Tag Archives: Digital Age

Governance, Leadership, Service Management

The Real Reason IT Can’t Keep Up – and What Needs to Change

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When business leaders say they need to “move faster,” they are rarely talking about speed for its own sake. They mean faster time-to-market, faster recovery from disruption, faster answers, and a greater ability to change direction without rebuilding the business around new technology. But IT can’t keep up.

AI has only made the gap more visible. As Newsweek noted in 2026, AI adoption is forcing organizations to compete for the same limited pool of budget, talent, and attention already needed to maintain existing systems. AI is not reducing pressure on IT; it is increasing demand across infrastructure, services, skills, and spending.

The problem is that this pressure is not new. In many organizations, business demand has been growing faster than IT’s ability to respond for years. IT is expected to enable innovation while still carrying the weight of reactive support, operational complexity, and “keeping the lights on” work. As that imbalance grows, speed becomes harder to deliver—even when the intent is there.

IT hasn’t been able to keep up – and if something doesn’t change, it’s only going to get worse.

Symptoms of an IT organization that isn’t keeping up

Those pressures do not show up only in missed deadlines or overloaded teams. They show up in visible patterns across the organization—patterns that signal IT is struggling to keep pace with what the business now requires.

Personal technology outpaces corporate technology – Employees often have access to faster, easier, and more modern tools at home than they do at work. When workplace tools feel outdated or restrictive, people turn to “shadow IT” or “shadow AI” to get work done. While that may improve individual productivity in the short term, it undermines collaboration, consistency, and knowledge sharing across the enterprise.

Policies constrain instead of enable – Good policies explain why the policy exists and provide useful guidance that helps the organization achieve intended outcomes while minimizing unintended consequences. But when policies are not updated to reflect current market conditions, emerging technologies, or new ways of working, they create friction. In those cases, the effort required to comply can outweigh the risk the policy was meant to manage.

IT and business strategy are disjointed – As I’ve discussed previously, many organizations still develop IT strategy separately from business strategy. The result is fragmented initiatives, poor investment decisions, underused technology, and missed opportunities to create value. Research from Grant Thornton found that while 93% of business leaders are investing more in technology, only 27% say their technology is fully aligned with business goals.

IT’s house is not in order – One of the clearest signs that IT is falling behind is the absence of foundational delivery disciplines. IT practices are not aligned to organizational goals, work is managed in isolation from the rest of the enterprise, and business governance over systems and services is weak or missing. Since IT cannot create business value on its own, these gaps make it harder for the organization to move with speed and confidence.

Together, these symptoms make it harder for the enterprise to move quickly, coordinate effectively, and respond confidently to change.

What’s holding IT back?

These symptoms do not happen by accident. They usually point to deeper structural issues in how IT is organized, governed, and connected to the business.

Lack of transparency – IT often lacks a clear, end-to-end understanding of the organization’s value streams. While IT may understand its own internal workflows for systems or application development, it often struggles to see how those systems and applications contribute to broader business value.

Processes without purpose – People in IT are often busy doing work, but the reason behind that work is unclear—or no longer valid. When processes continue without a clear connection to outcomes, they create effort without delivering meaningful value.

IT is not aligned with the enterprise – As I’ve discussed before, IT often lacks a clear understanding of how the enterprise operates and creates value. Instead, IT treats its non-IT colleagues as “customers,” which can create an unnecessary barrier between IT and the rest of the organization.

IT services are not defined – The way people, processes, and technology come together to enable business outcomes is often not clearly defined, documented, or agreed upon between IT and the rest of the organization.

Lack of governance – Business decision rights are often undefined for products and services provided by IT. As a result, ownership of those decisions is frequently ceded—consciously or unconsciously—to IT. In effect, IT ends up making, or being asked to make, business decisions it does not own.

Tool sprawl – A “technology first” approach to business problems often leads to a proliferation of tools. A 2026 report from Auvik found that SaaS sprawl continues to outpace visibility for many IT teams. Sixty percent of organizations report discovering unauthorized SaaS applications at least monthly, reinforcing how difficult it is to maintain an accurate view of what is running across the environment.

If these are some of the forces slowing IT down, the next question is what can help. This is where service management should matter—but only if it evolves beyond a narrow operational focus.

Service management can help – but not the service management found in many organizations

Many organizations have adopted the operational side of service management, but those practices alone have never been enough. The business, technology, and consumer landscape has changed. Organizations need greater velocity, customers expect better experiences, technology environments are more complex, and work happens everywhere. In that context, an operationally oriented, “inside-out” approach to service management falls short.

What organizations need now is service management that supports business outcomes, enables value co-creation, and improves measurable business impact. That means helping the organization pivot safely, respond to market change, adopt emerging technologies with discipline, and manage growing cyber and operational risk.

For IT to shift from reactive work to strategic business enablement, service management must evolve. It should strengthen governance and control, become more responsive and value-driven, and focus on how the organization uses people, processes, and technology together to deliver differentiated outcomes. Here are a few examples (referencing ITIL®[i]practices) of how service management can help.

Portfolio management – Helps the organization work on the right things. It clarifies which products and services should exist, governs them across their lifecycle, and supports decisions about what to fund, improve, or retire.

 Strategy management – Ensures the organization’s desired outcomes are clearly defined, agreed, maintained, and translated into action.

Service design – Focuses on creating modern, scalable, and resilient digital services rather than treating systems and applications as ends in themselves.

Service desk – Becomes the hub for the consumer experience, not just a function that reacts to incidents and requests.

Measurement and reporting – Shifts the conversation from IT activity to enterprise performance, using measures that reflect business results rather than technical effort alone.

Monitoring and event management – Enables earlier detection, automated response, and more predictive operations, reducing the amount of reactive work carried by IT teams.

Continual improvement – Builds the learning loops needed to keep adapting. In a fast-changing environment, improvement cannot be occasional; it must be part of how the organization works.

Start by asking better questions

If IT feels like it is constantly behind, the issue is rarely effort alone. More often, the problem is that demand has outgrown the structures, governance, and operating practices needed to respond safely and effectively. That is why simply asking IT to “move faster” will not solve the problem. Organizations need a more business-connected approach to service management—one that improves visibility, clarifies ownership, strengthens decision-making, and helps turn technology work into business outcomes.

