Solutions through strategy

Adam Burns sits down with Sherrie LittleJohn to learn more about Wells Fargo's new enterprise strategy and architecture department, and how the financial institution is embracing new technologies.

“I think we can mitigate spending wastefully and part of that is back to us being invited to the table and understanding hat the business is really trying to accomplish.”
-Adam Burns

So what does the Enterprise Strategy and Architecture Department do for Wells Fargo?

The Enterprise Architecture Group is actually intended to be a bridge between the business, the technologist and the CIOs to define what their business strategies are, and then to take that business strategy and create an architecture or a business solution that takes into account whatever technologies we want to bring to the table. Not just that, but bring solutions that are pragmatic, timely, cost effective and look to see if there is some opportunity for synergies across other opportunities. So, using something like service oriented architecture as a mindset for how we might solve business problems is a way in which we're doing enterprise architecture these days. It is essentially a strategic planning organization.

What's your background and how did you get into the department?

My career started about 30 years ago, where I worked in the networking side of companies from the laboratories to AT&T to Pacific Bell and back to AT&T. That was my journey, and my career life. I also did software development, architecture, operations, network engineering, the whole nine yards, even application supporting networks in terms of operation support systems.

I came to Wells Fargo about eight years ago and I ran the network for seven years. I have only had this position for the last year. There was a merger and as a result, I wanted to go do something else that was coming to the bank. I grew up with the technology and at networking companies, so it did not matter what facet of it you were in, you were still part of a networking organization; you thought networks. 

As I was in a bank, I wanted to learn how to do other things, and when we had the merger, my organization - which had the network suite to nets architecture, engineering, operations, telecom expense management, the firewalls - when we merged, it made more sense to split those pieces up so we could have an operations department, and infrastructure department where the network engineering and architecture is in one department. 

I decided this was an opportunity for me to go do something else, and when I was asked if I would take on enterprise architecture, because I tend to think more strategically, it seemed like a natural thing to do. When I had the network organization in the Pacific Bell, I actually had architecture which was system architecture, network architecture, application architecture, data architecture. So, I had the mix of what architecture was all about in a previous life and had subsequently created architecture groups throughout my career. So, it was a natural extension, except that now I am looking at it in the context of banking and financial services solutions as opposed to just networking solutions.

What, for you, are your most valuable metrics?

With the Enterprise Architecture Group, what we have done is measured how many architecture assessments we do, how many technology assessments we do and how many vendors we talk to for emerging technologies that we translate into real business solutions.

What I would like to evolve us to is to look at what the impact is we have had on the business in terms of bringing new solutions to them, stopping something that should never have gotten started or redirecting something because we have found a more efficient way to do it. We determined there are three business lines that could actually take advantage of this. 

One of the things that I think is most important in an organization like this where it is more of an investment to assure that you are managing risk is to assure that you are doing the right things and managing costs.

Those are the things that we'd like to be known for. For me, it is really about what is the impact for the business, and, quite honestly, how often is the business calling me to be a part of their strategy discussions, a part of their solutioning around what they want to do for the business? Those would be the measurements that I would look for.

Have you got clear milestones?

I have been in the job one year, and at the end of the year we were given performance reviews and I was told the impact I had had and how often I have been called back. This is what people want me to do now. They have asked me since I have been working on this, now they want me to work on this, and it is a bigger piece. Now they want to invite me to their staff meetings, and they want me to be a part of their team. That is success for me because now we have arrived.

How do you prevent IT being squeezed as a cost centre?

I don't know that we can prevent it. I think we can mitigate spending wastefully and part of that is back to us being invited to the table and understanding what the business is really trying to accomplish. If we have that understanding of what they are trying to accomplish holistically, and not just what Wells Fargo is trying to do, but what you are trying to do in your line of business, given that insight, we can look across and provide them with more solutions that are more pragmatic, which means I do it one time as opposed to ten times. So, I can save the business money that way.

Implementing things like service oriented architecture, I really do believe that provides some value because we start thinking about services, a service that I can put in place to account management. If I can do it one time and actually allow my lending folks to have access to that, my retail channel, my community banking, credit card, if I can have all of them to have access to that service, I have saved you money where I can invest in other ways - invest that in different ways or in better ways or additive ways for us to bring money into the bank and actually make it more of a better experience for our customers.

