Bimodal IT or as Gartner describes it “the practice of managing two separate but coherent styles of work: one focused on predictability; the other on exploration” has been the buzzword among CIOs for the last three years.
As enterprises around the world struggled to undergo a full-fledged digital transformation, Gartner came up with this solution – Bimodal IT.
Instead of performing a complete transformation, the IT research firm advised CIOs to divide the IT department into two modes – Mode 1 & 2.
What Are Mode 1 And Mode 2?
BiModal IT is also a concept that enables IT organizations to function in two modes. In Mode 1, an IT organization’s sole responsibility would be to develop the traditional IT services. In Mode 2, IT focuses on agility, speed and continuous experimentation to solve latest challenges. While Mode 1 emphasizes more on safety and accuracy, Mode 2 is more about non-linearity and innovation.
Gartner claims that by dividing IT into two different modes, organizations can cherish benefits of both worlds and as a result improve performance and speed of IT over time.
The concept received mixed responses from CIOs. While many CIOs loved & implemented this unique idea, a small chunk of CIOs felt the ideation is extremely flawed.
Is Bimodal It Ideal for Your Business?
Before answering this question let’s understand the common myths and facts around Bimodal IT
The Security Of Mode 2
Although critics complain about security flaws and risks in Mode 2, the truth is that its sheer model was created to explore unknown paths, learn new ways and take calculated risks for product development.
While we don’t deny that Mode 2 doesn’t offer an entirely safe and risk-free journey, the rapid development of advanced security tools in this ecosystem promises a highly secure environment in the near future. This is like creating a failure fund to try multiple short and decisive initiatives to understand what can be a game changer for the company and then go big on the one which succeeds or shows maximum promise.
Agile And Devops Are NOT limited To Mode 2
Agile and Devops – These are the common terms used for when a CIO talks about Mode 2. This is a myth about Bimodal IT. Although these concepts are created especially for Mode 2 (to control & keep up with the continuous flow of deployment issues in an extremely competitive world of mobile apps & social media), they are also applicable to Mode 1.
“Agile can deliver predictability, quality and an ability to neatly handle change to Mode 1 projects ” – Gartner
The Hoo-Ha About Cloud
“Datacenters, warehouses are safe and reliant means to host Mode 1 applications” – This is another common myth among senior level executives about BI modal IT.
Another popular misconception among professionals is that as Mode 2 includes concepts like Devops and Agile, cloud storage is a must.
Truth to be told, a lot of data storage centers cannot match against private cloud servers in terms of security standards. In the same way, if the organization doesn’t have a robust strategy, a small time investment in a cloud provider could lead to adding even more servers in the warehouse.
Interested to know more about the myths around BiModal IT? Follow this link.
As the problems arise due to shadow IT become obvious day-by-day, more and more CIOs and CEOs started realizing the need for a more centralized and official IT structure.
Bimodal IT offers a perfect solution for this problem. With a “slow and accurate” Mode 1 and a “fast and agile” Mode 2, Bimodal IT acts as the initial stepping stone for any organization planning to undergo a digital transformation.
If CIOs continue to work in a traditional IT environment, sooner or later most departments will start to their own digital operations compromising the security of the whole organization.
To answer our main question, yes your business needs Bimodal IT! (Well, if you want to drive agility and digital innovation and most importantly – REMAIN IN THE COMPETITION)
Infact 40% of enterprises have already deployed Bimodal IT.
Now that we have discussed the overview of Bimodal IT, let’s delve into a crucial topic often less talked about…
Chatbots And Mode 2
Before the emergence of Bimodal IT, many senior level executives have experienced disastrous failures with several IT projects and as a result were discouraged and hesitant to undertake major digital innovations for their organizations.
This lack of practice experience in innovative projects resulted in major confusion about Mode 2 amongst the executive circle. Many senior level executives faced challenges in fabricating a solid strategy for Mode 2. Organizations even started recruiting “matchmakers” – officers/analysts who have a clear understanding of the organization’s objectives and can come up with a robust Mode 2 strategy.
Why Chatbots In Mode 2 Strategy
- Short-Term Delivery
Any Mode 2 project, whether it is IT or business or vendor driven, requires a short-term delivery and immediate feedback. The objective of any Mode 2 project is to explore new things, get quick success rate feedback and repeat.
The success of chatbots in your enterprise is easily scalable and you can quickly know whether things are working out or not in the first 30 days.
- Legacy Systems Don’t Need Any Notable Changes
According to Gartner, there won’t be any major changes to legacy systems in an ideal mode 2 project. The firm says that even though there will be an element of risk in any Mode 2 project, a failure should not cause the business to topple over.
Again, chatbots serve as the perfect solution here since their integration won’t demand any changes to legacy systems and their usage/scope in Mode 2 can be controlled or limited as desired.
- Limited Technical Debt
The fast and agile development process of Mode 2 results in a lot of unresolved loopholes and un-refactored loose ends. One thing that is often overlooked and ignored by CIOs in Mode 2 is addressing this technical debt. This debt can be of any form (duplicated code, design & documentation debts etc).
Chatbots offer the least technical debt in any Mode 2 project and even if there are any loose ends in the bot building platform or chatbot, they can be addressed in the minimum amount of time.
- Chatbots Are The Future Of Innovation
80% of businesses want chatbots by 2020 – Oracle
Enterprise Chatbots are here to stay! If there is one thing all the major global enterprises, SMBs, startups are completely obsessed over, it is a chatbot. The recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence have revolutionized the use cases of a chatbot.
Business leaders around the world are constantly examining the different possible ways they could integrate & use chatbots in their organization.
Whether it’s improving employee productivity and communication or providing a 24/7 support to customers or producing a customized report with all the essential data, chatbots are entirely changing the way a company functions.
Learn More: What Potential Do Chatbots Hold For Your Enterprise
All these characteristics make chatbots an extremely desirable and worth-pursuing Mode 2 project for all CIOs. Chatbots not only offer a high degree a of digital innovation but also serve as a minimal-risk mode 2 project. Acuvate is the leading chatbot providers and its bots were recruited by several companies.
