How big business can innovate like a startup

[Blog post] Inside the Spotify model.

A true startup is like an artist, in that it is driven by an undeniable passion for its craft and an endless curiosity. The art is the goal, and the money and other trappings of success are a mere consequence.
It is not surprising therefore that big business struggles with innovation.


Enterprises are designed to be factories of repeatable and scalable business processes, whereas startups aim to change the world.

Unfortunately, this repeatable and scalable business model is not an agile and flexible one - it's the opposite.

One advantage of startups is they have the concept of a minimum viable product down pat - a working prototype that is stripped back and likely to be missing functionality. It's there to demonstrate the concept, and doesn’t have to be perfect.

Those working in enterprises know that big business tends to be sucked into the trap of making services ‘production ready’. Stakeholders want to see the full system, and there can be severe pressure against conducting a simple proof of concept.

In startups, the driver to achieve a MVP is simply a greater hunger to make that first sale, because until they do, they are burning cash. Enterprises just don’t have that same motivation and as a result find it really hard to build a minimum viable product.

It's not all bad news, however. Some organisations such as Spotify are leading the way as enterprises that get it. They have adopted approaches to use the stripped-back startup model and make it work for the big end of town.

The answer?
Spotify is a music streaming organisation that provides a freemium model with a paid option. It has 60 million users of which 15 million are paid members.  Spotify has used agile approaches to deliver innovation for a global company with multiple offices around the world.

It has tried to emulate how a startup works by forming teams into ‘squads’, which have a clear objective and are a part of larger incubators called 'tribes'.

To allow cross functional learning, Spotify also has guilds where experts can share and learn across different tribes. To allow for the reality of the enterprise, there is another construct called the 'chapter' - which in effect is line management.

Using this home-grown methodology, Spotify is able to create a high performance team within a successful and growing enterprise.


David Gee will explore the Spotify case study further during his CIO Strategy Summit keynote address on February 13th at the Grand Hyatt in Melbourne

Read more: http://www.itnews.com.au/BlogEntry/399730,how-big-business-can-innovate-like-a-startup.aspx#ixzz3R0RMTRrl

Step-by-step: preparing your business for big data

[Blog post] David Gee offers his practical tips.

Big data. It’s the hype-fuelled juggernaut that few CIOs can afford to ignore for any longer. But jumping on the bandwagon is not going to be easy. Here are some practical ways to make sure your organisation is ready to make the most of the deluge.

Consider a study tour
Alan Grogan, partner at Advanced Capability Solutions in London, says that letting third parties in on your big data plans can be vital “as this will help you later on if you need their buy-in and support with a project”.

But he adds a cautionary note.
“IT alone won’t be able to help you with commercialisation of your data into information and then business knowledge,” he said.  For this you will have to do some personal study and network heavily to get detail on user cases both in your sector and across other industries.
One way to accelerate this learning process is to seek out some expert guidance. An option is to undertake a ‘field trip’ to a handful of leading-edge analytics organisations based out of India and/or the USA.

Sri Annaswamy, founder at advisory firm Swamy & Associates, endorses this approach
“There are a number of options, with varying degrees of usefulness. You can buy a standard industry analyst report (Gartner, HF etc.) or a white-paper from a standard consulting firm (KPMG, Deloitte etc.) But neither option would provide the ‘hands on’ learning associated with being on an analytics factory floor during a field trip” he said.

Another learning to pursue is getting an idea of what an onshore and offshore analytics centre of excellence will feel like and indeed how this could work for your own enterprise. There is nothing like seeing an offshore centre in action and getting a sense for the talent pool that is in place.
The degree to which your business will consider ‘partnering versus owning’ is a key question. But certainly does not have to be answered immediately. This can definitely wait as you and your team learn by observation and also by osmosis.

Learn by outsourcing
Ok, so you want to learn more about this strategic topic – big data.

But you’re also aware that this skillset is in short supply and that no-one wants to expose their thinking or share information at this stage.

For those of us that are true-believers but lack the requisite deep experience, then the best way to learn is to consider outsourcing big data functions. From my own experience, I used this approach many years ago in another domain as I was establishing a customer contact centre for Asia Pacific.

This may sound counter intuitive, but it is actually the fastest way to learn what best practice looks like. From this position you can then decide whether you want to grow your capability internally or continue to outsource.

There is a saying that when the processes are a mess then you will be outsourcing a mess. It is true, but you can also learn from working with great partners.

