Managing Agile Business Technology: The Business and Technology Relationship Model in Practice

158 Pages·2022·3.348 MB·English

by  David Miller

Management for Professionals
David Miller
Managing Agile
Business
Technology
The Business and Technology
Relationship Model in Practice
Management for Professionals
The Springer series Management for Professionals comprises high-level business
and management books for executives. The authors are experienced business
professionals and renowned professors who combine scientific background, best
practice,andentrepreneurialvisiontoprovidepowerfulinsightsintohowtoachieve
businessexcellence.
Moreinformationaboutthisseriesathttps://link.springer.com/bookseries/10101
David Miller
Managing Agile Business
Technology
The Business and Technology
Relationship Model in Practice
DavidMiller
Derby,UK
ISSN2192-8096 ISSN2192-810X (electronic)
ManagementforProfessionals
ISBN978-3-030-90597-2 ISBN978-3-030-90598-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90598-9
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’
Author s Note
Making business technology work in what can be a complex, ambiguous, and
dynamicworldisnoteasyandourfailuresmightleadpeopletothinkthatourability
tomanagethetechnologyhasn’tkeptpacewiththetechnologyitself.Thetechnol-
ogy now has many agile characteristics but our management processes are some-
timesseenasanobstacletobeovercome.Wemustchangethewayweworkandthe
booksetsoutwhythat’sthecase,howthiscanbeachieved,andthemanybenefits.
The reader is given a conceptual solution and implementation choices. It has been
written for business managers, business technology managers, and technology
serviceproviders(TSPs)butinalanguagethathopefullyeverybodywillunderstand.
Thisisimportantbecauseinanagewheneveryoneisaffectedbybusinesstechnol-
ogy, at all levels right across the extended enterprise, we ideally need all
stakeholders to contribute and collaborate in its management and governance. It’s
alsoimportantbecause,giventheopportunity,goodideascancomefromthemost
unlikelyplaces.DM
v
Preface
ITserviceprovidershaveneverhadacompletepictureofhowwelltheyaredoing,
andsomemightaddthattheyhaveneverhadanup-to-dateandcompletepictureof
whattheyweresupposedtodo.Weneedtochangethewaywework.
In the frequent absence of a detailed and complete specification of what was
required,packagedsolutions,methodologiesandmaturitymodelsbecametheorder
of the day. In organisations where little changed, this almost worked but success
rates remained stubbornly low, even where specifications existed. As globalisation
took hold, as the business landscape became more complex, as businesses had to
become more dynamic and distributed, as it became impossible to know who to
gather together to thrash out a problem, and as business demanded the earlier
delivery of working solutions, our working methods have somehow failed to keep
up.Weneedtochangethewaywework.
The modern world is complex, ambiguous, and dynamic. It is characterised by
turbulentmarkets,shorterproductlifecycles,disruptivetechnologies,industrystruc-
ture change, high staff turnover, changes in employment status, increased home
working, and changes to other working practices and daily life brought about by
pandemics—or the possibility thereof, the digital economy, and the emergence of
typesofartificialandnon-consciousintelligence,etc.Mostbusinessesnowinvolve
technologyofmanykinds,mayhavemultipletechnologyserviceproviders(TSPs),
and customers and suppliers will have their own technology arrangements. As a
consequence,ourworldisalwayspresentingmultiplechallengesandopportunities
that require a technology solution of one kind or another, and it’s not unusual for
something new to impact work that is in progress more than once prior to its
implementation.
Itcanbearguedthatthebusinessworldhasalwaysbeeninastateoffluxanditis
surprising then that from the business perspective, there has never been a coherent
business technology management and governance model that takes account of the
truenatureofourworld.Instead,wemostlyhavejustabricolageofITmethodsand
standardsforITdeliverythatareasopaque tobusinesspeopleasissometimesthe
technology itself. Perhaps for this reason, the last 50 or more years of IT manage-
ment has been characterised by uncertain processes yielding unpredictable
