Gartner introduced a prescriptive organization model for enterprise IT called “Bimodal IT.” It posits that IT organizations of the future will have two separate flavors, if you will: Type 1 is traditional IT, focused on stability and efficiency, while Type 2 is an experimental, agile organization focused on time-to-market, rapid application evolution, and, in particular, tight alignment with business units.
Here is one description of bimodal IT from a Gartner conference attendee — unfortunately, Gartner has not yet chosen to publish a full description of the concept that can be accessed by non-subscribers, although a good overview of it can be gleaned from the firm’s report outline.
While there was a flurry of discussion about this model and its meaning when it was launched mid-year, I believe that many commentators reacted to its surface features and failed to grasp its profound implications for IT organizations and especially IT leadership.
If one accepts Gartner’s perspective, it dictates a future for enterprise IT far different than most participants and vendors currently proclaim. Here are some things that, thus far, have not been made clear in the previous discussions about bimodal IT:
Bimodal is the ‘How’ But the ‘What’ is Profound
Gartner’s bimodal IT recommendation is a statement of how IT must be organized to meet the burgeoning requirements being forced upon it by business units. While there is discussion about what the Type 2 IT organization will build, it is usually focused on the consumer of the technology — the business units and what they want to accomplish with agile, fast-to-market applications.
The bimodal model is correct that a different set of expectations and approaches is probably necessary for IT to respond to this demand, but it does not address the fundamental and enormous change in technology and process required to deliver Type 2 applications. Stated straightforwardly, Type 2 IT is a DevOps world, and it will require new tools and processes.
Some IT organizations have cottoned on to this and are seeking to emulate the leaders on the frontier of the industry: Facebook, Etsy, and a raft of others. This is what has led to the birth of the Innovation Lab movement, and is the root cause of the coming war for developers.
The bottom line is that the organizational recommendations associated with bimodal IT are only a portion of what needs to be done to move IT capabilities to where they will need to be in the future; said another way, bimodal IT is necessary but not sufficient for what enterprise IT will look like going forward.
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