Picking my partner?
For those of us that have been around a few seasons there are some common sense criteria for selecting a suitable partner. In essence you want to be buying high quality data analysts who have done this before in industries that you rate as being leaders of this new category.

Grogan has narrowed his advice down to four tips:

1. For your specialist areas and projects you should have dedicated – ideally named – people who support only your business. This is not just to ensure analysts who ‘get’ your business, but also to protect any intellectual property.
2. Be careful that the vendor lets you exclusively own any new processes they develop for you. This may sound obvious, but I’ve heard of companies effectively signing away their business models.
3. Be careful of vendors using very fancy phrases, promising the latest technologies and overstating their capabilities. Be mindful that it’s known for consultancy and technology companies to ‘wash’ their capabilities with other more basic capabilities, and then re-outsource the difficult stuff. 
4. Contact any potential vendor’s current big data clients and ask how their needs and wants have been supported.

Who should ‘own’ big data?
As a CIO, should big data even be your responsibility?
Alan Grogan says the way to approach this question is to forget about ‘ownership’ and ‘territory’.

For big data to succeed there needs to be a strong focus on the customer and an understanding that the culture of the organisation will evolve with this transformation.

“Big data ideally needs to be sponsored by a CEO (local, regional or global) who is the custodian of culture.

 “In terms of driving the agenda, the owning technology area (CTO/CDO/CIO) should really engage with each business area and function that stands to benefit. Over time, as big data processes become more embedded in the organisation, it’s not unimaginable that ownership will split between functional leaders (head of product, head of sales, head of finance) etc.”

He recommends that appointing a joint sponsor is the best approach, within the function or area which will fund the project. It’s critically important that this strategically positioned executive straddles the entire organisation and reports to the CEO.

Self-service philosophy
Big data demands self-service from day one. This is what will drive success. It is a long way from the traditional data warehouse and data mart approach and IT will have to evolve to work within this paradigm.

Let’s remember that the single-most important purpose of big data and analytics in an organisation is to enable end-users to go directly to the data source and carry out the analysis and visualisation they require directly, without relying on an IT-department-based BI and reporting team to prepare reports for them.

This approach shouldn't result in a lack of governance but it is radically different from how it was approached in the past. In effect, it means those of us in IT will have to let go of a little control.

One proof-of-concept is not enough
Cloud options have lowered the barriers to making a start with big data. But it is also important not to rush into anything that hasn’t been thoroughly tested.
The concept of testing big data through a proof of concept is clearly the recommended path.

In fact Annaswamy recommends enterprises don’t just run one POC “but three to five POCs in parallel, utilising different potential strategic analytics partners”.
He explained that this “helps accelerate proof of the value of big data and analytics to the executive and in a tangible manner as well as uncovering the specific capabilities of different service-providers in a defined timeframe and cost bound manner”.

What changes to the organisation are required?
One can argue that big data is naturally already the job of the CIO or CTO – so why would you hire a chief data officer or chief analytics officer?  I remember the rise and decline of chief knowledge officers that have come and since gone from the ranks of corporations.

My advice is: let’s not let this happen again, so IT, including the CIO, have to embrace this change.
There is still a need for an appropriate framework – with end-to-end data stewardship to drive data quality and make sure all data falls within a governance, risk and compliance framework. The most important thing is to get executives to grasp the importance of big data and analytics for every part of the company’s business.

Business gap analysis
A gap analysis is not a business case. Instead it is designed to illustrate how real the gap between your organisation and the industry leader(s) is – and how to bridge that gap.
Annaswamy maintains that the length of the review depends on the type of analytics project. In the case of a simple cross-sell uplift or an attrition problem project then it could be within 12 months.

However if it this is a complete revamp of your analytics platform, to say an enterprise data warehouse with the incorporation of a Hadoop-based system for unstructured data plus visualisation and newer software, you could be looking at a three-plus year scenario.

Copy cat – who should I benchmark?
Benchmarking against peers is the trickiest aspect because anyone that is doing this well is not going to share their intimate details.

Recently I was speaking to a CIO in Singapore who worked in an industry completely removed from my base in financial services. Despite my best attempts I could not convince him to divulge big data specifics.

But one hint is to look for organisations that are customer focussed, have made significant investments in this area and have appointed chief data or analytics officers.

In Australia it is understood that Suncorp and CBA are the most advanced in this space, but watch out for Walmart, AIG, Amazon, Google and Pay Pal.

Reskilling my team
I’ve been really curious about what skills are really needed to manage an outsourced big data capability. The most important part is managing the diversity of staff – standard IT developers, programmers and BI techies won’t do!