For such services, should the IT team be more rewarded, recognized, incentivized from a business perspective?

The short answer is yes, but how we get there is not only being invited to the table, but understanding that quite honestly today the way that IT organization is funded is by the business. The business doesn't like the fact that our bill is large, and so the way in which I think we both can help each other is to have the business on board - and I believe we're getting there. 

The business is getting to a point where they realize that technology is not a separate thing. It is not this ill that I have. It is truly an integral part of my solutions and being able to serve the customer best is to really bring those things together. 

And so, to have us to be rewarded as a result of what they are making in their business, as a result of what value I bring to the table, I think, makes perfect sense to me. It actually makes the IT team feel like part of the family, as opposed to 'I'm this bruise that I just have to tolerate'. I think that is just the way we need to move forward.

What would be your most essential advice for building high performing IT teams?

I believe in raw talent. We are always learning so IT is never a boring place to be - there is always something new on the horizon. As such, I am looking for talent that is eager, collaborative, willing to work with others, willing to be respectful and trustworthy of others; talent that is looking to make a difference, wants to understand the business as part of their repertoire of skills, can talk and want to be friendly with people. 

I look for talent that is interested in what they want to do, not because of just the technology for technology's sake, but really understanding how can that technology be used to bring about value to actually help us to make money, reduce costs or serve our customers better.

What is the best way to train staff and adopt a new technology?

In the architecture organization we have a pretty robust architecture development program where we bring interested talent. They may be engineers, they may be junior architects, they may be a programmer that is interested in becoming an architect but we send them through a program after being approved by their managers to come in and put them on a year-long program.

They get hands-on, as well as classroom participation, and then they get to actually go out and be an architect for six months and learn what that process is and take on projects and grow.

The program has been in place for about four years, and this past year half a dozen of those architects who worked with the program have sent us notes saying: 'I really do believe this was the best thing that happened to me.' So, that is one of the things that we have done from an architecture perspective.

In my networking life, I would take raw talent, someone that is right out of college and is eager to learn, and once I get to know what it is that turns them on, buddy them with someone that they can learn from, a senior person that they can shadow and follow around, have small projects that they can do, have them have the opportunity to come talk to me, give me a presentation, critique it, know that I am there to help them, help them learn how to give a presentation to sell their ideas. I believe in strong coaching and mentoring talent, having them take courses, but not just for the sake of taking courses. I believe in just-in-time training more than anything, and also, taking courses that they are interested in and then helping them to find something that will be a part of their job to actually exercise that to see if that is something they are interested in. 

What is communication between the head of the IT department and the business function; what do they expect from you, and what do you expect from them?

As a leader, my staff are expecting me to give them vision. They are expecting me to say 'what are our goals?' 'What are we trying to accomplish? Remove roadblocks so they can get their work done.' Assure they have resources to get their work done. They are looking at me not necessarily to be a cheerleader but to be motivating and engaged with what they are doing. 

What I expect from them - pretty much the same things. I want them to be excited and enthusiastic. As you can tell, I am very passionate about what I do. I want them to bring that passion to the job. I want them to grow. I want them to learn as I do.  I wanted to learn a lot of different things. I want to surround myself not with people who are like me. I want people who are not like me because then we have a richer dialogue. I want people who will challenge me. I don't want people who are 'yes people' around me. 

That is what I look for in folks in building a strong team; folks who are willing to challenge the status quo because the world is always changing and willing to challenge me as their boss, as their leader. I mean, we are not all right, and we don't know everything, and there is too much going on to feel that we do. So, I am looking for that interaction and that dialogue and, in some ways, a little competitive nature to get things done, people who are really results oriented. I like ideas people.  You need those in a group too, and you need all kinds of people in a group, but at the end of the day, we have got to get stuff done, even in enterprise architecture

Biography

Sherrie Littlejohn is the SVP of Enterprise Architecture at Wells Fargo, a company she joined in July 2002. With nearly 30 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, Sherrie has led efforts in voice, data, applications, systems, instrumentation, network and overall IT technology development. Sherrie was Vice President of Information Technology at Yipes Communications, a startup delivering Ethernet Capacity on Demand services.