If you want IT to help your organization move faster, start by asking a different set of questions:

  • Do you have clear service ownership?
  • Are decision rights defined?
  • Can you see how technology work connects to business value?
  • Are you reducing reactive work—or just funding more of it?

Service management should help answer those questions. If it is not, this may be the right time to rethink what service management is for and how it should support the business.

[i] ITIL is a registered trademark of the PeopleCert group.

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Leadership, Service Management

Why Enterprise Service Management is the Operating Model Your Organization Needs

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New technologies promise greater speed, increased accuracy, improved productivity, and more efficiency. Many organizations invest in these new technologies to address those challenges and unlock new capabilities.

But in many cases, after significant investments in time, resources, and people, these new technologies don’t deliver those promised results. What happened?

Did internal silos and outdated processes get in the way? Are workflows clumsy, with poor handoffs between departments? Are those workflows even defined? Were the results promised by the new technology internally translated into quantifiable goals, frictionless interactions, and clear accountabilities?

While a technology first approach is often followed for solving business problems, such an approach rarely achieves the intended results. Why? Because the problem is not a technology problem. The problem is often in the organization’s operating model. What if enterprise service management (ESM) is the new operating model?

The challenges of operating models

McKinsey defines an operating model as “a strategic blueprint that defines how a company organizes its people, processes, technology, and governance to deliver value to customers and achieve long-term goals. It acts as the functional bridge, translating a high-level business model (the “what”) into daily actions (the “how”), ensuring efficiency, scalability, and alignment across the organization.”

The fact is that every organization has an operating model. Work is being done somehow, whether it is by design. And design and adoption of the operating model is the problem that ESM adoption could resolve.

But organizations resist changing, much less defining, their operating models – even though organizational leaders agree that they should. Many executives say that their operating model must be rethought, yet over 30% of those executives point at internal resistance as a barrier to redesign.

So, if defining and implementing operating models result in better ways of working within organizations, why do executives get resistance?

  • Fear of the unknown – People fear the unknown and worry about how new roles, workflows, or decision rights will affect them.
  • Internal politics – Concerns over losing control, influence, or decision right results in pushback against defining operating models.
  • Siloed operations have become deeply embedded – In the absence of an operating model, internal teams and departments have locally optimized the work that they are doing without considering the impact on the overall organization.

Introducing technology in the absence of a defined and agreed operating model only exacerbates these issues.

Why ESM is your operating model is ESM

Good ESM helps organizations understand their existing (even if undocumented) operating model. But ESM is not just ITSM extended across the organization. ESM is an organizational capability for holistically delivering business value and outcomes, based upon shared processes, appropriate technology, increased collaboration, and better communication across the organization.

To me, the purpose of an operating model and the purpose of ESM sound the same. Should ESM be your operating model? Should your operating model be ESM?

When organizations commit to defining, implementing, and following an operating model, the result is clarity regarding roles, responsibilities, and decision rights.  Functions align better with business strategy and customer outcomes.

ESM succeeds by empowering people, clarifying responsibilities, and supporting cross functional collaboration to deliver business outcomes.

When organizations commit to good ESM, the result is standardized processes and enhanced visibility regarding how value flows through the organization. This makes it easier to identify problem areas, simplify workflows, and clarify expectations and roles.

When organizations commit to defining and implementing an operating model, that operating model becomes the blueprint for service delivery. Processes facilitate the actions that bring the blueprint to life.

The introduction of new technology changes the enterprise operating model by reshaping how the whole business creates, delivers, and captures value across structure, processes, people, and governance—not just how IT runs.

Good ESM illustrates how technology enables or supports processes and people in delivering business outcomes and value.

Governance is a core enabler of good ESM, by providing the structures needed to effectively govern emergent technologies and distributed processes at an operational level.

An operating model defines how governance happens on a day-to-day basis.

5 Steps toward adopting ESM – and defining your operating model

How can business executives accomplish both defining the operating model and adopting ESM? Here are five steps to getting started:

  • Stop thinking of ESM as “ITSM everywhere”. It’s not. ESM applies service management concepts across the organization to enable a clear understanding of how work and value flows from start to finish – across departments. Many ITSM adoptions are (incorrectly) focused internally on IT.
  • Clarify the technology strategy. When business strategy and technology strategy are developed independently, the result is poor technology decisions and missed business opportunities. For success in the digital economy, the business and technology strategy must be integrated.
  • Understand the current state. Identifying and mapping the current ways that value flows through the organization not only brings transparency and clarity into how work is being done, it also identifies improvement opportunities. It will also highlight the need for operating models and ESM.
  • Think, talk, and act in terms of “PPTG”. The key to success with both ESM and operating models is thinking through PPTG – People, Process, Technology, and Governance. What skills and competencies are needed for organizational success? How should work flow across the organization? What systems and technology are needed? How will decisions be made? Thinking, talking, and acting in terms of PPTG establishes the foundation for success for operating models and ESM.
  • Start with what’s most important – Identify and begin with the critical few end-to-end processes within the organization. This will get the right parts of the organization involved. It also enables a bigger impact on the organization, validates the value of operating models and the use of ESM, builds momentum for continued improvements, and shifts the mindset of business executives from just buying-in (“nice idea”) to commitment (action).

When organizations embrace ESM as their operating model, technology starts working for them – not the other way round – unlocking clarity, alignment, and measurable value.

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AI and Modernization, Human Centered Design, Leadership

Technology is Easy. Experience is Hard. Here’s How to Get it Right.

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There is a tendency within many organizations to take a “technology first” approach to solve every business challenge. In more cases than not, this approach simply creates more challenges and friction within organizations; it is a very short-sighted view.

Organizations do need technology – without it, organizations cannot compete in the digital economy.

But there is a lot of FOMO in today’s business technology environment, valuing speed over strategy.

The often-ignored aspects of rapid technology implementation

When an organization prioritizes speed of implementing technology, it usually results in some significant issues being ignored. Issues such as:

  • Changes to the organizational operating model. Technology changes the enterprise operating model by reshaping how the whole business creates, delivers, and captures value across structure, processes, people, and governance—not just how IT runs.
  • Impact of change on people. Organizations often underestimate, if not ignore, the impact of technology implementation on the people the technology was intended to help.
  • The weight of technical debt. Unless governance keeps pace with technology introduction, rapid introductions of technology can introduce new technical debt in system architectures, data, and model lifecycle. At the same time, many organizations ignore the impact of existing technical debt from legacy systems, customizations, and integrations.

