Traditionally, IT has always been focused on the needs of the business by analyzing requirements and "checking off the boxes" around capabilities. Organizations specified the devices used, the apps that could be accessed (if any) and how and where they can be used. Employees were then forced to work within these confines and had little to no say for how work got done and what technologies were used to get work done. Today IT is going through a transformation and is evolving into something called "user-centric IT," which is a concept that I'm sure many of you have heard of or have read about. Unfortunately there isn't much clarity around this topic so I put together an infographic which I think does a good job of showing the evolution from traditional IT to user-centric IT. Organizations are now looking at ways to focus on the individual employees by allowing them to use the technologies they want, need and are familiar with based on the technologies they use in the personal lives. User-centric IT will truly allow employees to work anytime, anywhere and on any device. All of this is part of a broader theme I like to call "customizing work."
To learn more you can visit usercentricit.com, which features some vignettes, a user-centric IT test and some other great educational content. You will see several of these concepts included in the infographic below. I also want to give special thanks to Ralph Loura, a CIO at HP that provided some feedback for this visual.
