Category: Thought Leadership

One year ago we published our first research report on the role of Chief Data Officers (CDOs). The renowned Tom Davenport, in partnership with MIT Chief Data Officer and Information Quality Symposium (CDOIQ), was commissioned to conduct a global study of CDOs across industries, tenures, and stages of the data journey. At the time I […]

According to the worldwide bestseller Thinking, Fast and Slow by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, people make decisions either intuitively or logically. Intuition leads to fast decisions; rational thinking leads to slow decisions. In organizations, it’s the other way around. Intuition leads to long decision-making processes; data- and fact-driven decisions lead to shorter processes. In […]

Many companies have found that a cloud center of excellence (CCOE) can accelerate their migrations to the cloud and broader digital transformations. These CCOEs take many forms, which is appropriate because each company has unique challenges to overcome. Nevertheless there are certain patterns and antipatterns for using a CCOE. In this blog post, I’ll try […]

It’s the job of senior enterprise leaders to ensure that their organizations are ready for the future. Unfortunately the future is unclear to us—all the more so in this era of rapid change, uncertainty, and complexity. As with the weather, we can foresee the near future with some certainty, but as we look further ahead, […]

The emergence of generative AI has brought about transformative possibilities and the potential to benefit how we work, live, and interact with the world. However, it is crucial to recognize the responsibility that comes with such powerful technology. When I speak to executives today, there is a lot of enthusiasm and excitement to get started […]

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A company wants to transform to meet the future. The transformation is necessary; without it, they will be threatened by disruptive competitors or unable to serve their customers. But they can’t get started on the transformation because their employees are busy with their day-to-day jobs. Transforming requires effort. […]

IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) has changed IT for the worse. OK, now that I have your attention, let me be fair: ITIL has benefited many aspects of IT (e.g., help desks, infrastructure management, service delivery, etc.) by bringing structure, standards, and consistent, repeatable processes to what was previously a free-for-all. The problem is that IT […]

Organizations need a powerful infrastructure to realize the full value of their data. The purpose of this infrastructure is to organize data, ensure its quality, manage metadata and create a central catalog where the organization’s data can be queried. This infrastructure, called the data foundation, enables organizations to have clean, organized, and easily accessible data […]

There’s something problematic about planning for resilience. On the one hand, we know it’s necessary. If the COVID pandemic taught us nothing else, we learned that unexpected major disruptions can and will occur. And those disruptions will involve not just technology but, in some cases, business processes, personnel, communication, and even the fundamental market characteristics […]

Never waste your time; it is too precious. There are never any guarantees we will have tomorrow. —Catherine Pulsifer, Author “I don’t have enough (fill in the blank)” is a common refrain in the face of new demands. It’s normally followed by that much-loved phrase “We need to prioritise.” I’ve observed that the challenge is […]