Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Digital Transformation and Leadership

Greetings from CSIRO Black Mountain Laboratories, where Mark Toomey is speaking on "Digital Transformation & Leadership" to a meeting of the Australian Computer Society. He talked about  GippsTAFE's use of tele-presence for training apprentices in the workplace. In contrast he gave Fairfax as an example of a company which failed to embrace the use of new technology and is suffering the consequences. He described digital transformation as a rapid and disruptive process.

Mark went on to discuss the ISO/IEC 38500 IT Governance Standard (this was developed from Australian Standard AS 8015-2005 Corporate governance of information and communication technology). He then discussed how the principles in the IT Government Standard could be applied more broadly to digital transformation. He asserted that the senior management carrying out such transformation do not need IT skills. This is something I do not agree with, while those overseeing the digital transformation may not need to know how to write computer programs they will need technology planning and management skills which are those of senior IT professionals. As an expert witness in court cases involving failed IT projects, I have seen many cases were knowing what is and is not possible with IT would have prevented project failure.

The Australian Computer Society offers distance education programs  for those who want to improve their IT management skills. I am teaching Business Analysis, starting Monday.


Mark will be speaking at other cities later in the year.

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