21st Century Information Technology

21st Century IT sees IT aligned to the Business. IT and Business alignment enables business processes and is critical to the enterprise and innovation. The IT strategy is linked to the Business strategy enabling the enterprise to step back from short term ROI and look at long term ROI and TCO with respect to real business value and not just short term cost.

Moving towards a 21st Century IT is an incremental transformation process that must deliver real benefit at each step.

We have 5 core themes that sit around governance to deliver alignment and direction. Governance takes the deliverables from the other themes and enforces compliance and inter-theme relationships to ensure incremental consistent delivery.

Alignment and Direction.

Mapping of all IT initiatives to Business initiatives via IT governance that directs IT innovation from a business perspective.
Corrective action where necessary.
Aim for IT at the heart of every significant business process

Funding and Measurement.

Consider funding model, ROI and TCO in terms of business value not just IT cost. IT investments should be treated like any investment with the aim to make IT seen as an enabler, not just a cost.
Strategic initiatives to make IT measurable with regard to the business.

Architecture.

Create an architecture supported both by business and IT, delivering to the business.
Never do architecture for architecture's sake!
Create principles but don't hang everything off them.

Priorities and Roadmap.

An incremental roadmap built to satisfy the strategy, delivering functionality in an ROI-prioritised and incremental fashion.
Processes in place to determine priorities definition.
Processes in place to define enterprise functionality/service requirements.

Organisation and Skills.

Skills aligned to Enterprise and Business needs, focusing on Training (skills), Development (disciplines) and Behaviours (culture change).
Organisation structured to maximise efficiency and effective teamwork, break down silos, create interlinks; with clear roles/responsibilities.

Delivery and Operations.

Holistic approach to software engineering, focusing on automation, smart use of tools, and lightweight but effective processes.
Process and automation-driven Operations, with clear accountability, strict environment promotion criteria, configuration management etc.

Governance.

IT needs to establish a lightweight and effective governance process that links all activities back to the business strategies (line of sight). Central bodies must have authority to enforce rules. This increases co-ordination, buy-in and morale while reducing duplication and risk.