Review of Book: Transforming IT Culture by Frank Wander

Transforming It Culture: How to Use Social Intelligence, Human Factors and Collaboration to Create an IT Department That Outperforms 
By Frank Wander, 2013
My Rating 5/5

Very interesting book on how to transform culture in business IT organizations (business and IT are conjoined in most industries) for post-industrial era. In lot of organizations, industrial era processes and mindset still permeates at all levels of leadership. 

The books starts with an accurate picture of dismally unproductive IT organizations in many companies; talks about why industrial era based processes are part of an important foundation for an organization but are not enough for productive teams;  and how anti-social/toxic behaviors hurt productivity of teams.  

Frank then make case for why human factors (trust, empathy, compassion, transparency, openness, humor, sharing, transparency, unselfishness, caring and mutual respect) are important in information era; provides a long list of practical pro-social behaviors that exhibit these human factors; introduces concept of servant leader by comparing teams to orchestras and leader as conductor; importance of emotional and social intelligence in teams and more importantly in leaders and rules for energizing teams; and points out interconnected and socially cohesive teams are creative and innovation happens when teams try and learn from failures.

Finally, Frank delves into workforce planning, outsourcing, off-shoring, stresses the importance of collaborative relationship between business and IT and presents best practices for IT.

Some of the gems from the book:

• View teams are collaborative social systems
• Comparing team to an orchestra of creative performers brings forth the main ideas of the book very elegantly - very realistic and best analogy in my view
• Full of practical advise and observations from IT point of view - makes you happy to see what you have felt all along and at the same time you will acknowledge that can only come from a seasoned practitioner
• Comprehensive lists of anti-social behaviors and pro-social behaviors - one should definitely review the list of anti-social behaviors!
• Pertinent quotes that are embedded throughout the text are a joy
• Useful references and notes at the end of every chapter

A thoroughly researched book with a practical bent and ideas presented in this book are relevant at all levels of an organization (individual team members, team leaders, managers, all the way up to CIO). Many IT organizations do not like talking about human factors or building socially cohesive teams but wonder why teams are not productive, members are not happy and why projects fail or delivered late. We always hear about "people first" but we also need to make sure that "best people are connected and working together in most productive way!". 

Though the book doesn't talk specifically mention it, I personally feel that collaborative business and IT that operate in a socially cohesive manner is a must for success of agile methodologies or lean practices. (See my blog posts)

Overall, it is worth reading and I am certain that it will change one's perspective after reading the book! All good techies need some social skills!