Why CIOs should prioritize people and process

Building effective IT infrastructure is like building a house — you must construct it for the people living in it. Implementing a sophisticated and perfectly optimized infrastructure does nothing if it doesn’t work for and with your people. In fact, it can waste money, time and resources — three precious commodities for any organization, but especially in the federal sphere.

I believe the next level of transformation for federal IT organizations can only happen when we prioritize people and processes. Two important frameworks focus on the people and process factors that make even the most complex IT projects successful: organizational change management and FinOps. OCM is a strategic approach to helping organizations adapt to change while minimizing resistance and improving their effectiveness; FinOps is a framework at the intersection of finance and operations that maximizes the business value of the cloud.

I lean heavily on the four pillars of modernization — people, process, technology, and learning — however, I spend most of my time focusing on people and processes because I believe technology solutions should be chosen with processes and people’s needs in mind. It can be tempting to lead with technology and choose the newest, trendiest or shiniest tool. But if people aren’t comfortable with it, the process isn’t defined or it disrupts their workflows in a frustrating way, at best it won’t be used. At worst, it will complicate or hinder existing work and run up budgets.

Often, the technology is ready and on the shelf, but you have to ask yourself, are the people ready? This is why we are investing in readiness at OPM. Over the last three years, I have been the executive sponsor of the OCIO OCM function. We are providing change training to project managers and have developed readines ..

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