How do you foster a culture of mainframe excellence and innovation in your organization?

Adopting modern tools is a great idea and seems simple on paper. But it requires significant time investment and needs backing from management. The mainframe industry has a lot of people that have been using largely the same tool for in some cases 40+ years. Changing one's workflow when it's been the same for decades takes time and training. When you propose changes in an industry run by hardcore veterans you will need to explain why the new tools are better and how they work, you will be torn apart by skepticism if you can't explain it properly.

You can achieve many benefits of modernization by using to automate tasks within your workflow. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is a tool that you can use in your organization that has certified integration with z/OS and Linux for IBM Z and LinuxONE. These certified tools enable your enterprise applications to benefit from the workload efficiency of a CI/CD pipeline through a unified workload orchestrator.

I agree with what has already been stated. However, sometimes we forget to highlight what's staring at us in the face. With mainframes, reliability has generally been prioritized over customer value. Why not start promoting the value to the business that having a reliable mainframe can offer? The IBM mainframes I've worked on in the past could process a million transactions a second - but we failed to call it out and a single business team went another direction. This was a decision they quickly regretted because my IT team failed to help them understand the value and capabilities of a mainframe. In addition to the obvious reliability capability, don't forget availability, security and cost-effectiveness.

Embracing or creating contemporary tools for Mainframe calls for a deep comprehension of already operational applications. I passionately advocate for innovation within the mainframe environment, not with an intention to move away from it, but to simplify its usage for everyone. This is because I truly believe in the immense potential and brilliance that this technology holds.

Tools like Git, Jenkins, modern IDEs like IDz, and integrating automatic software testing and validation, makes mainframe development no longer so different from how it is developed in other ecosystems, all this (and many more things) makes it easier for novice mainframe developers, or programmers coming from other ecosystems, "only" have to learn Cobol and JCL to start their journey in mainframe application development... and this is wonderful...

Developing mainframe skills takes time and investment, in both resources and people. There are many great training platforms to train your next generation of mainframe talent, such as Interskill Learning, ProTech Enterprise IT Training, and even Z Xplore. As the skill gap continues to grow in this industry, it is becoming increasingly more important for companies to hire new people into the industry, invest in enabling the skills transfer, and give people with no experience a chance to enter the industry and grow. While mainframe technology is amazing, it takes people and talent to enable it's value for your organization.

It's common for people outside the mainframe industry to claim no people under 40 wants to work with mainframes, but from my experience when you can explain why mainframes are important and how great the opportunities are a lot of young people will show interest. Companies haven't been doing the outreach necessary to get in touch with younger people, they have just assumed no one wanted to work with mainframes. Outreach can take the form of attending conferences and promoting the platform as well as your company, or reaching out to local colleges and vocational schools. Those who run conferences should also make sure students can get in for free and that there's tracks for beginners.

Agree w/everything stated. I'd like to add that all IT Leaders should put a strong value on constant improvement and learning on the software delivery teams. Hold them to the same level of accountability of other platforms.

Skills development is a controversial topic. Many people are told to "Stick to their lane", with some businesses shunning those who aspire to learn/do more than their current role. The reality is that employees with a willingness to learn, will go as far as their employers will let them: Individuals with existing talent (or those with the time and energy to up-skill) can fill more needs of the business. As these employees rise to the challenge of professional development, they will grain gratification in the process and may grow in confidence. Said gratification may motivate the staff to stay within the business that encourages their growth. To that end, companies that invest in skills development will host more talent and retain it too.

A common belief I've encountered is that Mainframe is a legacy system, and many are eager to transition to open source technologies. While it's not necessarily a negative perception, it does reflect a lack of understanding about the vast capabilities of Mainframe. It's crucial for organizations to invest in the adoption of readily available tools that can simplify work processes. This will make it easier for everyone to embrace this technology and realize its potential. It's not just about preserving legacy systems, but about harnessing the power of Mainframe

When developing new applications, solutions, or tools for mainframe environments I think it is critical to use design thinking practices. First identify the pain points you are trying to solve. Second find a group of sponsored users who are experiencing this pain points. Third, develop quick prototypes to share with the sponsored users and have them provide feedback throughout the development process. Allow the team to take risks on new designs, but enable quick decision making to fail fast and move on to new ideas if the design does not meet the users needs.