You will need engineers with strong statistical-modelling experience, behavioural scientists to pick out the insights and operations people to plug the insights into specific interventions.

There is an assumption of course that vendor management today is a given. Most organisations have been through the IT offshoring/BPO cycle for several years now that they have reasonably sophisticated procurement and vendor management teams.

Reinforcing this view was a further insight from Grogan that relationship and listening skills are all key. The biggest challenge is simply getting the outsourced capability stood up.

Read more: http://www.itnews.com.au/BlogEntry/399125,step-by-step-preparing-your-business-for-big-data.aspx#ixzz3R0QgHSsv

Is 2015 your chance to reinvent yourself?

Blog post] Consider targeting your skills to the hot trends.

It is a cliché to say that the world is changing as we speak, but it is indeed true.  There are roles in IT that won’t be in existence in five years time, or they will be considered roles of lesser value than today.

As IT professionals we need to be always reinventing ourselves, moving our skills to where the action is going to be – it is about preparing to fight the next battle not the last.  My view is that unfortunately this common sense is not that ‘common’ and many IT folks don’t believe they can easily move across specialist areas.
I feel that in Australia a career change is more feasible than some other locations. It’s about having the transferable skills that will take you from sitting in your own comfort zone to  tackling a completely new challenge.

What are the hot trends?
There are some key roles that are emerging, including: data scientists, cyber security experts, digital business analysts and cloud architects.
If you were going to take a punt on a career change, then I would pick one of these areas.
There is also a list of alternative hot spots that is not hyped or talked about as much. These are roles where there appears to be quite a shortage of skilled IT professionals like middleware integration analysts, COBOL programmers and mainframe skills in general.

Time for reflection.
My own motto is “life is too short to be doing a job that you don’t love”.  I’ve met many people who dislike or don’t enjoy their work and it always shows. It is hard to have ‘passion’ and ‘energy’ when you feel that your role is a dead end and leads nowhere.
Either way if you decided to go after a shiny new career in ‘Big Data’; there is clear evidence that there is a global shortage of skilled staff.  Similarly, the number of enquiries that I receive to refer cyber security specialists is staggering.  There is just not enough skilled staff to fill demand for any of the hot trends.
Taking the alternative path and moving into a legacy like COBOL can also provide great rewards as the skill is not being taught at all institutions but the requirement is still there.

Transferrable skill.
Getting an opportunity to get some experience with a new skill, as part of a project is one avenue to build a different career direction.
In 2015, should look for opportunities to learn new, or for that matter old, technologies.
Don’t die wondering. Have a discussion with your supervisor about your longer term career goals, your commitment to the organization and your desire to learn a new skill that both helps the business and grows your value.
The most important transferrable skill is actually not the technical aspects, as those can be learned, it’s your ‘positive’ attitude and ability to learn.
For example, taking a person that has for instance been an ERP specialist and having them transform into an information architect is clearly a long bow. This can be achieved when there is a positive and receptive individual who is willing to work as a team member.
Hence we could take any role and with the right coaching and mentoring, that person can move over a 2 year period into a new IT profession.

Barriers to entry.
You may be thinking, “Surely there are barriers that will prevent me from making the change?” Perhaps and it is likely that your request may be somewhat of a surprise at first to management.
I maintain that approaching this in the right manner will have you seen as an engaged employee that wants to progress and learn.
In my experience any good manager or supervisor will want you on their team.
Thus the biggest barrier is indeed you.  This has to start with an assessment of you.

SKEB=skills, knowledge, experience and behaviour.
One of the simplest and most effective tools that I have used is a piece of paper and pen. With some quiet time to reflect you can write down what are the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviour that I need for my next role. I came across this approach during my time in Japan and developed this matrix.

Your notes should feel like a stretch and not just a routine thing like completing a certification course.

The intention is to write just one objective for each of these dimensions and if you then feel comfortable share this with your manager.

In the example included here, I have identified three improvement areas in each section.

Developing a similar SKEB diagram would involve insights from your supervisor and I would envisage that this may require more than a single discussion.

“Do nothing” as an option.
This is always a possible approach, and it is likely that this may be acceptable. The acid test is do you love your job?

If your answer is “well…not really”, then it is not too late to reinvent yourself.
Take your time during this month to consider your future. It really is the best time of the year to take the opportunity and ask what’s important?

Have a great 2015 !

