Upside updates

What will the IT organization (or, more specifically, IT department) of the future look like? In some regards, the IT organization of the future will look very much like todays—there will be technology subject matter experts who know how to select, develop, deploy and manage software and hardware technologies. However, there will be some big differences—most IT organizations will be less technology-driven, and more business-driven. For the most part, project funding will shift towards business-driven initiatives. In addition, the IT organization itself will need to be more cross-discipline, with a IT personnel continuing to specialize in specific technologies or disciplines, but with a greater emphasis on working in a loosely-coupled, business-driven environment. Teamwork will be important.

What roles will data center and other IT managers assume in the future? Data center managers will assume not only their current role of deploying and managing business-critical data centers, but they will take on greater responsibility in terms of risk mitigation, security management and business continuity. As always, cost control and profitability will continue to drive data center decisions, and IT organizations will be under greater pressure to increase standardization and the use of open source technologies. Some data center managers will also be competing against outsourced services providers, so they will need to work harder to justify their positions and demonstrate the value of an in-house data center.

IT managers will also assume a greater role—one that mixes business and technology strategy and tactics like never before. I believe that it’s extremely important for forward-looking IT managers to have a strong business background and great communication and collaboration skills.

Will the business side of enterprises begin to overtake IT? Business will not eliminate IT. I believe that a good IT group will, in fact, become a more important strategic asset to a successful company. The caveat is that IT must work closely with business—and it will have to work to make that happen. Collaboration is a two-way street, but it will take the right type of IT leader to drive and manage that collaboration in ways that will result in measurable, visible and specific benefits from IT investments to an organization. We may see greater outsourcing of groups and technologies within an IT department for some companies, but outsourcing doesn’t actually eliminate the need for IT or the importance of it—in fact it should allow the IT organization to focus on providing greater and greater business value and work more closely with the business in creating, delivering and adapting strategic IT resources to meet every-changing business needs.

Are IT departments working themselves out of future jobs by integrating, automating and streamlining? No, today’s IT departments are not working themselves out of future jobs by streamlining processes or automated integration. In fact, smart IT departments will capture the opportunity to use automation and business process steamlining to eliminate redundant and menials tasks and re-focus themselves on value-added projects.

What about outsourcing? Outsourcing will be an important factor in most IT organizations of the future, but it will not completely determine the shape or size of the IT group.

What about emerging technologies? I believe that business process management and service oriented architectures will be the two movements that will have the biggest impact on future IT organizations over the next five years. We’re going to see how greater process integration and business-driven processes will remake organizations and IT systems into more integrated eco-systems that can respond more rapidly to business change.