The roadmap as a central tool for discussion with business and IT departments

Podcast with Vincent Lauriat

In this interview, Vincent Lauriat explains how he uses the IT department's roadmap as a basis for discussions with business departments. He also discusses the transformation of organizations to agile mode at scale.

Vincent is an expert in managing transformation, restructuring, digitalization and labor relations within the IT department. He is CIO and CTO of Transition and a member of the Infortive Community.

Enjoy!

The use of the roadmap for a Transition CIO

Vincent Lauriat works mainly in contexts of transformation and crisis. To distinguish the two contexts, he explains:

"A crisis, people have already hit the wall, there's a rebuilding part and usually they get on board very quickly."‍

"A transformation, you can see the wall coming, and you have to get the teams on board to set a new course."

Vincent observes that, in companies, everyone dreams of a great direction, a roadmap built over time... For him, the reality is quite different. He stresses that the entire organization must be extremely agile, and that IT must follow!

"In an IT transition assignment, we have to be able to come up with something in practically the first week! And with a roadmap that adapts to everything we discover and to imponderables! Sometimes a new manager proposes his report of astonishment at the end of the first 100 days...A Transition CIO may have finished his mission at the end of 100 days!"

The roadmap becomes a tool and a gas pedal. For Vincent, the first thing to do is provide visibility , and the roadmap is a key tool. The roadmap will provide a 360° view with management and teams. A single common medium containing objectives, vision, finances, HR, etc.

This roadmap is essential for ongoing communication between departments, enabling us to visualize what is a priority and what is not. In times of transformation and crisis, we return to basic practices and a common, continuous and credible use of this tool.

Towards a CIO at the heart of the transformation

‍Vincentexplains that the main problem for CIOs or companies is not so much the management of roadmap projects, but rather the pressure of day-to-day, run and legacy, which completely absorbs their ability to react and project themselves into business transformation. For him, this has contributed to the development of transformation functions within companies, which attempt to reconcile these two aspects.

He points out that the traditional solution was to separate day-to-day management from transformation management, but this posed a problem of integration over time.

The Transition Manager can help CIOs manage day-to-day operations when they're focused on transformation, or help them with transformation when CIOs are more comfortable with day-to-day operations.

The challenges of scaling up to product mode

As more and more organizations seek a more efficient delivery/delivery model, some of them, notably in the banking sector, are applying the SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) method, for example, which enables agile methods to be practiced on an organization-wide scale. Vincent has extensive experience of these development frameworks. He looks back at the ways in which teams can cooperate to move from a project box to a product box:

"The advantage I see in these product modes, SAFe and others, is that we're changing the way we operate. We integrate the business parties more closely with the IT teams, and we run shorter cycles, so we're closer to the way the company operates. At the end of the day, we make the run evolve, breaking down the divide between the two worlds. We make them evolve constantly at the same time."

These models are changing the way things are done: by integrating more of the company's stakeholders, shortening cycles and breaking down the divide between the business and IT worlds. However, these models can run up against two limitations: the need for team members to be involved, and the difficulty some project managers have in sharing power.

A product team that creates value

Vincent reminds us that when a so-called product team takes requests and endures them continuously, we are typically in a false product mode:

"Normally, the product team comes up with new features constantly."

For Vincent, thisis one of the hallmarks of a successful product team.

In his experience, when you create a product team, it makes it easier to cooperate and transform! The challenge is to be proactive and to seek out value.

In conclusion, the roadmap is above all a discussion tool for the various players in the company.