Contemplations on 2015

As for 2015, I’m expecting to see continuing interest in improving multidisciplinary collaboration using stuff like as Agile, DevOps, and Cynefin, and intrinsically linked to that, more interest in how to influence behaviour. My concern is the gap between understanding how to influence behaviour and actually doing something about it. The human condition.

I've noticed increased interest for security in 2014, although I haven’t investigated what’s driving it. I assume that’s going to be a 2015 topic.

It’s a no-brainer to expect continuing growth of (use of) external service providers and therefore the need for multi-vendor management (think SIAM). Because the market often does IT better, faster and cheaper than internal IT departments, we can expect internal IT to transform itself into a broker between demand and supply. Not everybody is suited for that role though – barring genetic manipulation – so consider your options carefully if you work in a centralized IT department. You have three options. If you want to continue doing traditional ITSM, quit and work for an external service provider – it’s their core business. Your second option is to help your IT department transform itself into a broker. Finally, if you have affinity with business processes and business people , jump the proverbial fence between IT and the business and help them deal with demand for, and use of, IT. And information, which is why I like to talk about I&T not IT.

Similarly, as business people become more IT-savvy, and they have more IT at their disposal without having to shop at the internal IT department, we’ll see more decentralized I&T functions within the various business divisions and departments. They’ll only use centralized IT if they have to or if centralized IT gets its act together and offers perceived added value. They will operate with the same degree of autonomy as the rest of their business activities, so expect more emphasis on effectiveness than enterprise-wide efficiency. I also expect that they’ll struggle with the basics of ITSM (incident, problem, change etc.) so that’s a great opportunity for seasoned ITSM practitioners to help them balance agility with an appropriate degree of predictability.   

We’ll see various versions of CIO’s in various relationships with CXO’s. Will governance of I&T be embraced by the board as more than an afterthought? Are I&T as business assets really as important as the CIO and his or her I&T minions think? Or does the board have better things to do? We’ll see.