What is IT Unbounded? The New Tech Frontier

s organizations adapt their business models to explore fresh ways of delivering technological advancements, traditional IT development and operations are also engaging in transformative change.

What is IT Unbounded?

‘IT unbounded’ describes a radical approach that’s dismantling old IT operating and delivery models and reconstructing new ones. Where IT once existed solely to respond to the downward pressure of business needs via systems and infrastructure development, forward-thinking organizations are now taking a different view. By making new connections across departmental boundaries, businesses are assembling multifunctional teams to help proactively drive value, rather than providing passive solutions.

It’s a fundamental shift in methodology that demands a similarly drastic re-imagining of existing organizational paradigms. Technology increasingly informs business strategy – disrupters like Airbnb and Uber exist as a direct result of advancements in technology. But, in order to be at their disruptive best, IT processes and systems need to be at the core of the organization. Only a multi-faceted approach can result in services becoming ‘unbounded’, with the power to transform.

The Relationship Between Development and IT Unbounded

It’s fair to say that the role of IT has already changed significantly over the last few years, shifting from what has long been seen as a supporting role to one with a focus on innovating to enable business strategy. Obviously, as the pace of innovation accelerates, so IT is starting to adopt a center-front position that is capable – in many cases – of shaping strategy.

The ultimate goal for any organization interested in leveraging IT strengths outside the traditional boundaries would be to build a model that enables transformation through collaboration, both within the enterprise and outside. Once IT is unbounded – unrestricted by conventional operational policies – it can become a conduit for real change. By eliminating constraints, new opportunities can be grasped and explored.

Greater improvements can be made by tasking agile cross-departmental teams with the creation and deployment of end-to-end solutions and replacing inefficient silos. DevOps collaborations are already streamlining the development and delivery process, enabling swifter cycles with automated testing and built-in feedback mechanisms.

How IT Unbounded Can Benefit the Future

The advent of new technologies – such as cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings – has already started to break down, or loosen the ties of, the traditional IT contract model, while automation has also begun to affect the scope of IT activities, speeding up workflows and helping staff to handle more complex projects.

By eroding the functional silos that group workers into arbitrary departments and instead assigning them to projects, individuals are able to focus not on micro-objectives, but on achieving desired outcomes. Once a team owns the entire vision, it can gather momentum as it progresses, without having to slow for a series of self-imposed phases that owe more to routine than to necessity.

With boundaries between IT business functions all but erased and collaboration hardwired into development and delivery, companies can experience real transformation. As friction and conflict are replaced by partnership, projects can become more agile. It’s not about reinventing the wheel, more about growing an environment in which fresh ideas are encouraged and incubated - and different ways of working explored.