Laurianne McLaughlin
- Director, Organic Activation, Appian Corporation
Boston
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Articles by Laurianne McLaughlin
Agentic AI: Nine Essential Questions
How does agentic AI work? What can it do for your organization? What security issues should be on your radar screen? Catch up on key information from MIT SMR experts. Topics Subscribe Share In January, MIT SMR columnists Thomas H. Davenport and Randy Bean predicted that agentic AI would be “a sure bet for 2025’s ‘most trending AI trend.’ ” They called that one correctly.
Agentic AI: Nine Essential Questions - Tribune Content Agency
Laurianne McLaughlin is senior editor, digital, at MIT Sloan Management Review. In January, MIT SMR columnists Thomas H. Davenport and Randy Bean predicted that agentic AI would be “a sure bet for 2025’s ‘most trending AI trend.’ ” They called that one correctly.
10 Essential Reads on Innovation - Tribune Content Agency
Laurianne McLaughlin is senior editor, digital, at MIT Sloan Management Review. Artificial intelligence is making CEOs who have always thirsted for innovation even thirstier. Using AI tools, teams can rewrite some old rules about speed and cost to increase their productivity and shorten time to market. Just as enticingly, teams can innovate quickly to respond to customer desires, improving customer satisfaction and retention. Thinking even bigger, teams can open up entirely new lines of revenue.
10 Urgent AI Takeaways for Leaders - Tribune Content Agency
Laurianne McLaughlin is senior editor, digital, at MIT Sloan Management Review. “Despite two years of broad managerial attention and extensive experimentation, we are not seeing the large-scale GenAI-powered business transformations that many people initially envisioned.” Does this statement by MIT SMR authors Melissa Webster and George Westerman reflect your experience? No wonder.
How to Build an Ethical AI Culture - Tribune Content Agency
How to Build an Ethical AI Culture MIT Sloan Management Review & Report March 27, 2025 By Thomas H. Davenport and Laurianne McLaughlin Thomas H. Davenport is a Distinguished Professor at Babson College, a visiting professor at the UVA Darden School of Business, a fellow of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and a senior adviser to Deloitte’s Chief Data and Analytics Officer program. Laurianne McLaughlin is senior editor, digital, at MIT Sloan Management Review. She moderated the session.
Bring Your Own AI: Balance Rewards and Risks - Tribune Content Agency
Bring Your Own AI: Balance Rewards and Risks MIT Sloan Management Review & Report February 27, 2025 By Barbara H. Wixom, Nick van der Meulen, and Laurianne McLaughlin Barbara H. Wixom is a principal research scientist at the MIT Center for Information Systems Research (CISR). Nick van der Meulen is a research scientist at CISR. Laurianne McLaughlin is senior editor, digital, at MIT Sloan Management Review. She moderated the session.
10 Essential Leadership Tips for 2025 - Tribune Content Agency
MIT Sloan (AUTHOR’S BIO) Laurianne McLaughlin is senior editor, digital, at MIT Sloan Management Review. If you want to be a successful leader in 2025, you might want to put the two C’s at the top of your list: communication and culture. Indeed, looking back at MIT SMR’s most popular articles in recent months, it’s striking how many of them focus on communication and culture.
The Top 10 MIT SMR Articles of 2024 - Tribune Content Agency
Laurianne McLaughlin is senior editor, digital, at MIT Sloan Management Review. In 2023, generative AI became the topic every leader wanted to learn more about. In 2024, many leaders and organizations moved beyond the tactical AI questions to the strategic ones — such as where to reap the most business value while minimizing risk. For example, how can AI help your organization improve key performance indicators? Our No. 3 story offers in-depth, research-based answers.
