IT organizations are struggling with how to maintain what they have while also reacting to the rapidly changing needs of the business. Some think this means "transforming" IT into a new, agile organization -instead, we can use "bimodal IT". But what does it really mean?
Bimodal IT is a concept first evangelized by Gartner about a year ago. Simply put, bimodal IT is an IT operating model that runs at two speeds ("Mode 1" for legacy, and "Mode 2" for the new stuff), allowing us to use both at the same time, rather than evolving our IT departments into a completely agile end state.
"Bimodal IT" just simply means we should expect to run BOTH modes for the next ~10 years and signifies amigrationof services from Mode 1 to the new, greenfield Mode 2 approach rather than atransformationof the current IT mode.
Bimodal IT has huge implications -"IT Transformation" as we've come to know it is nonsense. Rather than creating a 3-year plan to achieve a specific end state, we can create the end state NOW with a greenfield "Mode 2" and migrate the legacy services (if needed) to it over time. That way we can use both the slow lane and the fast lane and satisfy the goals of both modes.
In my next post, I'll explore some of those implications in more depth, including how to start, cost impact, and organizational aspects -so stay tuned for more!
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