Jude Schramm, CIO at GE Aviation

WHAT WE DO:

“At GE Aviation, we are transforming the IT function from a back-office entity, running projects and delivering cost-saving measures to the company, to becoming a large part of our commercial front-end, digital business. We deliver customer solutions, as well as technologies that advance the way we run our business.” 

How do you scale IT projects for faster delivery?

“Traditional IT organizations ran these slow, long projects, but we are moving to more true agile methods and scaling in two ways. One, we are focused on “team of teams” concepts. Instead of having one group that is our infrastructure, one group that is DBA, one group that is software; we are creating full-stack teams of ten to twelve people who represent every piece of technology and expertise needed, in order to function independently. It has given us a tremendous amount of speed to scale up, versus the silos which have to be brought together and then have to break up. Another way we have added scale and speed is globalization. By creating digital hubs in different cities, including Cincinnati, Austin, Detroit, New Orleans, Bangalore, Budupest and other locations around the world, our full-stack teams can then take advantage of the local knowledge and expertise in those areas. Here in Cincinnati, we have a tremendous amount of web technology and data sciences, and differing disciplines around infrastructure and architecture, so we can connect that work with teams all across the country, and even globally.”