Experience enablement ensures successful technology implementations

Think about it – in the digital economy, all companies have some level of technology enablement. But this ever-increasing rush to implement technology out of the fear of being left behind will have negative consequences – unless the fundamental challenges noted above are addressed.

But I believe that success with technology implementation depends on a single critical factor – the people that use that technology. This highlights the need for a good human experience, both between organizations and their external stakeholders as well as the stakeholders within those organizations.

I am convinced that the experience – the total end‑to‑end journey and feelings of a person interacting with a company or product –  is the differentiating factor for organizations in the digital economy. But if technology implementations do not enable that differentiating experience, those organizations will not realize their full potential in the digital economy.

Can an organization achieve its strategy, the demand for speed and agility in the marketspace,  and address the need for a good experience for those that interact with technology? The answer is yes – but organizations first must slow down to go fast.

Four Steps to Slow Down and Accelerate Success

How can an organization meet the demands for speed and agility in the market space, yet ensure that technology implementations enable the right experience? It can be done – if organizations first slow down to go fast. Here are the four steps organizations must take to slow down to accelerate success.

  • Digital business strategy – A well-defined digital business strategy is a critical first step for organizations wanting to leverage technology to deliver business outcomes and value. A digital business strategy ensures that the appropriate technologies are identified for achieving those business results.
  • Mapping value streams – A value stream map shows how value flows through an organization – and the systems and technology that enables the flow of value. When organizations understand their value streams, they can identify and address any areas of friction resulting from the use of technology.
  • Define proto personas – Proto personas help organizations understand the goals, needs, and behaviors of the consumers that will be using their products and services.
  • Journey mapping – Whether it’s a customer or an employee, it’s critical to understand the experience of people’s interactions with an organization. Use those proto personas to produce journey maps. Journey maps depict the touchpoints and experiences – and the impact of technology (good or bad) – humans have while interacting with an organization.

Technology without delivering the right experience is a recipe for failure

As I’ve written before, if technology implementations do not enable that differentiating experience, those organizations will be left behind in the digital economy. But admittedly,  organizations taking a “tools first” approach to business challenges is nothing new.

But, delivering that right experience should not be left to chance. A “tools first” approach may address one area of concern but typically will miss other areas of concerns. Different consumers have different expectations of the experience they have with organizations. Implementation of technology without a well thought and integrated business strategy results in wasted time, money, and resources. Such an approach usually results in needless complexity. The different value streams within an organization have different requirements for velocity. Technology solutions must accommodate those requirements.

These are leadership issues, not technology issues. And it takes courage to stand in the face of well-intentioned but misguided demands for rapid technology implementations.

The best way to ensure success in the digital future is to plan for that future. Defining the digital business strategy, mapping value streams, understanding who will be interacting with your organization using proto personas, and journey mapping provides a clear path to success in the digital age.

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Service Management

Fear of collaboration: A silent killer of ESM initiatives

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Is your Enterprise Service Management (ESM) initiative stuck? Does it feel like no one wants to talk about, much less support, ESM?  Do you feel like you’re on an island?  If these questions resonate with you, your ESM initiative may be a victim of a fear of collaboration.

Collaboration is when two or more people work together to achieve a common goal.  Successful collaboration involves sharing responsibilities, supporting each other, and sharing risks. When people collaborate, they invest in the success of each other, and work as a team to overcome challenges to achieve shared goals.

Successful ESM requires collaboration. But to many, being asked to collaborate is intimidating.  It’s uncomfortable.  In some cases, it is counter to the culture of the organization. In other cases, it’s a threat to an individual’s sense of control, self-worth, or identity.

Collaboration can be downright scary.

Why are people afraid of collaboration?

People are often afraid of collaboration for several reasons.  These reasons range from psychological, cultural, and organizational factors – factors that create obstacles to the effective collaboration needed for successful ESM.

This article from Harvard Business Review discusses the “blind spot” many leaders have when asking their teams to collaborate.  Leaders often overlook the experience teams may have when invited to collaborate, such as when asked to divulge information, break down organizational silos, share resources, sacrifice autonomy, or even relinquish responsibilities that define them as a group.  Rather than embrace the opportunities and successes that come with effective collaboration, some teams take on a defensive posture to protect their team identity, legitimacy, and sense of control.

An ESM initiative may encounter other barriers to collaboration. Some people fear appearing incompetent or weak when admitting gaps in their knowledge, especially in high performing organizations. Others are concerned about being indebted to others or having to reciprocate in the future, which can make collaboration feel transactional rather than mutually beneficial.  In workplaces that highly value individual achievement and self-reliance, people may feel pressure to solve problems on their own. Collaboration can be seen as a weakness, discouraging people from reaching out for help or engaging.

Why good ESM is critical to success in the digital economy

Why is having and practicing good ESM so important for organizations now?

Having reliable and responsive technology solutions is critical for business success in the digital economy.  The digital economy moves at digital speeds.  Understanding the organizational value streams – how work and value flow through an organization – is foundational for reliable, repeatable, and trustworthy digital interactions.  Since technology is a critical factor in underpinning and executing organizational value streams, having a mutual understanding of  the outcomes and value the organization wants to achieve is required.  Good ESM enables and embeds that mutual understanding across the organization.

The customer experience will be significantly influenced by the interactions of customers with technologies provided by the organization.  Those interactions must be frictionless, intuitive, and responsive – and in many cases, will not involve a human from the organization.  Good ESM enables organizations to understand and continually improve how the technologies underpinning organizational value streams that face the customer.

Good ESM requires good collaboration

As I’ve stated before, ESM is not “ITSM for the rest of the organization”.  ESM is holistic, organization-wide approach focused on value delivery, collaboration, and continual improvement, rather than just technology deployment. Good ESM is a strategic initiative that requires proper planning, leadership, and a focus on real business outcomes.

