New Technology Brings Organizational Challenges
For all their promise, today’s new data-driven technologies present organizational challenges to implementers.
The next step in new technology adoption certainly is appealing to IT leaders and enterprise executives. They can try new and different things. Yet success with concepts such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning is less about technology and more about people. AIOps, observability, continuous intelligence, cloud and remote work require a rethinking of the IT organization, new degrees of trust in data, and dramatic changes in the workforce.
The emergence of AI and other data-centric and real-time technologies, along with the shift to remote works, presents challenges. The breakthroughs rank up there with the dawn of the PC and the web when it comes to the impact on how business gets done and who does it.
These technologies require IT professionals to develop new skillsets. Those skillsets blend tech knowledge with business sense more than ever before. In fact, a growing amount of “IT work” will be done by “non-IT” people in primarily business roles.
As a business world, we are asking our computers to do work that we never envisioned in the past. For decades computers enhanced tasks once assigned to paper forms and human memories. We digitized financial records and streamlined consumer purchases. We wrote and read with computers. Even searching for information – now done on the web with a phone – was done in the past, only by slogging through library books.
Consider the applications that AI is enabling in enterprises today. A generation ago some were unheard of, and the others were largely manual. CompTIA released this list:
Keep in mind that AI and ML are still in virtual adolescence, so we’re just learning about its potential, and what it takes to implement them.
So, how can IT and business leaders succeed with these new technologies and avoid pitfalls? Experts have advice for how to approach them from an organizational and talent standpoint.
The classic image of an IT professional is that of someone engrossed in coding, juggling hardware, or staring at a board of status lights.
Kevin Petrie, research director for data analytics research and consulting firm Eckerson Group, says of today’s IT professionals, “Less and less are they expected to pick up a wrench and beat on a cabinet. More and more, they’re being required to help optimize from a compliance and cost perspective how virtual cloud resources are managed.”
He shared three key points of advice for IT managers in a recent interview: First, to think creatively about how to motivate and improve the efficiency of their people. Two would be to encourage them to seek out common tools that help them help each other. The third would be to listen to the needs of the business. That’s because the business probably doesn’t need what it needed two years ago. It’s important to start now to shape what you are trying to achieve from an IT perspective.”
CompTIA also developed a list of this year’s most in-demand IT job skills. Note that core programming language talent – historically a top skill in IT job postings – barely ranks in the top 5. Plus, cybersecurity, perhaps the most in-demand skill in the past decade ranks only sixth. Those most in demand are focused on what might be considered part of the modern infrastructure of tomorrow.
CompTIA, an IT professional association and training organization, noted, “This is a time for IT professionals to level up tech skill sets by obtaining specific competencies. If you choose to maintain the status quo, you may risk losing relevance in your field.”
Increasingly “IT skills” no longer are dominated by making technology work. Skill is about understanding a technology’s capabilities and how it can address a real-world business need.
Eighteen months later the elephant in the room – Covid 19 – is still with us, but even when that is gone, experts believe remote work will be here to stay.
