By Andre Badenhorst | Digital Transformation
"My company does not regard IT as a business partner."
This is a statement usually coming from IT Leaders and it clearly illustrates the dilemma in which the IT function finds itself in.
There is, however, a bunch of IT Leaders who have managed to address this fault line. Not only do they manage to turn their IT department around, but also their business. And boy, do they reach success!
By Mark Geschke | Digital Transformation
The recent refresh of our website really brought home for me just how much Xuviate has changed and grown over the last three years.
Of course, the ongoing evolution of our Coaching services is a big reason for this increasing momentum.
When digging deeper, however, one quickly realises that what truly differentiates us is the deep knowledge we have about the world of the mid-market IT leader and how we support their growth.
Unfortunately, however, we often hear that it is quite hard to find specific content and insights and I have decided to do something about it.
Continue reading
By Mark Geschke | Digital Transformation , Strategic IT Leadership
By now you will have no doubt heard or seen something about the IT Leader Growth Summit for IT Managers, Heads of IT and CIOs of mid-sized businesses that kicks off this Sunday.
Yes, that is a Xuviate Summit!
With 55 sessions to prepare and a whole summit infrastructure to pretty much build from scratch, it should be no surprise to hear that we have been extremely busy over the last 6 months.
The great news is that IT leaders everywhere love the concept and we already have signups from 41 countries from 6 continents.
Best of all, every single one of the 45 pre-recorded and 11 LIVE sessions will be available for FREE for a specific period of time between 20 and 24 May!
And this last bit is generally what freaks everybody out.
Why on earth are we putting in so much effort, over so many months, to just give it all away for free?
By Mathias Tölken | Mastermind Digest , Tactical IT Leadership
The most senior IT employee in a small IT team of 3-4 (who does most of the advanced technical work) is leaving.
The options now are to either hire a senior replacement or promote a mid-level resource and hire a new junior.
Or are there maybe even other options?
By Mathias Tölken | Mastermind Digest , Tactical IT Leadership
It is common that especially in a mid-sized company, any project with a technology component does inevitably land in the lap of the IT Leader.
In the case of a new ERP or any other far-reaching, company-wide project this could potentially take up 80% or more of the IT Leader’s time.
But it is still expected that the normal IT function keeps on delivering.
How should one approach this?
By Mathias Tölken | Mastermind Digest , Tactical IT Leadership
IT tends to be a very low priority for other managers in the business.
It feels like everyone expects IT to respond immediately, but when IT expects something in turn everyone is always way too busy.
This happens even when IT communicates clearly, engages 1-1 with other business leaders about their technology needs and of course delivers on all the many expectations others have of the IT function.
How then, does the IT leader get the airtime to move forward with IT's true agenda of generating more business value?
By Mathias Tölken | Mastermind Digest , Operational IT Leadership
It is not uncommon that organisations buy software packages and initially only implement a fraction of the available functionality.
After deployment, business leaders often keep asking for new projects, with new budgets, instead of analyzing the full extent of what has been purchased and what else it can be leveraged for.
Considering how expensive the initial purchase was (and often continues to be due to ongoing software maintenace), this seems utterly wasteful.
How should the IT leader approach such a situation?
By Mathias Tölken | Mastermind Digest , Tactical IT Leadership
For South African based companies, the new Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI) is fast becoming a reality.
Consultants are driving this heavily and it seems that non-compliance could result in severe penalties for every transgression.
Your external board may even have requested that this new requirement is to become a priority on your list of governance items. IT along with your internal Audit & Risk department have been tasked to commence with this undertaking.
But how important is this really and how to approach it?
By Mathias Tölken | Mastermind Digest , Operational IT Leadership
We have established regular project coordination meetings between team leads in our company and have had great success to streamline project delivery.
Should our new COO be invited to the project coordination committee (he is currently outside of it)?
Due to the role and the fact that we currently don't have a VP2 leader, should this person become the champion for other VP2 opportunities?
By Mathias Tölken | Mastermind Digest , Operational IT Leadership
There are times when Murphy strikes and more than one key staff member is off at the same time - maybe even for an extended period of time.
As the IT Manager, I am the ultimate escalation and fall-back option, so I find myself fielding technical work.
But now all the strategic initiatives that have been started are in jeopardy. How do I make sure they do not grind to a halt?