The Six Most Popular Stories of 2024 — So Far - Tribune Content Agency
Laurianne McLaughlin is senior editor, digital, at MIT Sloan Management Review. When I interviewed Phillip G. Clampitt in early 2024 about how leaders could better handle employee pushback, I sensed that he had much more wisdom to offer on the topic. One particular pain point we discussed: Leaders often encounter pushback in the form of informal meetings that happen just after formal meetings. It’s akin to sports fans recapping — and critiquing — what a coach did during a game.
How Grassroots Automation Speeds Digital Success - Tribune Content Agency
How Grassroots Automation Speeds Digital Success MIT Sloan Management Review & Report April 18, 2024 By Thomas H. Davenport, Ian Barkin, and Laurianne McLaughlin Thomas H. Davenport is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, a fellow of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and a senior adviser to Deloitte.
Eight Essential Leadership Tips for 2024
Eight Essential Leadership Tips for 2024 Jump-start the new year with leadership strategies from MIT SMR experts. Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images As leaders consider which skills to focus on developing in 2024, change management and emotional intelligence might top the list. Even as leaders are called on to craft strategy around the use of artificial intelligence, the harder problems involve steering teams through all of the changes AI continues to bring.
MIT SMR’s 10 AI Must-Reads for 2023 | Flipboard
Six ways to look after your eyes in 2024 The World Health Organization estimates that over 80% of all vision impairment around the world can be prevented and even cured. Reducing the risk of …
MIT SMR’s 10 AI Must-Reads for 2023
MIT SMR’s 10 AI Must-Reads for 2023 These 10 popular articles on artificial intelligence deliver expert advice on generative AI, responsible AI strategy, KPIs, and related challenges. No topic dominated the business world in 2023 like artificial intelligence. And no AI product has ever scaled like OpenAI’s ChatGPT: After its November 2022 release, ChapGPT attracted an estimated 100 million monthly users inside of two months.
The Top 10 MIT SMR Articles of 2023 Original
The Top 10 MIT SMR Articles of 2023 Check out 2023’s most-read articles for insights on your toughest leadership challenges. ChatGPT debuted in November 2022 — and became the topic that no leader could ignore in 2023. What can generative AI tools like ChatGPT do and what can’t they do?
Balancing Change and Continuity During a Transformation - Tribune Content Agency
Balancing Change and Continuity During a Transformation MIT Sloan Management Review & Report November 16, 2023 By Carsten Lund Pedersen and Laurianne McLaughlin. Carsten Lund Pedersen is an associate professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Laurianne McLaughlin is senior editor, digital, at MIT Sloan Management Review. She moderated the session. Related Reading C.L. Pedersen, “,” MIT Sloan Management Review, April 6, 2022.
Upgrading Culture for Growth and Transformation - Tribune Content Agency
MIT Sloan (AUTHOR’S BIO) Per Hugander is a strategic adviser and professor of practice at Hult International Business School. His work on decision-making, problem-solving, and culture has been published in Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, and Knowledge at Wharton. Per shares his thoughts and ideas on his blog leadershipbackbone.com. Laurianne McLaughlin is senior editor, digital, at MIT Sloan Management Review. She moderated the session. Related Reading P.
Thorny Talent and AI Challenges Now: 5 Experts Speak
Topics Subscribe Share If you ask leaders about their toughest leadership challenges right now, you’ll hear wide-ranging concerns about both talent management and artificial intelligence. Seeking fresh insights and advice for leaders on both topics, we spoke with MIT Sloan Management Review authors at the most recent Academy of Management (AOM) event in Boston.
Thorny Talent and AI Challenges Now: 5 Experts Speak - Tribune Content Agency (September 27, 2023)
MIT Sloan (AUTHOR’S BIO) Laurianne McLaughlin is senior editor, digital, at MIT Sloan Management Review. If you ask leaders about their toughest leadership challenges right now, you’ll hear wide-ranging concerns about both talent management and artificial intelligence. Seeking fresh insights and advice for leaders on both topics, we spoke with MIT Sloan Management Review authors at the most recent Academy of Management (AOM) event in Boston.
