Secrets of successful digital innovation

What is the secret to great innovation? Most successful organizations have arrived at a simple formula: start with a business person with the “right” business problem, partner that person with an IT enabler who understands both the business and innovative technologies, add a goal-minded expert technologist, and, finally, incentivize their collective imaginations to invent new…

The state of the CIO job market

With COVID impacting our professional lives in so many ways, I find that my team and I are fielding quite a few questions about how the CIO job market and interview process have changed since March. So, in an act of shameless solipsism, I offer you a Q&A with myself. What is the current state…

Microsoft Data Analyst Associate certification guide

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced it would retire 15 certifications and 44 exams, including MCSA: BI Reporting, which validated data analysts’ expertise using Power BI and Excel to visualize data via dashboards and reports. The move is the culmination of the company’s 2018 decision to focus on role-based certifications such as data analyst, data engineer,…

7 ways to effectively ensure IT-business alignment

In an ideal universe, the IT and business worlds would be perfectly aligned, with IT supplying business leaders with the strategic plans and resources necessary to achieve maximum performance, efficiency and profits. Yet, as you may have noticed, seeking perfection can be a somewhat elusive quest. In the real world, IT leaders are often left…

5 hot IT career trends — and 5 going cold

There’s a major IT skills gap in the country and it’s only expected to widen. According to the World Economic Forum, closing the global skills gap could add $11.5 trillion to the global GDP by 2028. Organizations are looking for ways to bridge the gap, but if anything, the global pandemic has worsened the problem,…

Agile vs. waterfall: Project methodologies compared

Choosing the right project management methodology for the job is the first step in project success. But knowing which methodology best fits your organization and the project at hand can be challenging — especially with so many project management methodologies to choose from. Two of the most commonly used methodologies are agile and waterfall. Which…

15 IT management certifications for IT leaders

IT managers are often responsible not just for overseeing the IT infrastructure in an organization but overseeing IT teams as well. To succeed as an IT manager, you will need to understand the fundamentals of security, data storage, hardware, software, networking and IT management frameworks — and how they all work within the business. Plus,…