As we move to micro SaaS apps and best tools for the job, the shadow IT grows, being a source of innovation and prototyping for future IT solutions.
However the new tools need to be considered in the context of customer data protection, security and impact to the processes.
Record apps costs and revisit usage to avoid paying for tools you stopped using.
What you spend your time on as the CTO is what your priority is. Record over a week or two what you spend your time on to find out what is import to you.
Reverse roles so that others agrue your case while you find evidence to support their view. This tactic might help avoid confirmation bias.
Test and learn. Fast. Encourage open discussion. Give your team time and space to express their ideas. Follow with fast test and learn cycle.
You plan. Design. Code v0.1. Re-plan. Code, code, code. Test. Demo. Test, test. Fix. Test. You go live.
Status quo feels safe. Today feels like yesterday. Auto-pilot is on. Change is hard. Because by changing we are risking status quo in order to gain. The pain of loss is much greater than the allure of gain. We do not feel so bad about losing out on big gains but we desperately try to avoid even small losses.
The differences in how we value risk help to explain why the derivatives, futures markets and junk bonds are worth trillions. Smart investors will buy risk from people at a discount.
Most underrated quality in hiring has to be conscientiousness.
Makes sense to go for “two-speed IT”, in which you separate fast-moving and more innovative IT (data-crunching, say) from more basic services (payroll processing, for instance).
Use Audacity to record WAV files for your IVR.
Small sample sizes reduce precision of estimation. Try to acquire more data but avoid simply adding “more of the same” as obtaining lots of small samples from the same population will not help. Applied more broadly: seek different opinions to avoid confirmation bias.