Managed services vs. hosted services vs. cloud services: What's the difference?
Remember when IT leaders and tech pundits endlessly debated the meaning of the word “cloud”? The good news is we left that debate behind in the 2010s. The bad news is that the modern world of “cloud services” still has some linguistic growing up to do: As a result, IT leaders will have to explain an array of related terms to their bosses, colleagues, customers, and partners. We’re talking about managed services vs. hosted services vs. cloud services. What’s the difference?
Our top 10 articles of 2021 for IT leaders
IT leaders learn new tech terms every year, but in 2021, they learned a new management term: Hybrid work. This way of working combines office and remote work. As Jordan Peace wrote in one of our top 10 articles of 2021, “Hybrid work presents some unique challenges for employers: How do you run a meeting when half the team is clustered in a conference room while the others are on Zoom?
5 automation and RPA must-reads
When you say "automation," some IT people picture job-stealing robots. IT leaders will need to know how to allay that worry in the months and years to come. But here's a piece of good news: Some forward-looking IT leaders are finding automation actually has talent retention benefits, as David Egts, chief technologist, North America Public Sector, Red Hat, recently wrote.
The Enterprisers Project's 8th anniversary: What's next for CIO role?
At the Enterprisers Project, we have a clear mission: Help CIOs and IT leaders solve problems. That means not only the technology challenges but also the leadership and career varieties. Our IT leadership community succeeds largely because of all your generosity – in sharing real-world lessons learned with your peers. And what unparalleled lessons they were in 2021. IT leaders and teams have proved their mettle in driving transformation at previously unthinkable speeds.
How to explain supply chain management in plain English
Among the lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic: More people grasp the importance – and fragility – of global supply chains. Flashback to spring 2020: As shutdowns and border closures became widespread, the internet was suddenly flush with supply chain experts explaining the lack of toilet paper on store shelves.
Our top 10 articles of 2020 for IT leaders
2020 taught us some phrases you may hope to never see again. I nominate the word “unprecedented.” Even the old tech standby “disruption” took on a stark new tone amid the pandemic. However, 2020 also taught us how to be more mindful. More focused on managing our priorities. And certainly, more flexible. You can see this reality in the articles that our community of IT leaders found the most valuable this year.
Top 10 Kubernetes articles of 2020
Why has Kubernetes become the default for organizations working with containerized applications?
First tests find 1.7-GHz Celeron an iffy chip
In its latest move to woo budget PC buyers, Intel Corp. has ratcheted up the clock speed of its Celeron processor from 1.3 GHz to 1.7 GHz and pumped up the frontside bus speed from 100 MHz to 400 MHz. But based on PC World's exclusive tests of a PC using the new Celeron, you should avoid it: This chip is all bark and no bite. The new Celeron uses the same core as older Pentium 4 chips.
How to get a job during COVID-19: 9 smart tips
Hunting for a job during the COVID-19 pandemic may feel like your own special version of "Groundhog Day:" Check in with your contacts, send cover letters, scour LinkedIn…Go to sleep. Wake up. Repeat. (And no, Bill Murray does not show up at any point here.) On the bright side, IT professionals have some reason for optimism compared to some other lines of work.
The state of Kubernetes: 6 facts you might not know
Kubernetes celebrates its sixth birthday on June 7: One of the fastest-growing open source projects ever, it’s driving significant change in enterprise IT, helping developers manage containers at scale. Moreover, it helps them develop applications faster and manage resources in automated ways. That’s important not only in DevOps and agile environments, but also in any enterprise IT environment pushing for faster software development and more experimentation.
Our top 10 articles of 2019 for IT leaders
How did 2019 treat you and your IT team? Did you improve your cloud strategy, perhaps with the help of containers and Kubernetes? Did you dip your toes into the water with robotic process automation (RPA), to free up IT people from rote tasks? RPA really took off in popularity on our site in 2019, so we suspect the answer is yes for many of you. In 2020, we’ll help you refine your RPA strategy.
