Technology leadership

The function is accountable for more than the estate, and less than everything.

What the function should own

Technology leadership owns the operating consequences of technology choices — not merely their delivery. That means being answerable for whether the business can actually do the thing the investment promised, long after the project has closed.

Where it goes wrong

Two opposite failures, equally common. The first is a technology function that has become a purchasing and support department, reacting to requests it has no standing to challenge. The second is a function that has annexed decisions belonging to the business, usually by default, because nobody else would make them.

Both come from the same root: an unclear settlement about what technology is for in that organisation. Getting that settlement explicit is usually the first useful thing a new technology executive can do.

On teams

Most fragile technology estates are fragile because of people concentration, not architecture. One person who understands the integration, one who holds the vendor relationship, one who knows why a workaround exists. Removing that fragility is slow, unglamorous and among the highest-return work available.

The mandates this work belongs to are set out under executive leadership.