The focus of ESM must be on value streams and business outcomes, not implementing tools. Good ESM is achieved by aligning workflows and processes with organizational value streams and regular engagement among colleagues from across the organization to understand priorities and pain points and identify opportunities for improvement.

Good ESM relies on shared processes, increased collaboration, and improved communication across departments. This holistic approach enables organizations to leverage the full talents and competencies of the entire workforce, leading to better outcomes.[i]

Overcoming the fear of collaboration

While there is no “instant fix”  that results in collaboration, there are some significant steps an organization can take to enable and motivate the collaboration required for ESM.

First, an ESM initiative requires executive sponsorship and a champion.  Since good ESM requires a holistic approach, executive sponsorship is critical for helping tear down organizational silos.  Equally as important is having an ESM champion.  The champion not only represents the initiative at the senior levels of the organization but must also convey the vision for ESM.  It must be emotionally compelling.  Logical arguments alone are insufficient to overcome the deep-rooted emotional responses as discussed earlier.

Leaders must talk openly about the importance of psychological safety and make it an explicit team goal.  Leaders should model  inclusive leadership by actively soliciting input, showing vulnerability, and being approachable about mistakes.  Associates have to feel safe to ask questions, experiment, and make mistakes.

The goals, expectations, and roles of the ESM initiative must be clearly communicated from the start. Leaders must define clear, mutual objectives so that everyone is working toward the same outcome.  Regularly schedule check-ins to clarify any misunderstandings and to maintain alignment as the ESM initiative evolves.

Finally, having the right person lead the ESM initiative – and having the right people engaged –  is key. Build an ESM team environment where team members feel safe to voice ideas and concerns without judgment. Encourage empathy and understanding among team members. Celebrate and reward knowledge sharing, but just as importantly, celebrate the learning that comes from failures.

Move toward a collaborative ESM initiative

Here are some suggestions for overcoming collaboration challenges and getting your ESM initiative moving in the right direction.

  • Establish the shared purpose – Why is ESM so important for the future of the organization? In his book, Start with Why, Simon Sinek wrote “people don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.” [ii] Without the strong and compelling “why”, ESM efforts will not return the expected benefits.
  • Have a plan – ESM is not just extending the ITSM tool across the enterprise. ESM must be seen as a business strategy, not just a technology or IT initiative.
  • Make collaboration a personal objective – Start actively listening to others’ ideas and perspectives with empathy. This creates a foundation for trust and respect, which will open the door for more meaningful interactions and collaboration.

Effective service management is a key to success in the digital economy. But the future of service management is not within the IT department, but within the enterprise. Good ESM requires good collaboration across an organization to realize success.

[i] https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/20429/626830

[ii] Sinek, Simon. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. New York: Portfolio, 2009

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Service Management

Three reasons why now is the right time for ESM

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Enterprise service management (ESM) is an organizational capability for holistically delivering business value and outcomes, based upon shared processes, appropriate technologies, increased collaboration, and better communication across the organization.[i]  ESM, done well, enables positive customer and employee experiences, improves business agility, and enables impactful digital transformation.

ESM is nothing new. ESM, as discussed as early as 2005, was characterized as simply extending IT service management (ITSM) practices across the organization. Since then, organizations have realized that ESM needs to be an enterprise capability and competency – not just the domain of a single department.

Effective ESM gets the entire organization on the same page. Good ESM practices reflect and support the entirety of enterprise value streams, not just the IT portions. This enables teams to have clarity around how work and value flows through the organization, and how technology underpins that workflow and enables value realization. And in the digital age, knowing how work and value flows through an enterprise provides the organization with the ability to quickly shift and react to changes in market spaces – critical for business success.

But herein lies a couple of challenges.

Many organizations are “process poor,” so there’s been little effort in defining and documenting processes, depicting how inputs are transformed into measurable outputs. Secondly, individual departments often operate in isolation or function as if they’re at least somewhat isolated from others within the organization. Organizational workflows and value streams are poorly understood, and if value streams are defined, those value stream definitions are often limited to a single department.

Three reasons why now is the right time for ESM

Why is now the right time for ESM?

  1. Digital age organizations can’t afford to have siloed departments working in isolation. Everyone within the organization must understand not only how their work contributes to success, but also the upstream and downstream impacts of their work. ESM facilitates this shared understanding of how work is done within an organization.
  2. Automation and AI adoption benefit from effective ESM. Generative AI (GenAI) could be used to generate and maintain knowledge across the organization. Capturing, generating, and maintaining knowledge is among the most tedious activities within an organization. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Intelligent Automation (IA) could result in improved customer experience and more resilient and efficient operations of customer-facing activities.[ii] Good ESM standardizes workflows that underpin enterprise value streams, enabling the capabilities of these and other emerging technologies.
  3. The world is mobile. Despite recent organizational return-to-work mandates, the work-from-anywhere genie is out of the bottle. And if the workforce is mobile, it only makes sense that the customers of an organization are also mobile. Both employees and customers expect a frictionless experience when interacting with systems and technologies. Again, good ESM underpins enterprise value streams and workflows that enable efficient and effective workflows and experiences for both employees and customers.

The opportunities are here – is your organization ready?

Today’s digitally driven, consumer-focused economy demands that organizations conduct business at digital speeds.  At the same time, organizations must deliver a differentiated customer experience over their competitors. And if that’s not enough, organizations must also ensure that risks have been optimized as both employees and customers interact with technology. Seems impossible, doesn’t it?

But that is what effective ESM can do for an organization. ESM, done well, results in increased operational efficiency, improved collaboration between departments, reduced costs, enhanced customer satisfaction, and the capability to adapt quickly to changing business needs. ESM helps enforce better governance and compliance. And improved service delivery resulting from good ESM enables a differentiated customer experience.

There are two critical success factors for ESM adoption.

First, implementing ESM usually involves significant changes to existing processes, roles, responsibilities, and workflows. Organizational change management becomes crucial to address resistance, communicate the benefits of ESM, and provide proper training and support to employees. Managing this organizational change effectively can pose a significant challenge. But the result will be having enabled and confident employees that are more engaged, more invested, and that have and deliver a better experience.

