Staffing

Conclusion: Organisations that surpass the tipping point of Cloud migration must ensure the investment in Cloud talent keeps up with the business demands for effective Cloud solutions.

IBRS sees the centre of excellence (CoE) as the most qualified skills base to align business and operational needs, but the CoE is also well placed to identify Cloud skills sources to support upcoming Cloud development opportunities.

At each phase of the Cloud maturity cycle, the CoE is best placed to research and advise the executives and business stakeholders of where new investment should be provided to extend the Cloud talent pool. The resourcing strategy should contain flexibility and agility to support short-term project needs and ultimately more permanent IT operational demands.

Be warned that complacency and market pressures will place your next Cloud migration or Cloud optimisation project at risk if your Cloud skills gap doesn’t have a resolution plan.

Conclusion:

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised expectations for improved organisational processes, new policies, and evolving workplace habits. Armed with experiences from 2020 and 2021, many (not all) knowledge workers now prefer to work for organisations that can give them tools to do their jobs remotely and effectively. What is often overlooked in this discussion is the increased need to consider diversity and inclusion in a hybrid work enablement process.

Leaders have critical decisions to make in relation to both hiring and the creation of a workplace that embraces diversity.

Conclusion:

If you lack confidence in the direction of your Cloud migration team (CMT), you are not alone. Chances are the Cloud migration was led by one or two enthusiastic champions from enterprise architecture, infrastructure or apps development who were comfortable being high-risk takers to advance their careers. Too often, these efforts result in partial results and sporadic application, which leaves many senior executives questioning the value of these untamed Cloud engagements.

What is needed now is a structured approach to Cloud skills development and team selection, that culminates in a CMT that effectively manages business needs and the underlying IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) to deliver those business needs. Holding complimentary skills across the team will ensure a more robust analysis of the business needs, and a selection and rightsizing of solutions that continues to flex to meet changes in business and customer requirements. A post-migration Cloud framework should also apply, and contain a continuous improvement register which is examined and updated as the Cloud evolves, and governance programs that identify opportunities to maximise any hybrid or multi-Cloud solution.

Conclusion: ICT leaders are increasingly expected to combine traditional technical skills with leadership competency in an agile and flexible environment. This often presents a challenge: how can leaders connect with teams and individuals, from across disciplines, rapidly, and in a positive performance manner that achieves organisational and employee outcomes.

This paper covers how the principles of situational leadership can be leveraged by ICT leaders, to influence the approach applied to their management of individuals and mixed teams, to drive cohesion, collaboration, and delivery, and avoid dysfunction.

Conclusion: Don’t leave Cloud skills benchmarking to chance. Determine where the skills’ gaps exist and create a skills’ development program that is not limited to in-house IT resources, but extends to any outsourced Cloud specialists. Vendors with specialised Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products find themselves having to maintain a rigorous training regime to keep up with the investment demand of Cloud communities they have created and support.

Organisations should take advantage of the investment by Cloud providers to increase skills through the variety of online resources now available. The difference now is that organisations no longer need to invest directly in their own learning management systems (LMS) as Cloud providers see their LMS investments providing traction and portability for users entering or existing within Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), SaaS and PaaS product suites.

Regardless of its digital strategy, many organisations have not been positioned to properly leverage the digital and data assets that are available to them. A Chief Data Officer (CDO) role can improve this situation by advancing an organisation’s data portfolio, curating and making appropriate data visible and actionable.

Log in and click the PDF link above to download 'The New CDO Agenda' presentation kit and discover:

• 4 pivotal points of the CDO agenda
• A sample framework on how to understand the ownership of a data domain
• Next steps for your organisation

Conclusion

Major increases in demand for ICT and business professional employment in the year 2020 have been reported, despite the economic downturn. These increases are important to note as they signal a post-pandemic increase in ICT investment in the year 2021 and in future years to support enhanced business systems and demand (user) computing.

To complicate matters a survey of Australian CIOs indicated that it will be more challenging to find qualified technology employees in 2021 compared to pre-pandemic market conditions. Unless recruitment programs are well thought out, the inability to recruit the right people will stifle plans to take advantage of ICT growth opportunities in 2021.

Conclusion

At 21.7 per cent, staff attrition within the Australian Information Technology (IT) sector is unsustainably high. Staff recognition can be defined as the action or process of recognising employees for the work completed through words and gratitude¹. Over the past five years, globally, organisations have increased their focus and investment on employee reward and recognition.

However, despite this increased focus, research shows that recognition is not occurring as often as it should be, as only 61 per cent of employees feel appreciated in the workplace¹. Research also shows that even when recognition is provided for employees, it is not executed well or enacted correctly 1/3 of the time.

Organisational development and human resource studies demonstrate that reward and recognition programs commonly do not resonate or hit the mark for employees, if they are: not authentic and sincere², only provided in a single context, or are based on award criteria that is overly complex or unattainable³.

This paper covers how leaders and organisations can recognise and then subsequently avoid these three common pitfalls, to maximise the investment into employee reward and recognition programs and efforts.

Conclusion: Regardless of its digital strategy, many organisations have not been positioned to properly leverage the digital and data assets that are available to them. A Chief Data Officer (CDO) role can improve this situation by advancing an organisation’s data portfolio, curating and making appropriate data visible and actionable.

The CDO position is appropriate for all larger organisations, and small-to-large organisations focused on data-driven decision-making and innovation. These organisations benefit from a point person overseeing data management, data quality, and data strategy. CDOs are also responsible for developing a culture that supports data analytics and business intelligence, and the process of drawing valuable insights from data. In summary, they are responsible for improving data literacy within the organisation.

Conclusion: Most organisations have vast pools of data (a. k.a. information assets) lying underutilised, as many IT and business professionals are unsure where it is stored and are unaware of its value. To turn the situation around organisations must strive for data mastery¹, which is the ability to embed the data into products and services to increase efficiency, revenue growth and customer engagement.

Conclusion:

For IT departments who see no difference in the way they operate now under IT infrastructure library (ITIL) 3 vs ITIL 4, there should be an immediate scrutiny of the documented process and methodology of addressing customer requirements. ITIL 4 practices need to become part of the fabric when engaging the business on digital solutions as best practice can easily come from, or be influenced by, vendors outside the business. The outcome for IT is routinely playing catchup when it comes to selecting the best value IT solutions for the business and customer application.

ITIL 4 moves the conversation from simply an IT solution to a holistic framework that aligns service to business requirements. The framework incorporates the guiding principles, four dimensions of service management practices that can evolve and adapt to the increasingly digital landscape now expected by customers in a mobile, 24/7 world. Business requirements, when analysed through the ITIL 4 lens, can create responses with a supportable and reliable business case for change.