outcomes. To adopt a motoring analogy, IT management methods applied over
this time have been like driving by occasionally controlling what is happening
under the bonnet but without really looking where we are going except at the start
vii
viii Preface
and occasionally at the end of our journey. Whilst the advent of Agile IT methods
mayhavehelpedustopushdownontheacceleratorpedal,theyhaveofferedlittlein
the way of navigation, steering or hindsight. As technology of many kinds
determines, and gets embedded within, our business processes, we need to change
thewaywework.
Thisbookofferssomeinsightintohowwecoulddothat.
Derby,UK DavidMiller
Introduction
The widespread dissatisfaction with existing IT management methods and the
recognition that something else was needed for the emerging and future worlds
werethetwodriversbehindmywork.
What has emerged from that work is exciting and universally appealing. The
book describes a breakthrough model which suggests a new management and
governancephilosophyanddiscussesthepotentialadvantagesofferedbyaconcep-
tualmanagementsystembasedonthese.
The new model, the Business and Technology Relationship Model (BTRM), is
researchbased,peerreviewedandfullydescribestherelationshipbetweenbusiness
and technology. Its discovery has been described by one industry analyst as ‘mind
shifting’and‘beautiful’providingsimpledefinitionsforservicequality,alignment,
agility, and governance that have hitherto escaped adequate definition. It explains
our problems with traditional methods, democratises the management and gover-
nanceofbusinesstechnologytomaximisecollaborationatalllevels,andlendsitself
tointroducingautomation.
Active Management and Governance is a conceptual Big Data management
system, developedfrom theBTRM, that illustrates thepotentialfor real-time,real-
worldinsightandcontrolthatpreviouslycouldn’tbecontemplated.This,combined
withitsfocusonvaluecreationaswellasvaluedelivery,willfacilitateautomation
and continuous transformational change and will do so in the context of current,
emerging, and future technologies. How it can do this is described in full with
enough information to plan an implementation, understand where AI can be lever-
aged, and how it can hasten a ‘Very Agile’ world and provide a control for self-
managingsystems.
Thebenefitswillbefeltinallorganisations.Nojudgementorpredictionhasbeen
made interms whether traditional IT management methods will prevailwithin this
newmanagementframeworkortowhatextentbuttheywillcertainlychange.Infact,
ActiveManagementandGovernancemayevenchangethewayinwhichwemanage
thebusinessitself.
Whyabookratherthanaproduct?Becauseoftheuniversalappealoftheconcept
there may be stages of adoption ranging from a management philosophy that just
changesthewaywethinkaboutmanagingbusinesstechnology,oracustomisation
of an existing platform of some kind, to a specialist and sophisticated software
product. There may be many variations on these themes depending on the
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x Introduction
developer’s industry focus and specialist insights, and some may already be
appearing in the market place. Hence it is hoped that a book which describes the
philosophyandimportantconceptsinsomedetailratherthananinterpretationbased
on a restricted view will have more appeal and encourage greater innovation and
wideradoption.
Chapter 1 looks back at the way technology has been managed historically, the
difficulties that this has created and why it was necessary to re-think the problem.
Chapter 2 describes the BTRM and how it changes the management storyline.
Chapter 3 introduces Active Management and Governance to describe how the
BTRM might be implemented in practice. Our thinking is often constrained by
what has gone before and so Chap. 4 explains how the business landscape can be
analysed in ways that have not previously been possible. Chapter 5 addresses the
growing importance of AI and considers various pathways of opportunity for a
businesswishingtoexploitlearningalgorithmsandothernon-consciousintelligence
toenhance ActiveManagementandGovernance.Chapter6considersthemanage-
mentphilosophyofActiveManagementandGovernanceanditspotential,notjust
formanagingbusiness technology,butasauniversal business managementframe-
workwhichisconsistentwithcorporategovernancepractices.