Kristie Grinnell’s recent greatest accomplishment is building a high-performing team that anticipates customer needs and delivers on mission objectives. Typically, IT is considered “back office” to keep systems running, she said, but at General Dynamics Information Technology, the chief information officer office is now “front office.”
“My team is seen as a group of leaders who take full ownership of their services and collaborate and influence to deliver results to our customers,” Grinnell said.
Grinnell said her team shares its story with end customers on how it modernizes infrastructure and applications, seamlessly integrate its latest acquisition, digitalize its business and secure and protect its assets.
“We are problem-solvers for GDIT and our customers,” she said. “My team is transforming processes, reducing administrative burden on our employees by automating routine tasks to allow them to focus on higher-value work.”
Grinnell has also created a culture for leaders to feel empowered, as they independently make decisions as if GDIT were their own business, ensuring as leaders they do things that will help execute GDIT programs, win work and recruit and retain employees.
“In many ways, this year gave rise to the feeling of running a ‘marathon of mountains’,” Grinnell said. “We had an uphill climb as we successfully integrated the IT systems of GDIT and CSRA, and then a new mountain appeared as COVID-19 hastened the transition to remote working for our workforce.”
Through it all, Grinnell’s team has put into action the definition of agility and succeeding as a true business partner focused on delivering real business outcomes.
“INNOVATE EVERYWHERE is one of our strategic pillars at GDIT and our Global CIO team takes this seriously,” she said. Four areas of technological innovation drove GDIT’s results as the unpredictability of this year unfolded — cloud, digital workplace, cyber, artificial intelligence and robotics process automation.
Moving with speed and agility was possible because of GDIT’s transition to the cloud and its digital workplace enabled employees to take their digital workplace anywhere they needed to manage their family situation and their customer mission securely, Grinnell said.
“Cyber is a top priority for all employees at GDIT,” she added.
Adversaries use uncertain times like a global pandemic, financial crisis and social unrest to try and catch the country if its focus is on other things.
“Because we moved our SOC to a managed shared service and leverage cloud capabilities, we were able to keep our focus right where it should be on managing our customer mission securely,” Grinnell said. “Our cyber technologies had the scale and ability to shift to securing our employees at home as if they were in the office.”
AI and RPA are evolving, and continuing innovation has allowed GDIT to automate the repeatable low-value tasks and activities it must do and provide speed to insight on data that helps GDIT to make better business decisions.
Why Watch
For Grinnell, leading with compassion and empathy as GDIT navigates the workforce through COVID-19’s challenges is crucial.
“Times are uncertain and fatigue is mounting so first and foremost, I will continue to focus on ensuring my team is OK and we are having the right conversations around culture, diversity and inclusion and overall mental well-being,” she said.
Over the next 12-18 months, Grinnell will continue to align with GDIT business divisions and customers for growth.
“Delivering operational excellence within our IT stack, innovating to create new shared services that deliver value for our customers, reducing the administrative burden on our employees through streamlined process and capabilities, and providing speed to insight through leveraging data to make better, faster business decisions,” Grinnell said.