Our business world is constantly changing and evolving at the speed of light. And that world has one fundamental pillar – technology. Without effective IT, you cannot achieve your business goals.
In the past, CIOs used two methods to speed up the business IT clock. They introduced enterprise processes and architectures and locked down requirements early. Then they crafted specific processes designed for speed. Neither of these was much good in the long run.
To increase your IT clock speed, you must be adaptive – IT adaptive. This means that your entire team is collaborative, flexible and applied strategic judgement to business processes and decisions. With increased IT clock speed, your technology delivers quickly and adds value to your company.
Luckily you don’t need to do 10,000 things to speed up your IT clock. These are the three common denominators used to synchronise your IT clock across your business.
IT Collaboration
When your teams or employees collaborate on the IT solutions that they use, global outcomes get delivered quicker. It’s like killing many birds with a single stone. You can easily find that the activities of individual teams are interdependent. So why duplicate your work. If your teams collaborate, map and plan carefully, you could cut 75% of the time spent on a project.
Streamline Bureaucratic Processes
Offer your teams and employees self-service processes. This gives them the freedom to act quickly without making rash decisions. Self-service doesn’t mean giving up control. Self-service means eliminating stifling bureaucracy so that your staff stay on task and get things done. Why should people have to fill out a form to request each and everything? Why do you need to wait for the next meeting before you make a decision? Make it a rule that time-consuming and in-depth processes are an exception rather than a rule in your business.
Delegate Delegate Delegate
Don’t over-escalate decisions. If a junior employee is capable of something, let them make the decision and get on with it. You don’t need to have a board meeting to process the order for an inexpensive laptop or tablet. Let people work with IT and then the IT will work for you and your business.
Get Ahead Now
There you have it. When you speed up your IT clock, people collaborate, bureaucracy goes out the window, and individual employee is responsible and accountable. And you surge ahead in the business marathon.
