InBrief: IT Excellence

What It Is: Excellence is core to creating sustainable value through technology in any organization

Why It Matters: Technology advances so rapidly that most organizations can’t keep up.  The balance of agility and discipline, speed and quality are essential to optimizing the value of IT at the right cost

Key Dimensions

Courageous Leadership

• Excellence requires tenacity, agility, flexibility, risk appetite, humility, and discipline
• Given leadership sets the tone and direction for everything else, this is critical to get right
• Need to be an advocate, champion, and business partner, knowing when to say “no” if needed

Transformative Culture

• Remaining competitive in a continually evolving world requires a culture that enables change
• Culture is expressed in what people see as much or more than anything they hear in speeches
• Core values need to be consistently demonstrated from leaders to individual contributors

Relentless Innovation

• Consider what happens in the technology strategy if core solutions are obsolete in 18-24 months
• Make disciplined innovation part of the ongoing portfolio strategy to maintain competitive edge
• Plan for “urban” renewal so there is minimal need for large scale, disruptive modernization

Operating with Agility

• Establish strong business partnerships to respond to changes in portfolio composition/priorities
• Create a minimally invasive, highly transparent operating infrastructure to drive efficiencies
• Leverage workforce and sourcing strategy to provide the right capabilities at the right cost

Framework-Centric Design

• Leverage enterprise architecture to establish a connected enterprise of intelligent ecosystems
• Develop standards to enable ongoing integration of best-of-breed technology capabilities
• Integrate artificial intelligence in thoughtful ways that scale and provide sustainable value

Delivering at Speed

• Create a disciplined and repeatable environment for delivering solutions that can scale
• Design with architecture, quality, and security in mind, not as an afterthought
• Understand that total cost of ownership is as important as speed-to-market most of the time

For Additional Information: Excellence By Design, Why Excellence Matters, The Seeds of Transformation

Excellence doesn’t happen by accident.  Courageous leadership is essential.

Put value creation first, be disciplined, but nimble.

Want to discuss more?  Please send me a message.  I’m happy to explore with you.

-CJG 11/21/2025