| | December 201519CIOReviewBy Hardik Bhatt, CIO, Illinois Govthose of us in the private sector often wonder how a business management approach would work in the public sector. As it turns out, done right, they can work well. Hardik Bhatt, the new State of Illinois CIO, is doing exactly that using a CEO of IT approach to address long term, belligerent problems in government. Illinois is not for cowards. Serious challenges beckon. Cost structures and national surveys put the State at the back of the pack. A cantankerous legislature / executive branch relationship stopped budget passage. A diverse and distributed technology base is over 40 years old and in 86 different technology silos. The workforce is unionized and a retirement wave is picking up speed. There has not been a consistent enterprise approach to services, policies, standards, security, purchasing power, or other basic business practices. In some cases, the status quo and bureaucracy is self-optimized, sentient and defensive. Change is hard and there is considerable push-back. Governor Rauner, as a businessman and former Venture Capitalist, uses business approaches to transform the state. He turned to Hardik just months ago to transform the state's technology organization. With practical experience driving change, Hardik is using a business transformation framework ­ speed, iteration and ROI ­ that works in any organization, private or public, technology or not. The first element in this framework is an emphasis on speed. Here Hardik one-ups the business world. The prevailing business time measurement is the quarter. For the technology team, the focus is on 75 day sprints and report-outs. This is a drastic change for an organization that, where measurements and accountabilities existed, the timeframe was in years. The second principle, `roughly right,' facilitates speed. Slow and perfect is out. By adopting the entrepreneurial mindset of speed, feedback and iteration, the management approach becomes agile - focusing on experimentation, small wins and progress over process. And finally, a business case and ROI rigor for investment decisions is standard in the business world. This has not been consistently the case in the IT organization. It will be. All technology investments will demonstrate and document benefits to citizens, revenue growth, cost reductions or compliance to regulatory or legislative mandate. There will be accountability for these results over time.With these operating principles in place, the team's focus is on three steps, doing them, of course, with speed and in parallel:1. Improving the business of IT2. Improving the business of the state using IT3. Finding ways to leapfrog and take a leadership claimIT is a business and, at the State of Illinois, one that needs to catch up to TA CEO of IT: Applying Business Transformation Frameworks in GovernmentCIO INSIGHTS
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