The New Technology Elite: How Great Companies Optimize Both Technology Consumption and Production

Endgame: “Welcome to the NFL”

Charlie Feld, whom we introduced in Chapter 15, should be long retired. In the past three decades, as CIO at Frito-Lay, then at the firm he founded, The Feld Group, he influenced IT at countless companies. He has since formed the Feld Group Institute, which tells his view of the technology world on its website:

The journey of (technology) innovation and sophistication has been nothing short of breathtaking.

What has not been so spectacular has been the evolution and maturing of a management framework that would enable the efficient application of these rich technologies within large enterprises. Every decade these enterprises have become more dependent on IT but the potential still far exceeds the ability of most organizations, industries and governments to harvest IT.¹

He says, in an interview, IT in most companies has become one-dimensional, and is often just cost or compliance focused. “In the big leagues, you cannot choose to play just defense or just offense. You have to build teams with multiple roles and skills.”

“Welcome to the NFL,” says Feld.

Elite Technology Teams

The National Football League is a good analogy for building elite technology teams. In the NFL, for any given play a team cannot have more than 11 players on the field. A team roster is 53 players, although on game day only 45 can be declared active. There are offensive units, defensive units, and special teams. There are at least 20 different roles including quarterbacks, guards, ...