Bimodal IT: A New Buzzword For Old Concepts Presents Teachable Moment

IT analysts are like fashion designers, always searching for something new, even if that means recycling age-old concepts in new terminology. But like successful fashionistas, IT leaders need to stay on top of the latest trends if only to be prepared when the CEO comes back from an industry conference full of questions. One of the latest buzzwords circulating the industry is Bimodal IT: another Gartner creation like Hype Cycle and Magic Quadrant. As Gartner defines it, Bimodal IT is an organizational model that segments services into two categories based on application requirements, maturity and criticality. "Mode 1 is traditional, emphasizing scalability, efficiency, safety and accuracy. Mode 2 is nonsequential, emphasizing agility and speed." Seems logical enough and hardly controversial, but also not new. Yet it offers a lesson in how cloud services and engineering practices can improve enterprise IT.