The evolution of IT: from basement to boardroom

But it's not just the technology that has changed. The role of IT in business and IT leadership has also transformed tremendously in 75 years, notes Lex Verweij, associate expert partner at Gartner, during his keynote at the Leadership in Digital conference on March 28. "IT was a relatively constant environment until the 2010's," he explains. "The investments were growing in size, but the behaviours and competencies remained relatively constant. IT was run by engineers. The worst engineers became programme managers and the best programme managers became CIO."

In these first decades of IT, technology was comparable to a factory, according to Verweij. Things were made, but the department was, figuratively speaking, located in the basement of the building, while the 'flashy' marketing people and sales employees were drinking martinis on the eleventh floor.

It's only in the last five years that IT has really changed and has come out of the basement. "The function of IT changed rapidly due to agility and our first steps into PaaS and low code customization," Verweij notes. The role of the product owner and scrum master has emerged, and IT has moved closer to the customer. "Engineers are now on the 11th floor drinking martinis with the client. They now also need skills like business design and agile development. And the CIO is the provider of these central skills to support agile development within the business."

Leadership as coach

This development has radically changed the role of digital leadership. Because IT has become a crucial part of the business – or better yet: IT became the business – the CIO is no longer the sole owner of IT, but more of a 'digitization coach', as Verweij puts it. "The CIO and CxO in business collaborate much more. The CIO now needs to understand the business and their objectives more. They must optimize the budgets and business cases, ensure the basics like infrastructure and processes, provide the skills and tech for agile development, and manage the vendors."

That means digital leadership needs certain skills, although it's not the skills that really make the difference. "There's an increased need for traits and motivators. Such as a collaborative attitude, a coaching leadership style and being motivated by the success of others. It's no longer about being the best engineer in the room, it's more about service. You have to understand the business strategy and hang out with the rest of the company, drinking martinis on the 11th floor."