Read more: http://www.itnews.com.au/BlogEntry/399175,is-2015-your-chance-to-reinvent-yourself.aspx#ixzz3R0QFZ4jJ

IT's leading role in customer experience

By David Gee on Dec 22, 2014 10:30 AM
ITNews 

 

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[Blog post] A recipe for a customer-centred ethos.

Creating the ideal customer experience is one of the hot areas of focus right now for organisations who believe it will provide them a competitive advantage.

So what’s the role of the CIO and IT team in helping develop the customer experience? It's clear that there is often a lack of clarity over who owns the ‘customer’ in an organisation. Is it marketing, sales, operations or the customer contact team?

As enterprise is being transformed by digitisation, my view is IT has a key leadership role to play.
Many define customer experience as the sum of all experiences that one has with an organisation. But what is customer experience really all about?

Is it to create a brand-new class of experience or just to eliminate the bad episodes? Is customer experience about reinventing the interactions or eliminating process variation?
Client experience advocate at Deloitte, Geoff Stalley, believes consistency is an important factor.

“The key to great customer experience is consistency and thus the objective for any organisation has to be to embed a way of dealing with customers that provides a consistent, excellent experience," he said.

“Bad experiences are the ones remembered and often communicated on social media or by word of mouth, and when this happens these can outweigh the great experiences by a factor of ten. Thus any activity that removes variations and creates a consistent excellent experience is one that will succeed”, he said.

Walking in the customers’ shoes
Stalley noted that the real challenge is seeing things from the customer’s point of view; try walking in the customers’ shoes to define the experience your organisation could provide.

This journey will help to uncover the gap between the standard processes your organisation adopts today and missing interaction points that would make for a smoother experience.
According to Raj Mendes, the managing director of The Customer Experience, it doesn’t matter how exceptional your experience is on paper "if you can’t execute it consistently - then it’s worth nothing".

To create a truly noteworthy experience, Mendes recommends companies start with customer needs, goals and expectations. This forms the basis for a customer strategy and allows an organisation to be targeted in the way it approaches improving customer experience. Then a business can select the areas in which it wants to be exceptional.  

Who owns the customer? In Australia, often no single job role holds ownership of the customer, meaning the customer is orphaned and neglected.

Tim Sheedy, who helps his Forrester clients design and implement digital and mobile strategies, said “too many Australian businesses de-prioritise customer experience. Many customer experience people I speak to are junior, with little influence or budget.”

Customer experience isn’t a destination, it’s a journey
A journey suggests this is an ongoing odyssey and not a one-off project. Early adopters have changed the fabric of the organisation.

It is not about implementing a new CRM system with some technology bells and whistles.  Stalley said dedicated customer experience programs needed to be embedded into the culture of the organisation.

“This starts with listening to the customer and systematically obtaining feedback from a range of interactions, understanding the good, bad and the ugly at each interaction point, making changes to processes that will improve the experience and then measuring and rewarding the behaviours that matter to customers," he said.

"In essence it’s all about connecting with customers and understanding what they want.”

Stalley cited Zurich Insurance in Europe, which realised that great customer experience actually results in a far better financial outcome for the business.

The company took steps to measure and adjust the customer-facing activities of various teams in the marketplace to lift their financial performance.

Since then, many organisations have recognised that profitable and happy clients are the sweet spot of longevity in the market, and focusing on these dimensions helps companies outperform those that don’t.

Embracing a customer-centric approach
For many in IT, this may sound like marketing mumbo jumbo. How can IT contribute to a customer experience program?

“A good customer experience management program, which delivers actionable feedback at all levels, is really critical to sustaining focus,” Mendes said.

“This needs to be driven by a strong customer strategy which can identify and target initiatives and execute them within the business.

“However unless you embed customer centricity into the underlying culture of the organisation you won’t be able to ensure that the customer stays front of mind. These three elements become the foundation for sustained, customer centric action from all staff.”

IT teams are the best placed to role model this culture change. Our reactions to both internal and external customers need to reflect a customer-centric culture.

IT teams need to see things from the customer’s perspective ourselves. We have to understand what interactions really matter and what we do to support those efforts.

What IT does in terms of providing people, process and technology are the fundamental components of any organisation - they just need to be arranged in a way that provides a great customer experience.

Sheedy pointed out that it is hard to deliver a great customer experience without ensuring a ‘good’ employee experience. Employees need to be enabled to deliver experiences that make sense to the customer with processes and technology aligned to support them.

Case study—Shanghai hot pot
Hai Di Lao is a chain of restaurants serving spicy hotpot soup. Its ethos is to ‘serve the people’, and this starts upon arrival when staff take and remember your name.