Effective ESM requires integrating data and systems from various departments and teams. This can be challenging due to disparate systems and legacy technologies within an organization. Ensuring smooth data and system integrations is crucial for effective ESM implementation. Taking an iterative approach provides the opportunity to “learn by doing” and realizing some quick wins, while at the same time, optimizing risk to the organization.

Get started with ESM

The sooner that organizations begin ESM adoption, the sooner the organization will realize the benefits of an integrated and responsive organization. Here are four suggestions for getting started with ESM.

  • Define your digital strategy. How will digital technologies enable the organization to achieve its mission, vision, and goals?
  • Make the business case. Document the reasons why the organization should adopt ESM. Define the specific objectives for ESM, including opportunities, benefits, financials, and risks.
  • Establish a guiding coalition. Having a group of committed people to guide, coordinate, and communicate ESM efforts is a critical early step for success.
  • Map value streams. Understanding how value moves through an organization is critical if an organization is going to elevate itself above siloed work and into true enterprise service management.

The differences between organizations that are internally siloed and those that are truly agile and integrated will only become more pronounced as technologies such as automation and AI become more mainstream in the world of digital organizations. Now is the time for ESM.

If your organization is struggling in its digital evolution, it is time to develop your digital strategy, map value streams, and adopt ESM – and we can help. Contact Tedder Consulting today to find out how.

[i] https://www.dougtedder.com/2021/02/01/esm-business-strategy

[ii] https://omdia.tech.informa.com/om019736/more-vendors-squeeze-into-the-intelligent-automation-space-as- enterprises-embrace-the-technology

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AI and Modernization

The more AI we become, the more human we need to be

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Why are AI assistants given human-like names?

Apple provides Siri[i]. Amazon has Alexa[ii]. Samsung features Bixby[iii]. And there are literally dozens of other examples, in use both publicly and privately.

The attribution of human characteristics to non-human entities is known as anthropomorphism. Attributing human intent to non-human entities, such as pets, robots, or other entities, is one way that people make sense of the behaviors and events that they encounter. We as humans are a social species with a brain that evolved to quickly process social information.[iv]

There are numerous examples of anthropomorphism with which we are familiar, and honestly, don’t even think twice about. In Toy Story[v], the toys can talk. In Animal Farm[vi], the animals overthrow their masters and govern themselves.  In Winnie-the-Pooh[vii], Christopher Robbin interacts with Winnie, a talking bear.

Is this why AI-enabled chatbots and digital assistants are given human-like names? To make us want to talk to them? To make it easy to interact with them? To influence our thinking and behaviors?

Without over psycho-analyzing the situation (and I am far from qualified to do so), the answer to the above questions is “yes”.

The good – and not so good – of today’s AI capabilities

AI capabilities have been around for quite some time. While philosophers and mathematicians began laying the groundwork for understanding human thought long ago[viii] , the advent of computers in the 1940s provided the technology needed to power AI. The Turing Test, introduced in 1950, provided a method for measuring a machine’s ability to exhibit behavior that is human-like. The term and field of “artificial intelligence”, coined by John McCarthy in 1956, soon followed.

The past few years have seen a dramatic expansion of AI capabilities, from machine learning to natural language processing to generative AI. That expansion has resulted in impactful and valuable capabilities for humans. AI is well-suited for managing tedious and repetitive tasks. AI can be used to initiate automated actions based on the detection of pre-defined conditions. AI can facilitate continual learning across an organization based on the data captured from interactions with and use of technology. And most recently, AI is developing a growing capability to respond to more complex queries and generating responses and prompts to aid humans in decision-making.

But despite all the progress with AI, there are some things that are not so good. Miscommunication can occur due to limitations of a chatbot or an AI assistant in understanding user intent or context. A simple example is the number of ways we as humans describe a “computer”, including “PC”, “laptop”, “monitor”, or “desktop” must be explicitly defined for an AI model to recognize the equivalence. AI is not able to exhibit empathy or the human touch, resulting in frustration, because humans feel that they are not being heard or understood.[ix]  AI is not able to handle complex situations or queries that require nuanced understanding; as a result, AI may provide a generic or irrelevant response.[x]  The quality of responses from AI is directly dependent upon the quality of the input data being used – and many organizations lack both the quality and quantity of data required by AI to provide the level of functionality expected by humans. Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, the expanding use and adoption of AI within organizations has resulted in fear and anxiety among employees regarding job loss.

Techniques that will help humanize AI

Several techniques can help organizations better design human interactions with AI. Here are a few to consider that can help humanize AI.

  • Employing design thinking techniques – Design thinking is an approach for designing solutions with the user in mind. A design thinking technique for understanding human experience is the use of prototypes, or early models of solutions, to evaluate a concept or process. Involving the people that will be interacting with AI through prototypes can identify any likes or encountered friction in the use of AI technology.
  • Mapping the customer journeys that (will) interact with AI – A customer journey map is a visual representation of a customer’s processes, needs, and perceptions throughout their interactions and relationship with an organization. It helps an organization understand the steps that customers take – both seen and unseen – when they interact with a business.[xi]  Using customer journey maps helps with developing the needed empathy with the customer’s experience by identify points of frustration and delight.
  • Thinking in terms of the experience – What is the experience that end-users need to have when interacting with AI? Starting AI adoption from this perspective provides the overarching direction for making the experience of interacting with AI more “human”.

Start here to make AI use more human

AI adoption presents exciting opportunities for increasing productivity and improving decision-making. But with any technology adoptions, there is the risk of providing humans with suboptimal experiences with AI. Here are three suggestions for enabling good human experiences with the use of AI.

  • Define AI strategy – Success with AI begins with a well-defined strategy that identifies how AI will enable achievement of business goals and objectives. But AI success is not just business success or technical success with AI models, but also whether users are happy with AI and perceive it to be a valid solution. [xii]
  • Map current customer journeys – Mapping current customer journeys may expose where user interactions are problematic and may benefit from the introduction of AI.
  • Start and continually monitor the experience – Happy Signals, an experience management platform for IT, states that “humans are the best sensors”.  Humans are working in technological environments that are in a constant state of change and evolution. Actively seeking out and acting upon feedback from humans regarding their experiences with technology raises awareness of the user experience and fosters a more human-centric approach to technology use and adoption.

