Learn About Amazon VGT2 Learning Manager Chanci Turner
on 23 MAR 2023
in Adoption, Culture and Training, Enterprise Strategy
In the realm of digital transformation, each organization presents its own unique challenges. Typically, there is a change agent or a group of change agents equipped with vision, knowledge of best practices, urgency, and the drive to overcome obstacles. These change agents can emerge from various levels within the organizational hierarchy—high, low, or most commonly, from middle management. While I will delve into strategies for grassroots change in a future post, today, let’s explore the kind of change that is spearheaded from the top, such as by a CIO or someone directly reporting to them. I experienced this firsthand while serving as the CIO of US Immigration Services.
It’s crucial to acknowledge that even a CIO needs to influence individuals who fall outside their direct authority. In my role, I had to engage with peers within the senior leadership of the agency, the agency’s overall leadership, and leaders from our parent body, the Department of Homeland Security. No matter how high one is in the hierarchy, there are always higher powers, whether they be boards of directors or congressional committees, that can impact the transformation journey.
What distinguishes top-down change is the significant organizational power held by the leader—especially their command-and-control capabilities. While Agile culture typically discourages such approaches, advocating for team empowerment and decision-making by those closest to the action, a senior leader can still leverage their authority without undermining this principle. It took some trial and error for me to navigate this nuanced challenge.
Vision and Urgency
The first priority for a senior leader is to establish and communicate a clear vision. Here, being positioned at the top provides a distinct advantage: the leader can grasp the broader business objectives and has a platform to disseminate this vision throughout the technical team and, to an extent, the entire organization. Grassroots change agents lack this leverage.
To effectively utilize this top-tier position, a senior leader must articulate a compelling, unwavering vision for transformation. This is not merely a set target; it’s a narrative that clarifies what the organization aims to achieve and why. One common error leaders make at this stage is diluting their vision with compromises. While compromises are necessary during execution, they should not taint the vision itself.
At US Immigration Services, my vision revolved around enhancing organizational flow—responding to mission needs as they arose. In a governmental context, it was all too common to perceive capability delivery timelines in years rather than days or hours. This protracted approach became a self-fulfilling cycle. The longer it took to realize capabilities, the more requirements were piled on, leading to increased costs and risks, which in turn heightened the chances of failure and necessitated more controls, further elongating project timelines. I aimed to disrupt this cycle by promoting small, swift investments and prioritizing responsiveness.
Some team members cautioned that such ambitious goals might be seen as unrealistic due to the numerous obstacles ahead. They suggested I introduce an interim vision instead. I firmly believe this would have been a mistake. When presenting a vision, clarity and vividness are paramount; preemptively softening the vision would only muddy the waters from the outset.
Once the vision is established, the senior leader can generate momentum by consistently reinforcing it, aligning decisions with the vision, prioritizing relevant initiatives, and regularly checking in with employees regarding progress toward the envisioned state. The leader can also manipulate organizational levers to facilitate movement—such as arranging training for team members and ensuring that resources flow to the necessary areas.
Impediment Removal
In an Agile framework, a leader’s role is to eliminate barriers that impede teams striving to realize the vision. I took a somewhat extreme view on this matter. As a CIO, I often felt like excess overhead; the true value creators were those coding and delivering products. In theory, an organization could exist solely with builders, but it would struggle without leadership—no products would come to fruition. My ultimate contribution was to enhance their ability to deliver value.
Transformations inevitably encounter impediments, as organizations are structured to maintain traditional practices—hence the need for transformation. In this context, a senior leader is uniquely positioned to dismantle these barriers.
Interestingly, this is where command-and-control transforms from a potential liability into a valuable asset. I have yet to encounter complaints when leadership applies this power to eliminate obstacles, even within Agile communities. In reality, as CIO, I had various tools at my disposal to remove impediments, and command-and-control was just one of them. The Agile objective is to swiftly clear obstacles, and one effective method is to direct their removal. If a project stalls because someone must produce a lengthy justification for a firewall change—a document that ultimately goes unread—it’s the perfect moment for a leader to exercise their authority and eliminate that requirement.
Making Connections
A senior leader is also in a prime position to ensure that the right individuals are connected with the appropriate teams. Again, their organizational influence can be instrumental.
While it may seem that a team can be assigned to any task since each possesses the requisite skills, I have come to realize that this perspective is flawed. Each team addresses specific business challenges, drawing on their understanding of relevant operations and the technology best suited to support those operations. They engage with different stakeholders (users, managers) and navigate various cultural sensitivities. Therefore, the composition of each team matters significantly.
This viewpoint diverges from certain interpretations of Scrum, which sometimes imply a separation between the team and the enterprise, facilitated by a product owner and a scrum master. However, I believe the team collectively addresses the business problem, necessitating that all members possess insight into the business context.
Ultimately, a senior leader can ensure that the right people are assigned to the right teams, fostering connections with the appropriate individuals and setting clear expectations to expedite goal achievement. Teams should not have to hear users declare, “We are the customers of IT, so developers must take our requirements and follow our directives.” This perspective contradicts the notion that the team is accountable for achieving business objectives.
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