science behind what motivates teams and changes behavior. And you'll show your skills as a business leader thinking beyond IT outputs to impactful business outcomes.

List of contents

Foreword xxv
 
Introduction xxvii
 
Part I A New System of Work 1
 
1 Why We Need to Change The System 3
 
The Age of Digital Disruption 4
 
Operating in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous Business Environment 6
 
Leading IT in a Complex and Adaptive World 8
 
Summary 12
 
2 Philosophies for a New System 13
 
Philosophies vs. Methodologies 14
 
Discovering Value Using Design Thinking14
 
Eliminating Waste with Lean 17
 
Managing Complexity in Software Development with Agile 23
 
Strategic Decision-Making Using Wardley Mapping 28
 
Summary 34
 
3 How to Change the System 37
 
Being Agile vs. Doing Agile 38
 
Why Only Adopting the Practices of Agile Won't Work 39
 
Use Systems Thinking to Change Behavior 41
 
Changing Leaders' Mental Models 46
 
Instilling Drive through Purpose, Mastery, and Autonomy 50
 
Summary 52
 
Part II Designing An Adaptive Operating Model 55
 
4 The Anatomy of an Operating Model 57
 
The Anatomy of an Operating Model 58
 
The Themes of an Adaptable Operating Model 59
 
Summary 65
 
5 How We Are Organized 67
 
Organizational Structure 68
 
Understanding the Influence of Conway's Law and the Cognitive Load Theory on Team Performance 76
 
Product-Centric Development Teams 80
 
Defining Product Team Boundaries 90
 
Evolving to Business and IT Fusion Teams 100
 
Managing Cross Team Dependency 102
 
Summary 103
 
6 How We Work 107
 
IT Management Frameworks 108
 
How to Solve Problems from Discovery to Delivery 110
 
Problem-Solving Methodologies 112
 
Discovery Tools for Understanding the Problem Space 118
 
Approaches to Manage the Solution Space 140
 
Summary 158
 
7 How We Govern 163
 
What Is Governance? 164
 
Alignment: Linking Work to Strategic Intent 167
 
Managing Demand: Visualizing Work 170
 
Prioritization: Focusing on the Things That Matter 183
 
Measurement: Defining and Cascading Value and Measures 196
 
Investment: Funding for Outcomes 209
 
Decision Rights: Empowering People 223
 
Summary 240
 
8 How We Source and Manage Talent 243
 
Sourcing Strategy 244
 
Recruiting 245
 
Developing 249
 
Retaining 253
 
Summary 257
 
9 How We Lead 259
 
Adopting New Leadership Behaviors 260
 
Embracing Servant Leadership 262
 
Instilling Intrinsic Motivation 265
 
Encouraging Growth and Development 269
 
Focusing on Improving the System 272
 
Summary 276
 
Part III Strategy to Execution 279
 
10 Understanding Your Business 281
 
Business Anatomy 282
 
Why IT Leaders Need to Understand the Anatomy of a Business 285
 
Purpose: Starting with Why and Understanding Your North Star 286
 
The Business Model: The System of Capturing Value 287
 
Operating Model: How We Do the Work 293
 
Business Context: Understanding What Can Impact Us 302
 
Summary 323
 
11 IT Strategic Contribution 325
 
Linking IT Execution to Business Strategy Using Enterprise Architecture 326
 
Creating an IT Strategy 333
 
Determining IT Contribution to Addressing BAU Challenges and Achieving the Strategic Objectives 337
 
Defining Principles to Guide Technical Solutions 349
 
Determining Strategic Actions for IT Capability Maturity Improvements351
 
Measuring Contribution in Ter

About the author

SCOTT MILLETT is a former software developer-turned-CIO. He is the author of Patterns, Principles, and Practices of Domain-Driven Design, Professional ASP.NET Design Patterns, and Professional Enterprise.NET.

Summary

An indispensable guide showing IT leaders the way to balance the needs of innovation and exploration with exploitation and operational reliability

Many books on modern IT leadership focus solely on supporting innovation and disruption. In practice these must be balanced with the need to support waste reduction in existing processes and capabilities while keeping the foundation operational, secure, compliant with regulations, and cost effective.

In The Accidental CIO, veteran software developer-turned-executive Scott Millett delivers an essential playbook to becoming an impactful, strategic leader at any stage of your IT leadership journey from your earliest aspirations to long time incumbents in director and C-suite roles. You'll find a wealth of hands-on advice for tackling the many challenges and paradoxes that face technology leaders, from creating an aligned IT strategy, defining a target architecture, designing a balanced operating model, and leading teams and executing strategy.

After the foreword from Simon Wardley, The Accidental CIO will help you:
* Understand problem contexts you will face using the Cynefin decision making framework, and how the philosophies of agile, lean and design thinking can help manage them.
* Design an adaptive and strategically aligned operating model by applying the appropriate ways of working and governance approaches depending on each unique problem context.
* Organize a department using a blend of holacratic and hierarchical principles, and leveraging modern approaches such as Team Topology and Socio-technical patterns.
* Develop and deploy an effective and aligned IT Strategy using Wardley mapping based on a deep knowledge of your business architecture.

With this knowledge you'll be ready to create an empowered IT organization focused on solving customer problems and generating enterprise value. You'll understand the science behind what motivates teams and changes behavior. And you'll show your skills as a business leader thinking beyond IT outputs to impactful business outcomes.

Product details

• Authors: Scott Millett, Millett Scott
• Publisher: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 02.05.2024
• EAN: 9781119612094
• ISBN: 978-1-119-61209-4
• No. of pages: 528
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > Politics, society, business > Business administration, companies; Social sciences, law, business > Business > Management; Projektmanagement, it, informationstechnologie, CIO, IT-Management, Business & management, Project management, Electrical & Electronics Engineering, Elektrotechnik u. Elektronik, Wirtschaft u. Management, Programm- u. Projektmanagement, Program & Project Management