The best way to ensure that AI-enabled technologies are more human is to design them with empathy. Design thinking, customer journey mapping, and experience management will help ensure that AI stays in touch with the “human” side.

Need help with customer journey mapping? Perhaps using design thinking techniques to develop solution-rich, human centered solutions for addressing challenges with customer and employee experience? We can help – contact Tedder Consulting for more information.

[i] “Siri” is a trademark of Apple, Inc.

[ii] “Alexa” is a trademark of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

[iii] “Bixby” is a trademark of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

[iv] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/anthropomorphism , retrieved March 2024.

[v] Lasseter, John. Toy Story. Buena Vista Pictures, 1995.

[vi] Orwell, George. Animal Farm. Collins Classics, 2021.

[vii] Milne, A.A., 1882-1956. Winnie-the-Pooh. E.P. Dutton & Co., 1926.

[viii] Wikipedia. “History of artificial intelligence”. Retrieved March 2024.

[ix] https://www.contactfusion.co.uk/the-challenges-of-using-ai-chatbots-problems-and-solutions-explored , retrieved March 2024.

[x] Ibid.

[xi] https://www.qualtrics.com/experience-management/customer/customer-journey-mapping  , retrieved March 2024.

[xii] Ganesan, Kavita. “The Business Case for AI: A Leader’s Guide to AI Strategies, Best Practices, & Real-World Applications”. Opinosis Analytics Publishing, 2022.

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AI and Modernization, Service Management

You Can’t Automate What You Don’t Understand

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The case for automating workflows is a strong one. There are plenty of reasons why organizations are looking for the right automation tools, including but not limited to:

  • Frees staff from performing tedious, high-volume, low-value tasks
  • Creates cheaper and faster process execution
  • Improves customer experience
  • Makes it easier to scale

I’m not here to argue the case of automation. When done correctly, it can achieve all those benefits above. And many organizations see success when they automate simple, one-step tasks, like password resets.

However, automation can start to feel like a catch-22, especially for those organizations who realize initial success with their simple automated tasks. That’s because they start the automation initiative by looking for the right tools. Many automation conversations in organizations are about the various tool vendors and weighing the features of each tool. And for simple automations, perhaps that’s not a bad way to make decisions.

But if you want to automate multi-step, complex workflows, the tool is the last thing you need to identify. Let’s explore how to make sure you get these multi-step automations correct.

Principles of Good Automation

1. Automation often means orchestration
The term “automation” is often used to describe things that are actually service orchestration. Automation is the act of automating a single task, like password resets. Orchestration refers to automating multi-step processes to create streamlined, end-to-end (and often inter-departmental) workflows. When determining your automation needs, be clear on whether your goal is only to automate or orchestrate.

2.Don’t automate or orchestrate “just because you can”
Every organization has plenty of workflows and tasks from which to choose to automate. But just because you can automate something doesn’t mean that you should, especially in the first stage of your automation initiatives. You want to focus your initial efforts on the tasks that:

    • Are performed on a high-frequency basis, are tedious for people to perform, but are well-defined and produce predictable results.
    • Consume a disproportionate amount of a team’s time. This may indicate that the process is not well-defined to begin with! In this case, be prepared to first invest time into process design.
    • Drive the most ROI for your business. It doesn’t make sense to spend hours and hours defining and automating a task that is only performed on an infrequent basis.

3. Everyone involved must be ready for orchestration for it to work
Creating multi-step, complex workflows almost always involve more than one team or person. You have to have everyone involved in the entire process involved and that requires a level of transparency from everyone in the organization.

Too many organizations begin automation initiatives despite having little insight into the actual steps involved in a workflow—and therein lies the problem. Those organizations are trying to automate work that they don’t understand.

Gaining Transparency is key

The solution for avoiding automation and orchestration missteps is to start by gaining transparency into the work currently being performed – before you start to automate. Here’s how:

  • Get the whole team involved. Automation and service orchestration has to be a collaborative project, or it will never work. People are often resistant to automation initiatives because they do not understand the objectives of the initiative or were not provided with an opportunity to provide feedback. To help overcome this resistance, illustrate how orchestration and automation will not only improve productivity, quality, and efficiency, but will also improve the employee experience by removing toil from daily work.
  • Identify needed business outcomes. Business outcomes are king to all else. You’re going to burn precious resources spending so much time automating tasks and orchestrating procedures that don’t result in measurable and valuable business outcomes. Before automating, first evaluate how a particular workflow achieves business outcomes
  • Understand end-to-end workflows. Does everyone on the team have a shared understanding of each step in a workflow? Is there a clear understanding of how each team contributes to that workflow? Many organizations don’t have this type of insight and it causes massive breakdowns during the execution of a process. Getting insight into the steps involved enables automation. Otherwise, attempts to automate will only result in frustration.

Once you’ve gained transparency into the current work, now you’re ready to evaluate tools. While this may require more time at the outset, doing this foundational work is key to long term success with automation.

Good automation and good service management go together

To be clear, good automation will not fix bad service management. When you try to use automation to address poor service management issues, all that happens is that you screw up faster – and automatically. And your end-users and customers immediately feel the impact of bad service management.

But when good automation is combined with good service management, watch out. Good service management helps you do more with your resources, helps you get everyone on the same page – both from the technology and the business outcomes perspectives, and helps you deliver that differentiated experience. Good service management ensures that you’re taking a holistic approach to delivering IT products and services. And when you start automation efforts by understanding how value is delivered through IT products and services – you’ll automate the things that both make sense and deliver the most value for both the organization and the user.

Tedder’s Takeaway: Why it matters

Tools alone will not make automation work. Automation is only successful when there is a shared and agreed understanding of the resulting business outcomes, combined with having transparency into how work is being done. Augmenting good service management with good automation delivers the differentiated experience for both the organization and the end-user.

Are your automation efforts stuck? Are you not realizing the benefits of service orchestration? Let Tedder Consulting help! From value stream mapping to process design and improvement, Tedder Consulting can enable automation that is both impactful and delivers a great customer experience. To learn more, schedule a free, 30-minute meeting with Tedder Consulting today!