In my experience, conducting code reviews with COBOL programming team thereby seeing and reviewing others work ensures knowledge sharing as part of the work cycle. This also ensures that the code is written as per the standards.

Completely agree with what you have above. Nothing much more to add other than consider doing Peer Reviews of your solutions and mainframe development if not already doing it. I suspect any mature organization does this as a standard practice either way.

The dynamic between employees and employers is symbiotic: They may sink or they may swim, but they will do so together... Ushering new generations of talent into this industry, especially with a focus on diversity, helps to challenge our preconceived notions: Just because "We've always done it this way" that doesn't mean that there isn't an opportunity for innovation and change. New staff are unburdened by restrictive mentalities, and their curiosity as to "Why X and not Y?" is exactly what businesses need when considering viable alternatives. We should celebrate and encourage employees with experimentation, and the business around them will thrive from the varied range of perspectives. After all, complacency is the enemy of progress.

Yes to everything already stated. Moreover, understand your companies Blue Chips and strategic initiatives. To help align to these, IT teams mainframe users can pull and do analysis on system behavioral data to identify improvement opportunities.

Absolutely agree w/what is already stated! Mainframe developers and operators should always know what's tracking and trending in the mainframe best practices community. IBM offers free courses as well as YouTube. Sign up via Yammer to exchange knowledge with a community of peers who you can bounce ideas off of and ask questions to. Iron sharpens iron!

Sending your employees to conferences is a must in my opinion. I have leveraged contacts I've met at conferences in my work before. It's good to have experts you can call in once you hit a wall. Discord is another resource that's becoming increasingly useful for getting help with mainframe questions and staying connected to what's happening in the industry.

It is always a good investment to allow your mainframers to attend events and talks related to their functions and interests, it is an additional method of training, and luckily the mainframe world is an open and very active world where anyone is welcome, IDUGs (SpDUGs in my case XD), GSEs, IBM Z Days, texhXchanges, etc are the best to get your people back to the office with motivation to the fullest.

Mainframe employees are a indescribably friendly bunch and our industry is highly welcoming: People are willing to help one another even if they work for different (potentially competing) businesses. Networking events allow you to meet other like-minded individuals and to collaborate. This could involve making suggestions to a to improve software UI and to address an issue that was missed by testing / QA teams. Alternatively, it could involve forging a partnership with other businesses/teams to recreate software that is outdated or no longer open to licensing (the owning company may have dissolved). In my experience, the seeds for these opportunities are sown most commonly at networking events such as GSE, SHARE or IBM TechXChange.

Fostering a culture of innovation and excellence in the mainframe industry starts with the leaders of your organization. Having critical leadership roles filled people that are passionate about the platform and have a morale first mind set can be the key to removing roadblocks that inhibit growth and innovation in your mainframe workforce.

Creating a culture of mainframe excellence and innovation demands a strategic blend of technology and talent. Modernize infrastructure with agile methodologies and DevOps, fostering collaboration between mainframe and other IT domains. Invest in continuous training, mentorship, and knowledge-sharing to empower a skilled workforce. Recognize and reward innovative solutions, promoting a sense of pride. Establish open communication channels and forums for idea exchange. Regularly evaluate and optimize processes to stay agile. Balancing technological advancement with human elements ensures innovation becomes ingrained in daily operations, nurturing a thriving culture of mainframe excellence.

Mainframe excellence needs to be effectively presented and explained beyond the mainframe team. If the mainframe team doesn't speak the same language as the leadership team then no matter what you do it will not be valued by the leadership you report up to. The words, phrases and concepts in technology evolve constantly and anyone who wants to be seen as part of a wider enterprise picture must learn the language to be heard.

Resources have to be equipped/trained/required to gain knowledge on the basics of mainframe working. When resources know the how and why then they can deliver the needs in an easier manner. Requesting resources to use batch interfaces as much as possible in BAU would help them in achieving better execution of workload. There needs to be individual responsibilities and leaders need to help the team members to think outside of the set process and procedure when working in test environment.

Comparison is the thief of job. Imposter Syndrome has become more prevalent following the rise of social media. It has become increasingly difficult not to see how much happier or more successful other people appear to be (even if this may be exaggerated for publicity). It feels ironic to be writing this on LinkedIn, but I truly believe that the less time we spend on social media, the less time we spend comparing our life/achievements against others, which helps to mitigate a sense of ‘failure-by-comparison’