When no table is available, cheerful staff will provide you free drinks (wine and beer) as well as snacks. There is free wi-fi and board games to pass the time. Some locations even provide a shoe shine or manicure as a complimentary service. Waiters are given discretion to provide clients extras such a fruit platter or dessert.

In the case of Hai Di Lao, each staff member lives in a free company apartment, is paid well and provided other services, such as a nanny service.

This translates into genuinely happy staff who deliver an incredible customer experience.

Looking from the outside in
This case study is a great example of looking at the dining experience from the shoes of the diner.

What does a diner want when they are waiting for a table? How can we delight the customer?

Build and deliver what the customer wants. If that means working with the regulator to change legislation then that's what needs to be done. The banking sector has demonstrated businesses who push the limits and push the regulations tend to be more successful.

That’s a powerful example and a lesson for every CIO and his IT team. How can we start to look at the world from the outside in and find ways to partner with the business to deliver what’s needed?

Good luck with the journey...

Read more: http://www.itnews.com.au/BlogEntry/398608,its-leading-role-in-customer-experience.aspx#ixzz3NKeN75Bi

Everyone loves a good hack

Is holding a 'hackathon' a good way to drive innovation inside your business?

David Gee (CIO) on 12 December, 2014 09:32

In this age of cyber security concern, it is amusing that the word “hack” has entered our lexicon. The word has never had a positive connotation and in my view, it’s always a negative. In golf parlance, a “hacker” is not a description that anyone wants to be labeled with.

Wikipedia defines a hack as an inelegant but effective solution to a computing problem.

From the notion that this is about breaking into a computer network, through to the Facebook programming language – there are various meanings attributed and all appear not to be favourable.

But several large enterprises are jumping on the hacking bandwagon, particularly financial services firms, holding their own “hackathons” to create new, innovative apps and solve issues that plague their businesses.

Westpac held a hackathon at its recently opened ‘Hive’ innovation centre. National Australia Bank and Commonwealth Bank (CBA) have also held hackathon events.

I attended the CBA hackathon that was held at the University of New South Wales, where 50 students spent two and a half days hacking retail technology to create a product that would provide a seamless experience for retailers and customers.

The event was very well run and I was immediately impressed with its focus and the capability of the students who were participating.

We can be cynical and say this is all about getting something for nothing, but actually CBA had one of its executives provided great context around innovations in retail industries. He used examples from retailers Hointer, John Lewis, C&A, and Shoes of Prey.

Hointer’s jeans hang down from the roof of its stores and are scanned and sent down chutes into the customer’s assigned change room. This speeds up the process of buying jeans and improves the overall experience for the customer.

The second example, Shoes of Prey, is an online business that enables consumers to custom design shoes – a great example of a micro segment customisation.

You could sense that the audience of students were impressed with the innovative case studies that were shown and there were audible gasps.

Another CBA exec explained the bank’s ‘Albert and Leo’ purpose-built tablet devices for payments. These devices run CBA’s Pi platform, which features an app store that would house the most successful apps created during the hackathon.

Essentially, the teams had an open license to tackle whatever problem they desired. There was a bounty cash prize on offer for the best app that came out of the four day event and also an internship up for grabs.

Winners and losers

It is a cliché but I’m not sure that there are losers in this instance, those who toil away for several days and their product doesn’t get recognised.

But there are winners of course, lucky teams of developers who create something truly innovative.

A group called CrowdSauce won the CBA UNSW Hackathon with an app for self payment that incorporated user ratings. This was an interactive menu that you use at a restaurant to self order and pay while also seeing what other diners are ordering.

 

I like the social aspect of this, although it may sound creepy and in certain pubs to become a talking point of what you are eating or drinking (perhaps a replacement for dating apps?)

The team – Isharn Varshney, Sohaib Mushtaq and Pavs Raju – delivered a validated solution and business model with evidence of a prototype.

A hackathon is no marathon

Hackathons are essentially ‘sprints’, and are about creating a minimum viable product.

YouTube stars, Ankit Gupta and Akshay Kothari from the Institute of Design at Stanford created a ‘named pulse’ for a project. This app displays news from multiple RSS feeds in one page using a tile interface.

Well, guess what? It was purchased by LinkedIn for US$90 million. Legend has it that the students created the app in five to six weeks.

The other key success attribute when creating innovative technology is your ability to be nimble and avoid hierarchy. So the size of your team matters.

It is interesting to note that McKinsey consultants have teams of 4 or 5 as does the US Navy Seals. Once a team is greater than 5 or 6 then coordination becomes the focus not the work.

