In talking to CIOs and CTOs, I often get the question “What do you think about the concept of bimodal or two-speed IT?” According to Gartner, by 2017, 75% of IT organizations will have a bimodal capability.  The concept of bimodal IT is that IT has two parallel delivery approaches – rapid development for digital innovation and a slower lane for more standard, legacy delivery approaches.

Although I understand and appreciate the value of getting IT to think about doing things differently, such as using DevOps, Agile Scrum, Peer Programming and Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), I have a few fundamental issues with the concept of bimodal IT.

 First, I would much rather have IT teams think about “MultiModal IT.”  When I think about bimodal IT, I can’t help but think about going to purchase a car and having the dealer tell me, “Hey, this car is awesome is has two-speeds – slow and fast!.” Of course, two speeds alone are not enough for a car and are not enough for an IT team. An IT team needs variable-speed – the ability to select an appropriate delivery approach for each project. Some examples:

•       IT needs to quickly prototype a possible solution — the delivery approach needs to be raw and quick
•       IT needs to respond to a security breach — the delivery approach needs to be rapid and precise
•       IT needs to build an app that has an expected life of multiple years — the delivery approach needs to support extensibility and supportability

My second issue with bimodal IT is the implication that simply changing an IT organization’s delivery model will solve some of the more fundamental problems that many IT organizations have. Being faster at delivering poor, legacy architectures is not a good approach. IT must look at their end-to-end operating model to truly accelerate quality delivery. This includes speeding up their project selection process, their design and architecture process, their delivery process and their support process. Process alone isn’t even enough. Changing the mentality of the IT team requires communication, a reward system and strong leadership.

 My third issue is that everyone in IT needs to be focusing on speed and agility – not just one team. To imply that one team is ok to be slow is not a perception that you want to create in IT. In the worst situation, it gives the IT folks who don’t necessarily want to change and adapt a place to hide. Everyone in IT can help accelerate IT’s end-to-end process. In addition, if you put your top talent in the “slow” team, they are more likely to leave.

 The best way to get a faster, agile IT organization is through transforming the end-to-end IT process and culture. This can be done through communications, rewards, process and leadership. Focus on multimodal IT, not bimodal IT.