“I ask leading questions,” he says. “‘Did you think of x, y, and z? What about this?’ This will not only get your team thinking about the right things; it will also get you the answers you need.”
8. Be smart about AI
“It is critical for IT leaders to become more decisive about their company’s AI strategy,” says Dr. Kjell Carlsson, head of AI strategy at Domino Data Lab. Many tech leaders struggle with this because, as Ringdahl explains it, they lack confidence in this area. “They don’t have a background or experience in AI and ML,” says Carlsson.
These decisions, though, according to Carlsson, need to come from IT leaders. “They need to make effective decisions about investments in AI and ML capabilities and which AI use cases to prioritize, for the firm to have any hope of being able to drive meaningful impact with AI.”
As with most decisions, building your foundational knowledge helps here, too.
“The key to success lies in recognizing that AI has plenty of similarities to the waves of data-oriented technologies that have gone before,” he says. “The specifics differ but the key questions that need to be asked and answered to guide these initiatives are largely the same.” How will it be implemented? What resources are needed? What are the risks? How will it be governed?
“Only the senior executive can ensure these questions get answered,” he says. “It is incumbent on them to validate that these answers hold water.”
