Leadership

LDP

The IT Leadership (LDP) capability is the ability to guide the organization in making the optimal use of technology and related assets to drive business value.

Structure

LDP is made up of the following Categories and CBBs. Maturity and Planning are described at both the CC and the CBB level.

ALeadership People

A1Workforce Management: Advise and assist line managers in the recruitment, management (i.e. allocation and coordination of roles, responsibilities, and resources), and retention of the workforce.
A2Team Management: Work in a mentoring/advisory capacity with line managers in forming and managing teams.
A3Rewards and Incentives: Deploy and oversee a system of remuneration that is appropriate to the policies of the organization and the achievement of the IT strategic plan.
A4Competency Management: Identify, in conjunction with line managers, relevant individual competencies (i.e. knowledge, skills, and process abilities). Ensure the workforce have the requisite competencies and are provided with appropriate development opportunities.
A5Performance Management: Promote and oversee the implementation of performance management systems and processes for individuals, teams, and units.

BLeadership Process

B1IT Strategy: Promote/explain the IT vision statement and lead the development of the IT strategy. Use influence/authority to ensure that the IT plan aligns with the business strategy. Develop, communicate, and emphasize compliance with the IT policies and guidelines created to deliver the IT strategy.
B2Governance and Performance: Ensure a common understanding exists between IT and the business regarding decision-making authority and responsibilities on IT matters. Assign responsibility and decision-making authority and hold all direct reports/senior IT management accountable for performance. Act as the accountable person for the security of the IT systems and ensure disaster recovery policies and procedures work.
B3Communication: Act as the boundary spanner between the business functions and the technologists at the senior management level. Advocate on behalf of the IT function in dealings with senior business management. Ensure effective communication networks exist between the technologists and the business users. Promote receptivity to change in support of the IT strategy.

CLeadership Tools and Technologies

C1Tools and Technologies: Ensure that appropriate tools and technologies are in place to support and drive IT leadership activities.

DLeadership Culture

D1IT Culture Modelling: Develop and maintain a model of the appropriate IT culture that takes account of, inter alia, organizational culture, vocational nature of IT, organizational attitude to risk, and collaboration (e.g. the degree of innovation and information sharing that is appropriate).
D2IT Culture Building: Use a multiplicity of culture adaptation levers (e.g. artefacts, IT leadership style, education, positive/negative reinforcement, structural change) to manipulate attitudes, behaviours, and unconscious assumptions so that they conform to the desired cultural model.

ELeadership Structures and Relationships

E1Formal IT Structures: Design, put in place, and adapt as necessary, formal organizational structures for the IT function.
E2Networks of Influence: Understand, shape, and use the networks of connections (i.e. formal and informal, internal and external) that impact or support the achievement of the IT strategic plan. The scope includes formal entities such as roles, responsibilities, and organizational hierarchies, as well as less easily identified phenomena such as communities of practice, key influencers, relationship densities and bottlenecks, social capital, and social networks.

FLeadership Cognition

F1Environmental Awareness: Maintain a constant awareness of the dynamics of both the IT and business environments and their interplay. Understand and shape those organizational systems, employee competencies, and behaviours that impact the organization's capacity to assimilate, share, and apply knowledge of both IT and the business. This may draw on concepts and activities such as technology research, scanning and road-mapping, sense-making, organizational learning/lessons learned, absorptive capacity, intelligence systems, sense and respond systems, and decision-making processes.
F2IT Vision and Principles: Develop the IT vision statement, building on a keen awareness of the business and technology environments. Inspire, direct, and closely monitor the formulation of the long-term scope and objectives of IT value generation (IT vision), and derive high-level guidelines for the development of hardware and software infrastructure and services (IT design principles).

Overview

Goal & Objectives

An effective IT leadership (LDP) capability aims to:

Establish an IT leadership approach to recruitment, roles, skills, training, performance systems, and rewards.
Provide IT leadership guidance and support in the development of policies, business rules, and codified practice steps that direct activities/behaviour at the task level.
Adopt an IT leadership approach to culture in order to foster the desired attitudes, behaviours, and underlying assumptions of employees.
Establish formal and informal structures, relationships, and networks to facilitate the IT leadership role.
Ensure there is an appropriate level of environmental awareness, decision systems, and organizational learning in support of the IT leadership role.
Ensure the software and hardware methods, tools, and techniques to support IT leadership are in place.

Scope

Definition

The IT Leadership (LDP) capability is the ability to guide the organization in making the optimal use of technology and related assets to drive business value.

Improvement Planning

Practices-Outcomes-Metrics (POM)

Representative POMs are described for LDP at each level of maturity.

2Basic

Practice
Develop and disseminate standards for hardware and software acquisition.
Outcome
This reduces complexity and increases cohesion within the IT infrastructure.
Metric
% of IT infrastructure that is covered by standards.
Practice
Build network maps for major projects.
Outcome
This enables identification of gaps in the network of relevant relationships.
Metric
# of communication issues that arise during a project.
Practice
Develop a plan for the retirement and replacement of old technologies.
Outcome
This provides one of the fundamental layers of a basic IT plan.
Metric
Asset value of retiring assets as a % of total IT assets.

3Intermediate

Practice
Organize brainstorming sessions (with key technical staff) on innovative options for future IT investment and development.
Outcome
This enables improved ‘future proofing’ of the IT plan.
Metric
# and frequency of technical futures brainstorming sessions.
Practice
Set up a community of practice around a particular area e.g. emerging technologies.
Outcome
This enables improved linkages and sharing of sources of knowledge on emerging technologies.
Metric
Levels of activity within the community of practice.
Practice
Prepare a map linking significant IT investment to specific business goals.
Outcome
This enables preparation of cost benefit statements.
Metric
# of investments included in the map.

4Advanced

Practice
Provide a regular technology update to the Board.
Outcome
This raises the profile of IT with business users.
Metric
# of technology updates given to the senior executive Board by IT.
Practice
Use boundary spanners to build out the network and reduce isolated nodes.
Outcome
This improves the efficacy and productivity of the overall network.
Metric
Extent to which the network is comprehensively balanced.
Practice
Rank capabilities in the current IT vision statement in order of investment priority.
Outcome
This provides guidance to planners when faced with investment choices.
Metric
# of capabilities on the ranked list.

5Optimized

Practice
Advance the cause of open innovation.
Outcome
This raises awareness of the benefits of open innovation.
Metric
Reputation of IT leadership within the business ecosystem (i.e. using standard qualitative measurement tools).
Practice
Review the extent to which network maps take account of external stakeholders.
Outcome
This generates a more comprehensive and current ecosystem relationship map.
Metric
Frequency of network map reviews.
Practice
Research case studies where IT emerged as the key strategic backbone of the business.
Outcome
This enables ease of access to exemplars.
Metric
# of case studies reviewed.

Reference

History

This capability was introduced in Revision 18.07, replacing IT Leadership and Governance (16).