CIO role: Everything you need to know about today’s Chief Information Officers
What is a CIO? What is the role of a CIO? What are key leadership skills for CIOs? What is the difference between a CTO and a CIO? What does a CIO do? What does a CIO earn? CIO Salary How do you become a CIO? CIO career path Chief transformation officers vs. CIOs Chief digital officers vs. CIOs How many CIOs are women? What is the future of the CIO role?
DevOps Hiring: The Ultimate Guide
The rush is on to build DevOps teams, in industries ranging from banking to manufacturing. Why? As Red Hat’s Senior VP, engineering, Matt Hicks noted in an Enterprisers Project article earlier this year, “More companies are trying agile and DevOps for a clear reason: Businesses want more speed and more experiments – which lead to innovations and competitive advantage. DevOps helps you gain that speed.” Not all IT leaders like the term DevOps: Some prefer to just call it the agile way of working.
GDPR: 6 must-reads for leaders
After months of discussion – and a last-minute flood of privacy policy emails to consumers – the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect May 25. This regulatory change, which seeks to protect consumers’ personally identifiable information, is probably the biggest privacy change you’ve seen during your career.
GDPR: Biggest pain points, now and later
The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulatory change so expansive that many of you are struggling to get your head around it. The privacy-minded GDPR aims to protect consumers’ personally identifiable information – and as such, it touches myriad aspects of how companies collect and store data, as well as how they share data with partners, subcontractors, and even cloud providers.
IT automation: How to make the case
At the start of any significant project or change initiative, IT leaders face a proverbial fork in the road. Path #1 might seem to offer the shortest route from A to B: Simply force-feed the project to everyone by executive mandate, essentially saying, “You’re going to do this – or else.” Path #2 might appear less direct, because on this journey you take the time to explain the strategy and the reasons behind it.
3 realities of driving revenue: GE, Dunkin Brands, Liberty Mutual CIOs speak
In the often fuzzy realm of digital transformation, CEOs have made one fact clear to CIOs: You’re now responsible for helping us find new ways to make money. Recent Harvey Nash research found 64 percent of CIOs say their CEO wants IT to focus on making money, not saving it. But bringing a revenue-generation focus to your IT organization creates big changes – to culture, structure, hiring, and other areas.
PrimeLending CIO: How to move from project to product mindset
At PrimeLending, our IT group had traditionally been focused on projects: We ranked and assigned resources to them as staff became available, which meant that project managers and QA managers, for example, would regularly rotate in and out. There were no dedicated teams for a product. As we moved into the digital mortgage space, we decided to make the leap from a project-based team to a product team, to support a new initiative called Apply Now, a digital mortgage tool.
15 predictions for tech in 2018 - and beyond
2018 is mere days away. Are you ready? What opportunities are you most excited to capture as technology continues to reshape our businesses and our lives? Whatever you may be focused on, the year ahead holds a lot of promise for IT leaders and their teams. We asked business and IT leaders to send us their predictions for the new year. Read on for advice and a few reasons to look forward to 2018.
Top 10 articles of 2017: The Enterprisers Project
As the new year approaches, what are your new goals as an IT leader? IT leaders have a broad mandate from the business right now – and a broad set of challenges – as evidenced by our 10 most-read articles for 2017. You’re still wrestling with leading digital transformation (much as that broadly used term turns some of you off.) You’re working hard on personal skills such as storytelling. You’re trying to improve how your DevOps and agile teams work.
5 ways to nurture culture change in IT
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been talking about moving to the cloud for several years. Multiple operating units across the department have launched individual initiatives, resulting in important progress but also in somewhat disconnected and redundant efforts. Each initiative must separately confront issues around strategy, procurement, security, network architecture, toolsets, and many other things.