Professor Bob Sutton from Stanford refers to the work by coincidently named Richard (Hackman) at Harvard. In short, Hackman’s rule is that ‘big teams suck’.

I think, he’s right. It gets harder as you add more members to the team and like it or not the communication becomes harder and roles become more splintered.

Let me close by noting that a ‘hack writer’ is a person who is paid to write quick inferior articles. Not that I resemble this!

But in all seriousness, is a hackathon something that CIOs should organising to create innovation inside their businesses? My belief is that hackathons are just one tool that can be used to garner ideas especially from an external group.

For the CIO, there are many other approaches to injecting innovation, including innovating with external partners, engaging a startup accelerator to run a program for you or building an innovation lab. The list goes on.

Hackathons are just one piece of the puzzle and whether or not they will continue to be used by corporates to create innovative products and services remains to be seen.

Follow the ‘yellow brick road’ to innovation

Just like members of the travelling party in the classic 1939 film, ‘The Wizard of Oz’, CIOs need some ‘courage, heart, and brains’ on the epic journey to achieving true innovation, says David Gee

David Gee (CIO) on 19 November, 2014

 

Organisations across all industries are undergoing technology-led transformations. More than ever, CIOs need to reflect and ask themselves one question: What is my value to the business?

Most us of will answer this question by saying that we are driving strategic projects which deliver valuable products and services that help our organisations run more effectively.

This is certainly ‘valued’ but it’s only part of what is expected of you. It gives you table stakes, but it’s an innovative CIO who is really respected by the business.

An innovative CIO can deliver on both the technology and operational aspects of a transformation project. At the same, they have the business knowledge and technology savvy to understand what innovations will make a difference in their organisations.

A great CIO will be able to have the right balance of ‘discovery and delivery’ skills, what Dr Hal Gregersen, executive director of the MIT Leadership Center, describes as the innovator’s DNA. A few years ago, while a professor at Insead, Dr Gregersen was running an innovation program for several CIOs in Europe. In this program, he used a large dataset of the behaviour of senior management in large corporations.

A 360 degree survey of your manager, peers and staff was the foundation to provide insights and your rating versus the database of senior executives from enterprises around the world.

This was not that different to other surveys that most managers are involved in, except for the focus was on specific behaviours relating to innovation.

Dr Gregersen later published his book entitled the ‘The Innovator’s DNA’, which I recommend you read for further insights on the subject.

The Wizard of Oz

In the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her companions travelled down the yellow brick road to The Emerald City, seeking three items from the wizard. The cowardly lion wanted courage, the tin man a heart, and the scarecrow a brain.

Believe it or not, we CIOs need an injection of ‘courage, heart and brains’ to take the journey to the next level. Simply, we need to demonstrate new behaviours to succeed in business.

Dr Gregerson’s study talks about the following four attributes required to be an innovator.

1. Questioning. Learn to constantly ask disruptive questions. Being curious and not settling will allow you to constantly challenge the status quo.

2. Observing. The best innovators are just also great observers. They look broadly at customers, other companies outside of their own industry and whatever takes their broad interest.

What interests an innovative CIO can be and should be diverse and not necessarily mainstream. New patterns can be often found by looking at unrelated areas.

3. Networking. Work your internal and external networks. It is interesting to think about the concept of six degrees of separation, which has been calculated to be actually less at a number of five.

Innovators do this to gain new perspectives and learn new things. In contrast, a ‘delivery-focused CIO’ would do this only for career management reasons or to access a specific resource for a key task.

4. Experimenting. Innovators are willing to try new things (to live in new countries, work in many diverse industries). They also like to take things apart and deconstruct concepts. They just understand that pilots are really to learn and test ideas, hence they are not afraid to fail.

Finally to tie this all together, the innovator needs to apply associational thinking to connect different and disparate ideas. These collections of ideas may not have immediate value but when combined with another different notion, can provide a breakthrough idea.

Simple right? Just four behaviours plus some willingness to take some risks and synthesise the thinking process will place you on the right road.

So what’s stopping you from making progress on this front? Your boss? The staff who work for you? Your peers?

Likely they all play a part, but the largest barrier is you. Being an innovative CIO requires an environment that is supportive but you will ultimately provide the major obstacle to making a change.

Good luck with your journey to The Emerald City.

David Gee is the former CIO of CUA where he recently completed a core banking transformation. He has more than 18 years' experience as a CIO, and was also previously director at KPMG Consulting. Connect with David on LinkedIn.