Lighthouse Projects And Accelerating Change

I don't know if you're familiar with the term "lighthouse project".  I've used it for years to describe projects that are more about changing perceptions than the actual project itself.

And, as we accelerate towards an IT world of fully virtualized environments, private clouds and service providers, I'm finding I'm talking more and more about these types of projects.

What's The Goal Of A Lighthouse Project?

So many projects we undertake are to solve a well defined problem and move on.  But what if the problem turns out to be changing widely held and deeply rooted perceptions?

The project becomes less about what you're actually doing, and more about how people view what you're doing.

Human beings are essentially social animals.  Our reality is what we perceive and what we believe.  Changing those perceptions can be incredibly hard and difficult.

However, if you're in senior management, "accelerating change" is usually high on your agenda. 

Sure, the organization is changing at a slow, methodical and predictable pace.  But what if it's not fast enough?  If this is in the context of a large organization, lots of people are involved, and they don't all work for you.

Enter the "lighthouse project" -- a project with the explicit goal of accelerating changes in perceptions and beliefs on a wide scale. 

It's not enough that the actual project is a success -- it's about using that success to rapidly transform how an organization thinks.

Lighthouse projects are subtly different than proof-of-concepts (all about the technology or process), or pilots (usually an intermediate step on the way to full production).  Lighthouse projects are all about showing people what can be done -- if we think about things in the right way.

An Example

I've been involved in lots of lighthouse projects during my career -- some small, some large.  I've found them an incredibly useful tactic in accelerating organizational change.

One of my most visible recent ones from a few years ago was lighthouse project around social media proficiency. 

We needed to change perceptions around communication, collaboration and culture from a 1.0 world to a 2.0 world, and do it in a big hurry.  We couldn't wait 5 or 10 years to make slow and incremental progress -- things had to start changing *now*.

Our lighthouse project was dubbed EMC|ONE -- an internal social media portal that widely demonstrated the value of 2.0 without anyone getting fired.  About a year into the project, company-wide perceptions around social media completely and radically changed, and we were off to the races.

When we talk about the project, we talk less about common metrics like number of users, page views or specific ROI.  Instead, we tend to think of it as the lighthouse project that radically accelerated the transition of EMC from a 1.0 to a 2.0 mindset. 

And it was far more about people and culture than the specifics of the technology implementation.

The CIO Conundrum

If you're a CIO, you may be on the hotseat. 

IT is changing fast.  Your users demand more, better, faster and usually cheaper.  You're spending more time meeting with business leaders rather than your own staff.

The problem?

Your IT organization was built around how the business looked 5 years ago, and not how it's going to look 5 years from now.

And here comes the new wave -- virtualization, private clouds, empowering knowledge workers, etc. -- and it's coming fast and hard.

It looks like IT is undergoing a fundamental transformation into a service -- IT is being built differently, operated differently and consumed differently.

Outsourcers, SIs and service providers are starting to make more aggressive sales calls.  User and business frustration is rising.  And, even if you've got good people, the pace of change within your IY organization just isn't keeping up.

And that's not good for anyone's career.

Infrastructure And Applications

OK, I'm dramatically oversimplifying, but when I talk with an IT leader, there are usually two big hunks of value creation they'd like to dramatically accelerate -- IT infrastructure, and how applications are developed and delivered.

The two are inevitably intertwined in very subtle ways, but addressing the infrastructure side can also accelerate value on the application side.

I usually end up recommending an IT infrastructure lighthouse project -- an internal private cloud, using a vBlock.

Before you accuse me of simply doing a product pitch, please hear me out.

The Problem

IT infrastructure delivery today is typically silo-ed and sequential.  Server team, storage team, network team, virtualization team, database team, security team, user team, etc. -- all these teams, and it's hard to get anything useful done if you're in a hurry.

At the other end is a business user who wants something that requires IT infrastructure.  They want to get going quickly, and they want the ability to change its attributes quickly.  And, of course, they only have so much money at the outset.

You can see the problem, can't you?  Most IT organizations are built around the mission-critical processes that run at scale.  Most of the innovation is in the form of smaller efforts that need to move quickly.

The goal of the vBlock-based private cloud project is to connect a new way of doing things with an unmet need in the business.  It's that simple.

The perceptions you're trying to change within IT are simple: there are newer ways of doing things, they work pretty well, and nobody is going to get fired.  And the perceptions you're trying to change in the business is that -- yes -- IT can be flexible and responsive to new business needs without escalating things to the CEO.

The ROI?

I'm getting cranky in my old age.

When someone brings up traditional ROI (return on investment), I try to avoid rolling my eyes.  Really I do.  I usually limit myself to a smart-aleck comment around the new meaning of ROI (risk of ignoring). 

Why?  Traditional ROI frameworks are a decent way of understanding incremental projects with incremental impacts.  They are usually completely unworkable frameworks for the bigger issues at hand.

So, dear IT folks, what is the logical outcome if you insist on doing things the way they've always been done, and increasingly fail to meet the needs of your users and the business overall?  Being a corporate type, I can give you the answer, and you may not like it.

And it has nothing to do with how you -- the IT group -- perceive ROI.  It has everything to do with how the business perceives the ROI of the IT group itself.

The smart IT leaders get this -- it's all about accelerating change, and changing perceptions both inside and outside IT.

The Vblock As A Lighthouse Project

Here's a Vblock.  It represents state-of-the-art in IT infrastructure delivered as a service.  It's built differently, operated differently -- and can be consumed differently.

Bring one in, and point it at a cranky bunch of users.  Maybe it's the application development folks.  Maybe it's a virtual desktop project for your power users.  Maybe it's for the business analytics crowd, or the folks doing technical computing.  Or maybe it's just a self-service environment of sorts.

Don't let the IT crew break it into small pieces, and run it the way they run the rest of IT, simply because that's what they're used to.  Do everything you can to keep the integration and operational model intact.

Lash an incredibly easy-to-consume portal to the front of it, and stand back.  Make sure that workloads that can get you fired don't end up on it.  Avoid all the anxiety-ridden hand-wringing about chargeback, procurement, ROI, etc.

Create a lighthouse project.  Show IT what is possible.  Show the business what is possible.  Don't forget to invest in making sure everyone knows what you're doing, and why you're doing it.  Celebrate success, admit mistakes -- but get on with it. 

And make every effort to avoid using the processes and mindsets that created the challenges associated with your existing legacy.

What May Likely Happen

After a while, people will realize that there are now two ways of doing things -- an old way, and a new way.  There will be fierce debates about the pros and cons of each -- but the alternatives will now be considered, since there's now an obvious proof point that everyone can see and touch.

Some people will inevitably swim towards the lighthouse.  A few at first, more later.  Some won't.  If enough people start to swim, it will accelerate change in a way that no top-down transformational initiative can achieve.

Over time, people will gain confidence in the new way of doing things.  It'll be harder to justify any investment in the old environment.  Almost all investment will go into the new environment.

Above and Below The Line

There seems to be a few thermoclines in most IT organizations. 

In the depths, the view is on individual technology disciplines -- their relative strengths and merits, and how they fit in with what's already being done.  I fully understand that -- I've worked in that world.

In the middle regions, it's all about delivering results -- service levels, costs, and time-to-serve.  There's strong interest in creating an alternative platform for delivering results that can be compared and constrasted to what's already being done.

And at the top -- well, it's all about accelerating change. 

Because that's what leaders are paid to do.