Lean IT?

I recently kicked off a series of posts on the future of IT as well as some follow on posts looking at the pros and cons of treating IT as a separate department versus rolling its functions up into their business unit counterparts.

In this post (which is unreasonably long) I want to change gears a bit, however, and lay out why I think IT in 2010 offers a particularly rich opportunity for organizations and their leaders to effect profound transformation to the modern corporation.

Being in the right place at the right time

When I think about the difference between a great leader and an exceptional one, part of the answer is being in the right place at the right time, whether that means the right organization at the right time, the right industry at the right time, or the right discipline at the right time.

And when I think about the most pressing challenges facing organizations in 2010, one of the most critical is how to transform IT into a strategic, core competency analogous to the transformations manufacturing and supply chain went through in the eighties and nineties. Which means that IT leaders today are in the right place at the right time to be exceptional—if they can manage this transformation.