Delivering Technology in the new digital world

Digital, you can't move for people talking about digital, but this article in the Wall St Journal grabbed my attention. 

I like the Equifax and Liberty Mutual approach, that the command and control structures that we are used to are breaking down and new cross functional teams are being formed, and we need to adapt how we deliver technology to them.

This quote from their CIO Dave Webb is spot on in my opinion

“Companies that transition from a more traditional business model to one built around technology and IT must adopt a management practice that can support this evolution,” says Dave Webb, global chief information officer of Equifax Inc. 

The article goes on to say

Equifax in 2015 opened a technology-development facility in Auburn, Ala., the facility, which develops automation and platform services is organized into small, cross-functional teams made up of a mix of business and technology personnel. The managers include a vice president of global platform engineering, an automation lead and a cloud and systems lead.

Rather than issue top-down directives, these managers instead strive to help self- directed teams leverage digitally enabled data sources, collaboration and sharing tools, and tighter feedback loops, to “get things out the door faster,” Mr. Webb says. 

Finally the Liberty Mutual CIO James McGlennon adds :

At Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., collaboration and sharing tools powered by digital capabilities—roughly 80% of its operations currently run in the private and public cloud—are bringing business, sales and IT units together like never before, says CIO James McGlennon.

That’s shifting the role of managers who oversee those units away from “dictating how things should be done,” to acting more like coaches who guide collaborative, multifunctional teams to “get the work done” on their own, Mr. McGlennon says.

Both these CIO's are doing what we're trying to do, in trying to create coordination teams at the centre to orchestrate and cultivate communities, but with delivery at the edge where the situational awareness is best