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Service Management

The Curious Case of the Missing IT Strategy

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IT organizations often get stuck in a vicious cycle of never-ending work. IT implements solution after solution, fixes one problem after another, and no matter how many times they do it, those solutions and fixes never seem to stick. IT often finds itself just trying to keep up with what appears to be a constantly changing business. IT is often seen as the anchor slowing business down and has earned a reputation of being the slowest path toward technology implementation.  And when budget times come around, IT never seems to manage to get its fair share. 

These are signs that an IT organization is missing strategy.  This is a massive problem for both IT and the organizations that IT works within. Why are so many IT organizations missing a strategy?  What can be done to establish a viable IT strategy?

One thing that is certain – the strategy can’t just be “do”.

The Missing IT Strategy

Of course, no leader intentionally avoids developing strategy. It’s usually a consequence of a number of factors. However, in the case of the missing IT strategy, the CIO has to establish a business-technology (not technology alone) strategy, talk and share that strategy with other leaders, incorporate and underpin the larger business strategy, and drive the IT organization forward following that strategy. If a CIO spends too much of their time doing or supervising the day-to-day work within an IT organization instead of delegating, she won’t have the time (or energy) to be strategic. If a CIO has to spend more time supervising the daily activities of IT than ensuring business outcomes and value, that’s usually an indicator of a missing IT strategy. 

The second indicator of a missing IT strategy is the lack of true service management. Why? Because if the service management foundation is not strong or well executed, IT can never be strategic. If IT ignores:

  • Defining services in terms of business value and outcomes
  • Creating workflows that are based on services, not technologies or organization charts
  • Publishing performance reports that are relevant to and meaningful for the business 

then IT is setting itself up for failure.  Many organizations look at service management as just something that a service desk does.  But good service management provides the capability of relating technology investments to business outcomes.  This makes good service management a critical part of the foundation of IT. Having a solid foundation is what keeps IT relevant, reliable, and able to scale to meet business needs. WIthout good service management, IT will waste a lot of time just trying to keep up with service requests and putting out fires instead of enabling the realization of business strategy.  

Finally, the third indicator of a missing IT strategy is a “one thing at a time” mentality. To stay on track, IT organizations often choose to focus on just one initiative at a time. This might help your team feel less overwhelmed, but it often comes with the cost of missing a holistic view of the organization. The ability to see the birds eye view of how the organization relies on technology to create better outcomes for end users and customers is one of the most important skills for an IT leader.  Having this big picture view enables the IT leader to be even more strategic.  

Why does IT need a strategy?

IT operating as only a support team is no longer an option for any business. The speed of business has increased significantly over the last decade, due in a large part to the introduction of new technologies, such as automation, mobile computing, cloud-based services and machine learning. IT has to be the driver and enabler of technology. Whether it’s realized or not, technology has become “baked into” every aspect of the organization. 

The question is “has IT become ‘baked in’ as well?”  Without a well-defined IT strategy, the answer to this question is usually “no”.   

Defining, socializing, and executing a strategy strengthens IT’s role within an organization. It’s what separates the IT organizations that are treated as order takers from the IT organizations that are treated as valued partners. 

How to solve the case of the missing IT strategy

Here are three things that IT leaders can do to solve the case of the missing IT strategy.

What is the business strategy?  How can technology enable realization of business strategy? To shift from a “support only” team to a strategic asset, IT first has to understand the goals and objectives of the overall organization – and how technology can be used to enable realization of those goals and objectives. IT’s strategy must be tied to these business goals and objectives. IT leaders have to take a step back from the inner workings, day-to-day activities of IT and look at the bigger picture of the organization. 

Elevate to real service management, not just some arbitrarily selected processes.  Once IT understands the role of technology in achieving business strategy, IT must then elevate its approach to service management.  Service management is more than just fulfilling requests and resolving outages. An effective approach for elevating service management is to identify and map the value streams of an organization, then identifying how technology underpins those value streams.  Value streams help identify the products and services that IT must deliver. This exercise not only lays out what service management must enable and deliver for the organization, it is also a great way to align what IT is doing to the overall needs of the business. 

Report IT performance in business terms. Once you’ve elevated your service management and understand the goals and objectives of the company, then you’ll be able to produce and publish performance reports that reflect how IT contributions enabled achievement of business goals and objectives.  Having this capability is significant for a number of reasons.  First, it demonstrates that IT truly understands what is important to the organization.  Secondly, it provides the ability to evaluate if IT strategy is meeting business needs.  And lastly, it begins to change the perception of IT as just being a “support team” to a strategic asset.

Thinking and working strategically is transformative for an IT organization. After you’ve seen how IT integrates with the rest of the organization, you won’t be able to go back to working only in a ‘support’ role.  By defining and executing an IT strategy , your entire business will become stronger.  

Need help developing an IT strategy that is aligned with your business objectives?  Let Tedder Consulting help!  Tedder Consulting will first visit your organization to understand your business, goals, and current IT situation.  Tedder Consulting will then conduct an analysis of your IT services and practices to determine how they are operating. Finally, we deliver a plan for aligning your technology strategy to your business goals.  For more information, contact Tedder Consulting today.

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Service Management

You’re Talking About Value Wrong

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“Value” is one of the most overused and misunderstood terms in business today.

It is often thrown around in meetings and on company websites but while many organizations talk about value, very few get it right.

Why is that? What is the problem with value? For starters, value is a perception. What is valuable to one organization -or one person – may not be as valuable to another. And many organizations don’t define value at an enterprise level. As a result, company initiatives are fractured and less impactful because everyone within the organization is using their own value measuring stick.

The second problem with value is that too many organizations equate value only with cost savings. This is a misconception that can cost organizations a lot of money and time with little to show for it. Fact is that organizations, just like people, are happy to pay for things that they perceive as being valuable – cost is secondary.

If you’re talking about value wrong or worse, not talking about it at all, here are three points that will help you reframe the value conversation.

Value does not equal cost savings.

When thinking about value, it’s easy to just think in terms of dollars and cents. It’s straightforward and unlike value, everyone knows exactly how much dollars and cents are worth.

Now, cost is a factor in value but it should not be the leading factor of value. Because in addition to a price tag, there are intangible costs with any transaction. These intangible costs include things like time to make the purchase, the ease of making a purchase, the time to get set up with a product or service, etc. These intangible costs factor into the value and depending on the end-user, they could mean much more than a specific dollar amount.

