Having kids is a wonderous, amazing experience. They bring us joy, love and happiness. They complete us. They also wreck our entire way of being! Kids bring about the biggest op model change to how we live.

I recently read a blog in which the role title of Agile coach was ridiculed because it was just ‘rebadging of the Scrum Master role’. I couldn’t disagree more.

When I talk to clients about what ‘digital’ means to them and their business one of the most common responses I hear is “we are not silicon valley”. When I probe into what they mean by that I typically get something like “we are not like Amazon. We are not a start-up. We are not a tech company. We have legacy system. Our business doesn’t work like that.” So here’s my rant in response.

Recently I’ve been in the situation at a couple of clients where an IT Strategy was needed, yet there was distinct lack of an agreed Business Strategy. Either the business strategy was too vague, or it did exist but work was under way to radically change in over the next 6-12 months. In these situations when I tried to facilitate the creation of the IT strategy I hit the obstacle of IT managers not feeling they could define the IT Strategy without a clearer Business Strategy, even though the CIO was asking for them to do so.

IT was the name given the technology department back when people wanted to make the point that the department was not simply about the ‘tin’ – it was about the processing and provision of information such as HR and finance data. However, since then the world has moved on and the moniker of IT is no longer useful. Increasingly IT departments are rebranding themselves and with good cause.