Get innovators out of the IT department, says DWP's CTO

Key staff should be placed where they can advance a core business line

Gardner: Innovators need to be spread across the business

Businesses will struggle to be innovative if all their forward-looking people are stuck in the IT department, said the DWP’s chief technology officer James Gardner in his blog last week.

He argues that these people will be looking to enable better IT through innovation, but that enablement of a support function (IT) will see far less return on investment than the enablement of a core business line which uses IT.

“Sooner or later, investment in the IT department's innovation team will look less attractive than other available opportunities,” he said.

Gardner gives eight other barriers to innovation:

• Where there is no money – companies that do not spend money rarely achieve very much innovation.

• The company boss is a laggard and does not like new things.

• Everything is controlled by the finance director – most interesting things do not pay off in the short term.

• The organisation is laser focused on the core business, meaning innovation would be considered a distraction – “Retreat to the core is a classic strategy of an organisation that is disconnecting itself from change, for whatever reason,” he says.

• The company is riding high on established product and service lines and innovation is not seen as necessary.

• Audit and governance functions are overpowerful – if your organisation is full of security people, audit people and governance people with the power to call the shots, you should consider whether to bother with innovation.

• The organisation needs to have recovered from a near-death experience, meaning there is an entrenched belief among management in the power of change.

• Finally, if your CEO is risk averse – s/he will require so much reassurance as to the value of any "go" decision that time is wasted and will put the team off persuading them.