What Is This Example of Creating an IT Operating Model For Complex Organizations?
This is a complete, real-world example of a CIO-led IT operating model designed to govern decisions and execute consistently at scale. Rather than presenting abstract principles or high-level strategy, it shows how governance, services, infrastructure, security, and performance management can be integrated into a single, coherent operating system for IT leadership. The example demonstrates how IT can be structured to support organizational goals reliably across multiple business units, stakeholders, and constraints.
Why You Should Trust This Example of Creating an IT Operating Model For Complex Organizations
This example is credible because it reflects disciplined leadership applied in a complex, high-stakes environment:
- End-to-end design: Covers governance, delivery, services, metrics, and execution—not isolated initiatives.
- Real operating constraints: Built for a large, distributed organization with competing priorities and limited resources.
- Leadership-authored: Developed and endorsed by senior executive and CIO leadership.
- Execution-tested: Includes defined objectives, performance indicators, and multi-year plans of action.
This is not a conceptual model—it is an operating reality that has been documented in full.
Why This Example of Creating an IT Operating Model For Complex Organizations Matters
CIOs are often asked to execute strategy while simultaneously fixing governance, improving reliability, and proving value. This example matters because it shows how those responsibilities can be addressed together rather than sequentially or reactively.
- Clarifies decision-making: Establishes who decides, how priorities are set, and how trade-offs are made.
- Enables consistent execution: Aligns services, infrastructure, and teams to shared objectives.
- Builds organizational confidence: Creates predictability in delivery and transparency in performance.
For CIOs operating at scale, this example demonstrates how structure—not heroics—enables sustained performance.
What Makes This Example of Creating an IT Operating Model For Complex Organizations Different
This example stands apart from typical IT strategy or transformation documents:
- Operating model, not a roadmap: Focuses on how IT runs day-to-day, not just where it is going.
- Governance as an enabler: Treats governance as a leadership capability, not a compliance exercise.
- Execution-first mindset: Prioritizes delivery reliability and service quality over technology novelty.
- System-wide perspective: Designed to work across diverse units while respecting local needs.
It shows what mature IT leadership looks like when translated into operating discipline.
How to Use This Example of Creating an IT Operating Model For Complex Organizations
This example can be studied and applied in multiple ways depending on a CIO’s immediate needs:
- As a reference model: Compare your current IT structure, governance, and services against a fully articulated operating model.
- As a design guide: Adapt its components when defining or refining your own IT operating model.
- As a leadership tool: Use it to align executive peers and teams around how IT should function.
- As a teaching artifact: Develop senior IT leaders by showing what execution-ready leadership looks like.
It is especially valuable during periods of growth, restructuring, or accountability pressure.
What This Example of Creating an IT Operating Model For Complex Organizations Helps You Deliver
This example helps CIOs and senior IT leaders create:
- A documented IT operating model that defines governance structures, decision rights, and execution mechanisms.
- A governance framework that aligns IT priorities with organizational goals.
- A scalable execution structure that supports consistent delivery across multiple units.
- Clear accountability mechanisms through metrics, plans of action, and performance indicators.
- A shared leadership language for discussing IT value, service quality, and execution maturity.
Each of these outcomes is directly derived from how the operating model is defined and applied in the example.
What You Can Do With This Example of Creating an IT Operating Model For Complex Organizations
By studying and applying this example, CIOs can:
- Design IT organizations that scale without losing control.
- Improve trust and confidence in IT delivery among executives and stakeholders.
- Move from reactive problem-solving to disciplined execution.
- Establish governance that accelerates decisions instead of slowing them down.
- Create an IT leadership foundation that endures leadership and technology change.
This example equips CIOs to lead IT as a durable, enterprise capability—not a collection of projects.
Download this Example of Creating an IT Operating Model For Complex Organizations
Study a complete CIO-led IT operating model for governance and execution at scale—and apply its lessons to your own organization.
BONUS: Learn the leadership lessons behind this IT operating model—how governance was established first, how stakeholders were engaged at scale, and how strategy was translated into measurable plans of action rather than aspirations. This bonus presentation distills the framework, approach, and process that made the model executable, and highlights the practical lessons you can apply to bring it to life in your own organization.
Requires: All Access Pass
