| | OCTOBER 20178CIOReviewLEADERSHIP INGREDIENTS FOR A SUCCESSFUL, LARGE-SCALE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATIONIt is impossible to find a successful business today without efficient technology use. This pervasiveness of technology drives digital transformation across all industries. This, however, is not easy. It requires a clear and compelling vision, realistic strategic planning and efficient, relentless execution. State of Illinois, for example, is undergoing a 4-year digital transformation. Mid-project, the State has already moved up from bottom 4th to top 3rd of all US states in national digital rankings.Illinois has a $68 billion annual budget, with 60,000 employees. Digital transformation for an organization of any scale begins from the CEO's vision and permeates through the rank and file employees. Businessman-turned-Governor Bruce Rauner, as the CEO of the state, had a very clear mandate for his leadership team: "I want to provide a 21st century enterprise for our customers and make Illinois efficient, accessible, competitive and compassionate."A successful digital transformation has 6 key principles:1. Building and Articulating Your Goal and Strategy in Simple TermsTransformations start with questions, not answers. Taking those questions--and adapting based on learnings--to the stakeholders for meaningful discovery and discussion means building the right transformation plan. Listening during the first 30 days helped me build a clear strategy and get buy-in from key stakeholders.Everyone needed better technology that drove better outcomes. Our oldest operational technology was built in 1974. We had a 45-year journey to make in Governor's 4 year term. "45-in-4" became our guiding principle. A crisp and compelling sound bite, that meant that the pace of change was equally important as the change itself. With that vision in place, we divided the journey into 3 parts that were also easy to understand and communicate--Smart IT, Smart Government and Smart State.We merged 38 IT silos into a unified entity, the new Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT). Apart from managing $900 Million of annual technology spend, DoIT now runs a 6,000 customer fiber services P&L. And we are running DoIT like a business, with an advisory board of directors, operational sub-committees, activity and outcome-based KPIs, scorecards for leadership and regular Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs). Everything is divided into 75-day sprints and horizontal and vertical organizations are aligned through these sprints driving agility throughout the organization.The first enterprise CISO for the State focused on building a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy while encrypting 97 percent of unsecured data at-rest.2. Creating and Empowering a Winning TeamYou need the right talent to translate a vision into reality. For us, internal talent brought the necessary institutional knowledge and kept us from stepping on landmines. External talent brought fresh By Hardik Bhatt, Chief Digital Officer & Acting Secretary, Innovation & Technology, State of IllinoisIN MY OPINION
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