5 Kubernetes must-reads: Tips and trends
Kubernetes is having a moment – but don’t look for its popularity to wane anytime soon. As enterprises move beyond experimenting and start working in earnest with containers, the number of containers multiply: So do the manual chores. Orchestration tools like Kubernetes add automated help.
What are your DevOps priorities in 2018?
What tops your to-do list in the coming year, DevOps leaders? DevOps has become a powerful tool in IT's quest to help businesses gain agility and speed. That trend only looks to grow in 2018, as more IT leaders embrace the DevOps way of working: Small, cross-functional groups, experiments, and quick iteration on successes. With this kind of speed and change, it can be tough to know where to prioritize efforts.
4 trends to watch as IT automation expands
We recently examined some of the fundamental factors that have fueled IT automation to this point. “To this point” is the operative phrase – there’s not necessarily a finish line for automation, and even as it matures, automation is going to continue evolving from a technical, business, and people standpoint.
3 ways to boost IT productivity: CIO tips
When I joined SAIC four years ago, the IT department was a department of “no.” If a request from the business wasn’t on a schedule or in a plan, the IT department didn’t do it. But because IT is responsible for finding ways to use technology to make the business more effective, I challenged our IT team to shift their thinking so we could become the department of “how.” Change is never easy, but it’s necessary to grow.
When process thwarts agile development, turn the ship
At the Department of Homeland Security, driving transformation reminds me of that old saying: Changing course in a large bureaucracy is like trying to turn a giant battleship. Institutional inertia makes it difficult to introduce new ideas, and individuals are often resistant to doing things differently. But part of any leader’s job is to understand the reasons for this resistance and find ways to address them. To be successful on the battleship, you have to get everyone on board.
What’s next in DevOps: 5 trends to watch
The term “DevOps” is typically credited to this 2008 presentation on agile infrastructure and operations. Now ubiquitous in IT vocabulary, the mashup word is less than 10 years old: We’re still figuring out this modern way of working in IT. Sure, people who have been “doing DevOps” for years have accrued plenty of wisdom along the way. But most DevOps environments – and the mix of people and culture, process and methodology, and tools and technology – are far from mature. More change is coming.
Gartner Symposium: 10 thought-provoking tweets
Digital disruption and AI loom large on the minds of many CIOs – and loomed large in this week’s Gartner Symposium 2017 in Orlando, Florida. In concert with the event, Gartner released its take on the top ten strategic tech trends for 2018. AI tops that list, along with intelligent apps and analytics.
7 traits CIOs should seek in project managers
The job of a “project manager” is both self-explanatory and inherently murky. The responsibilities of someone with that title seem pretty darn clear: They manage projects. But that straightforward definition is wide open to interpretation, especially when you consider that a significant project likely has many people responsible for its ultimate success. What makes a great project manager?
3 ways to inspire a product mentality in IT
IT leaders have heard a direct order from CEOs for the past several years: Go make money. With considerable power to tap into a company’s digital advantages, the CIO is becoming seen as the “competitive capabilities champion,” according to Martha Heller, CEO of Heller Search Associates and author of Be the Business: CIOs in the New Era of IT. Successful IT leaders are shaping new data-based services, software products, and other items that create new revenue streams. How do these CIOs pull it off?
DevOps Jobs: 5 must-reads for job seekers, hiring managers
Many new IT big ideas promise to help IT transform from the department of “no” to the department of “yes.” One of the few that actually delivers on that promise: DevOps. DevOps has become red-hot in enterprise IT because it helps IT provide what companies want most now: Speed and flexibility to experiment. When DevOps truly wins over an IT organization, great change happens. Yet DevOps is a relatively young concept. That adds up to a war for DevOps talent.
10 must-read articles of September: The Enterprisers Project
Does it feel like a flood of technology information just keeps coming at you? We hear you. (In fact, we just asked some top CIOs how they keep up with the constant stream of emerging technologies, and they shared some wise tips.) As part of our mission to keep you informed, but not overwhelmed, we’ve rounded up our most popular articles of the month.
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