Gartner IT Symposium 2024: 5 takeaways shaping the future of IT service delivery
In early November, “CIOs and IT executives convene[d] on the future of technology and business,” as the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo™ landing page described.
The event, hosted in Barcelona, Spain, in early November 2024, delivered on its promise to “bring together actionable insight, new technologies, and lasting connections to help … navigate disruption, tackle AI, and lead your organization.”
Check. Check. And check.
Xurrent attended and hosted a booth on the expo floor, all while soaking up as much information as possible. We learned from Gartner, global IT leadership, and other vendors. Throughout the entire week, we heard several repeated themes.
- While AI dominates the conversation, it does not necessarily meet high expectations.
- IT leaders will not exchange complexity for capability; they demand simple … with achievable use cases.
- In an age of ever-increasing competition, financial constraints, and employee burnout, everyone is looking for productivity gains.
Considering these three themes, this article will explore my top 5 takeaways from the conference.
The CIO’s (new) job: customize their “tech sandwich”
For decades, software companies have implemented tech stacks to achieve a level of standardization and familiarity to support the business in achieving its goals.
In the age of AI, the “tech stack” is out, and the “tech sandwich,” a framework of interchangeable components, is in. The outdated world of “tech stacks” includes “stacks of tech” like LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), MEAN (MongoDB, Express.js, Angular, Node.js), and JAM (JavaScript, APIs, Markup).
As Hung LeHong, Distinguished VP Analyst and Gartner Fellow, shared in October 2024, “On the bottom of the sandwich is all the data and AI from IT, typically centralized. On the top is all the data and AI coming from everywhere, typically decentralized. And the middle contains the trust, risk, and security management (TRiSM) technologies that make it all safe. It’s what you need to create to accommodate AI and data coming from everywhere.”
Mary Mesaglio, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, continued, “As CIO, your job is to design a tech sandwich that can handle the messiness of AI, but still keeps you open to new opportunities. AI-steady organizations (ten AI initiatives or fewer) will govern their tech sandwiches using human teams and committees. AI-accelerated organizations will add TRiSM technologies – a set of technologies designed to create trust, monitor risk and manage security for safe AI at scale.”
While LAMP, MEAN, and JAM (among others) are still useful, we must adjust to a new mindset — from stack to sandwich.
The concept is sound whether or not you’re on board with the name. The AI Technology Sandwich “helps CIOs (and AI leaders) take a step back and reimagine the bigger picture of how their technology stacks, data approaches and governance structure will need to effectively — and safely — adapt to these various AI sources”.
AI needs to be viewed through an “outcomes” lens
47% of CIOs say AI is not meeting ROI expectations — an eye-opening stat Gartner shared during the opening keynote.
Are expectations simply too high, or is there a deeper issue?
Gartner believes companies are in an “AI outcomes race” — the pace at which companies adopt AI (steady or accelerated) is determined by the desired outcomes.
- “Steady” = organizations only seeking productivity gains.
- “Accelerated” = organizations intent on moving beyond productivity gains into process improvement and business innovation.
It’s essential to define the desired business outcomes before investing in AI.
This brings us to the third takeaway.
A clear vision of what you want to achieve is essential
“I’ll be back.”
Day 2 featured an interview-style session with, you guessed it, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold is a genuinely funny guy who is also extremely bright.
He shared a story of his transition from bodybuilder to a leading actor (to eventual Governor of California). Arnold had a clear vision from his early teens, one that guided all of his actions: Become Mr Universe. In 1967, at age 20, Schwarzenegger became the youngest ever to win the competition. He’d go on to win the title three more times. Mission accomplished (and then some). Next up: transition from bodybuilding to a lead actor in feature films. He went on to appear in over 40 movies and has also done some directing and producing. Again, this vision guided Arnold and kept him strong when everyone told him it was impossible.
Arnold achieved his lofty goals — in part — because of his clear vision of his desired outcome.
What a great overall business and life lesson!
More is not always better. See: the “Inverted U Curve”
When you get to spend time at a booth on a trade show floor, you hear some interesting things.
This Gartner show was no exception.
Many who approached our booth shared how they were tired of dealing with the complexity of their existing ITSM solution.
>> They didn’t use most of the features
>> They felt as though they overpaid
>> They were bogged down with the complexity, preventing their team from getting the most use out of the platform.
In short, they were sold a solution that did “more” (great) yet didn’t help them accomplish all of their goals (not good), but never got to realize the potential benefits.
In today’s world of modern technology, the expectation has shifted from “more” to “more AND easier.” IT leaders are looking for solutions that provide advanced capabilities, can support their varied use cases, and are also accessible for their staff and/or customers to use. All of this is absolutely possible today, and IT teams deserve solutions that can deliver on all of these aspects.
Malcolm Gladwell further reinforced this concept during his Day 3keynote. He introduced the idea of an inverted U curve, as shown below.
The Inverted U Curve depicts a sweet spot for the number of resources available compared to the resulting productivity level. It’s the visual description of “just right.” In software, too many features can overly complicate a solution, making it more challenging, therefore reducing the users’ productivity.
CIOs are now in charge of culture via the software they bring into the organization
80% of global employees are at risk of burnout.
That shocking statistic was shared by Rahaf Harfoush, an author and digital innovation strategist known for her work on the intersection of technology, society, and personal development, during her keynote.
The symptoms of burnout, Rahaf shared, manifest in the following ways:
- Physical exhaustion
- Negative and cynical interactions
- Reduced personal efficacy (no initiative)
Not surprisingly, IT workers experience a higher burnout rate than other professions. Rahaf suggested 4 “reframes” to consider to help avoid burnout.
- Schedule some uninterrupted time to focus
- Recovery time is critical
- Culture needs to be intentionally designed with technology
- Technology will help and harm simultaneously (and that is okay)
The idea that technology influences the culture of a company is exciting and is staring us right in the face.
Popular communication tools allow constant interruptions throughout the work day, during off hours, and even while we’re supposed to be on vacation. (In fact, I’d be willing to bet you have checked your phone at least once since you started reading this).
Her main point: CIOs now directly influence corporate culture via the tooling they allow into their companies. When you bring in a new tool, you also bring that vendor’s belief systems.
Bringing it all together: Learning in order to grow
Gartner delivered.
Our team left Spain with actionable insights, new technologies, and lasting connections — all of which will help us to navigate disruption, tackle AI, and lead our organization.
As we learn and grow, we bring that new knowledge back to Xurrent and consider how it impacts ITSM and ITOM. That information then gets transformed into the Xurrent platform — which helps our customers … help their end users.
We are in this together.
Now it’s your turn to learn. Talk with an expert now.
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