#NZCIO Session - Software Defined Workplaces
Brian Gammage talked about how workspaces - and nature of work itself - is shifting. The shift is in the relationship of the assets you use and how you get to business results. This is the core promise of Cloud enabled computing - not having to own assets to achieve the right results.
Mobile and Cloud has redefined expectations around speed to result, scale and cost. The gap between what’s expected of IT and what can be delivered by IT today is growing - often constrained by how much we spend on keeping the lights on.
Market maturity drives expectations of IT - time to delivery in mature markets is often longer as expectations are greater.
The only way to address the ‘keeping the lights on’ problem is to replace assets with ones that require less management to create head-room for innovation and growth. The problem with 'one size fits all’ is that no-one has the right fit. End users are either under or over provisioned - right sizing is the challenge.
How you equip someone in your organisation tells them something about their relationship with you. It’s a responsibility that often lands in the lap of IT. CIOs need to find a way to work through this and play an integral role in setting the tone for how people work.
End user computing is seen as the cost of doing business but really needs to be seen as an organisational investment. Users increasingly change roles and they need to be equipped for those changes. New generations will expect to work on different projects - perhaps not even having tenures with one organisation.
This requires new architectures, focused on 3 key enablers : single sign on, service catalogs and policy engines to manage access & delivery. In essence this organisations need a new end user computing vision. The 'industrialisation’ approach no longer works as things keep changing rapidly.
5 things need to change:
1. Break inertia of operational best practice
2. Ensure the plan drives procurement (not vice versa)
3. Shift the focus of standardisation (beyond traditional 'one size fits all’)
4. Avoid stretching technologies too far
5. Employ a detailed user segmentation model
The change management needs to be led by the Business, to inform the Architecture and finally Technologies. Most organisations tend to attack the problem in the reverse order.
It’s critical to identify when the right time to divest in technology is - reducing the burden of 'keeping the lights on’. Balancing your asset base/management with the rate of change in your business is essential to maintaining flexibility.