When you’re discussing value — whether it’s the value of your product or service, a new technology, or your own IT services, don’t forget the intangibles and factor those into the value.

Outcomes by themselves don’t deliver value.

In an article for SysAid, I explained the difference between outcomes and outputs in reference to ordering a pizza. The outputs are the operational measures, like when you order a pizza and it arrives on time and at the agreed upon price. The outcomes are the results that show the value of that pizza delivery, such as did you get the pizza you ordered, was it hot and fresh, did it taste good and so on.

More IT professionals are beginning to focus on outcomes instead of outputs, which is very important! However, outcomes alone don’t get the job done when it comes to value. Competition is too intense these days and consumers have a lot of options, and high expectations.

So what combines with outcomes to create value? The experience of the transaction.

Part of value is experience.

If you don’t provide or enable a good experience, you’re not offering value. The experience is just as important today. In fact, Salesforce found in a survey that 80% of customers say the experience businesses provide is just as important as its products and services. And Gartner found that 81% of businesses compete primarily on customer experience.

Customer experience is more important than ever and if you want to deliver value through your products and services, you have to offer a seamless and personalized experience for your customers.

The Role of Service Management in Value

By this point, it’s clear that value isn’t just about a price tag. It’s a combination of understanding what’s important to your consumers and consistently delivering those results – along with a great experience. In short, someone finds value when they can say “I got the outcome I needed and expected and I had a good experience while doing it – at the price I was willing to pay.”

The connection between the experience and outcomes lives in your service management foundations. Service management is how you can monitor the experience and ensure you deliver the outcomes that a customer wants so they can recognize the value of your products and services.

Is your service management approach strong enough to deliver value? Have you done these things in the last 12 months?

  • Met with your key stakeholders to review and agree on a shared definition of value
  • Mapped your value streams with all stakeholders, not just IT
  • Audited your workflows to identify and implement improvements
  • Implemented continual improvement strategies

Service management is an ongoing initiative but it can — and will — help to deliver value if it’s done properly with buy-in from the entire team.

If you’ve been struggling with showing how IT delivers value to the bottom line and you want to elevate your IT organization, you need to be sure you’re talking about value correctly. Review your service management approach. Examine the customer experience. You may just find the areas where IT can fill any gaps and deliver the value your customer needs.

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Leadership

Is the CIO the Continual Improvement Officer?

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The CIO is often wearing many hats. They have to be tech whizzes and also strategic visionaries. And in my opinion, they now have to be the Continual Improvement Officer for their teams, their organizations, and in their careers.

Continual improvement is about improving the quality of products and services by learning from past successes and failures and making incremental changes over time. It helps IT align and realign its products, services, and activities to meet ever-changing business needs.  Continual improvement can be the key to large-scale growth. 

When done correctly, continual improvement can improve product and service quality, boost productivity and creativity, increase teamwork and create a competitive advantage. 

It sounds simple, doesn’t it? We should learn from the mistakes – and the successes –  we have. But, in a business environment, it’s never that simple. Why? Because many leaders don’t want to admit to mistakes. They don’t want to explore why things aren’t working as well as they should.  They settle for “good enough”.  They don’t want to examine what could be done better because they want to plunge ahead into that next project and hope that people forget about whatever mistakes were made or problems that were encountered. 

For continual improvement to have success, it has to be embedded into the culture of an organization. It has to be accepted – and driven – from the top-down so that everyone is empowered to look at failed initiatives and missed KPIs as learning and improvement opportunities. 

How can the CIO become the Continual Improvement Officer and build a culture that supports this?

Continual Improvement in IT

If a CIO wants to become the Continual Improvement Officer, she has to start with her own teams. One of the most important things a CIO can do then is allocate the time for continual improvement. IT is often (usually?) inundated with day-to-day work. They often are putting out fires or working to meet aggressive delivery deadlines and objectives. There is rarely-if ever- time for that “be back” work that inevitably comes up. 

It’s up to the CIO to ensure continual improvement becomes a standard mode of operation and allocate adequate time to address continual improvement. How? It could be frequent projects or sprints with an objective to reduce technical debt. Perhaps it is establishing a cadence of regular meetings or time to discuss and implement continual improvement initiatives.  Or it could be requiring that teams take the time to reflect on completed projects and initiatives and identify gaps, issues, and what could have been done differently. 

Make these efforts inclusive by encouraging team members to bring their ideas to the table — and then identify opportunities to implement those ideas. Companies with a strong culture of continual improvement implement about 80% of their employees’ improvement ideas, according to KaiNexus.  By implementing the improvement ideas from those that do the work establishes a mindset of continual improvement and encourages the team to identify and suggest further improvements.  It’s a win-win for both the team and the organization. 

Continual Improvement in the Rest of the Organization

IT is only one piece of the improvement puzzle though. To really build a culture of continual improvement, the CIO has to be the continual improvement champion within the rest of the organization and that requires communicating with and motivating other leaders. 

CIOs can share their own continual improvement learnings and lessons. CIOs must be open about the setbacks and the growth from continual improvement activities, and when able, connect how continual improvement enhanced another department’s initiatives. Invite other executives to your continual improvement meetings to demonstrate how building a culture of continual improvement within IT is working.  Offer to provide coaching and the expertise to help those leaders establish continual improvement efforts within their teams. 

Continual Improvement as a CIO

I think the CIO needs to be the Continual Improvement Officer because it will not only improve their organization, but it is a critical skillset and approach that will benefit the CIO’s career. 

Unfortunately, the CIO role has one of the highest turnover rates among the C-suite. According to TechTarget, the average CIO tenure hovers around 4 years. That means CIOs are frequently moving into new environments and navigating new work cultures. The best thing any CIO can do when they first step into a role is to bring an attitude of continual improvement.  Not just for the new organization, but for their own individual actions.

It’s a powerful move to reflect on what could have been done differently in a  past role as you move into a new role. This will help you embody the culture of continual improvement that you want your team to adapt as well. Be willing to address and share your own opportunities for improvement with your team as you begin implementing new initiatives.

What continual improvement successes have you had within your organization? What advice would you give to other leaders working toward a culture of continual improvement? Share your thoughts with me on LinkedIn! 

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