This post was first published in my “Developing IT Leaders” column on CIO.com.  Many IT practitioners of all organizational levels have longstanding opinions on the value of personal involvement in professional associations.  They vary widely from considering it the most important factor in their professional success to being a total waste of time.  I know senior IT leaders who strongly suggest their staff become involved in industry-related activities, and others who strongly discourage membership or attendance at professional association meetings, user conferences, and other collections of IT executives or practitioners. It’s been my experience, both personally and through the observation of others, that the value you receive from professional associations is directly correlated to your level of personal participation and involvement.  Participation is showing up at meetings, listening to the speakers, and networking with others as the meeting schedule/agenda allows.  Involvement is joining the local chapter’s board of directors, helping plan an event, or otherwise contributing to the association. The value of professional associations is not from simply going to an event now and again based on the speaker’s topic or having nothing better to do that evening.  The value comes from attending meetings month-in and month-out, regardless of the topic or meeting format. Ongoing participation in the IT association of your choice helps you: Stay current on IT trends and technologies by talking with meeting sponsors and vendors. Widen your perspective on the IT profession by listening to the speakers and engaging in conversations with other association members. Gain insights into [...]

This post was first published in my “Developing IT Leaders” column on CIO.com. It’s a mistake for IT leaders to believe that managing a hybrid team is like managing the full work-from-home teams of 2020 or the on-shore/offshore teams of the previous decades. Today’s emerging hybrid environment is different, more complex, and fraught with organizational risk. IT’s traditional organizational structure, culture, and processes for managing virtual resources around the block, around the country, and around the world, evolved over decades of organizational growth, technological enhancement, and business opportunities.  The sudden and unexpected work-from-home environment caused by COVID-19 was driven by legal requirements, health concerns, and organizational preservation. Today’s hybrid workplace is different. It’s not evolutionary.  It’s not forced upon us by legal  or health requirements.  It’s being driven strictly and only by management decision.  Even worse, everyone has their own opinion on how it should be done, including senior organizational leadership, IT management, and the IT employees themselves. Because of all these factors, pivoting from work-from-home to a hybrid workplace is much more complex than simply bringing people back to the office; it’s a rapid change in organizational culture, processes, human resource policies, and other related areas. As a result, you must properly prepare your IT supervisors, managers, and executives to lead in this newly created workplace by following these ten steps: 1. Seek the input of all IT leaders and individual contributors on their future workplace Asking the entire IT team about their thoughts on a future all-in-office, all-virtual, or hybrid [...]