Getting the Most Value Out of Business-IT Relationships
Have you ever wondered what kind of behavior gets the most value out of business-IT relationships? Conference participants explored this very question during BRMConnect Sydney.
First, participants split themselves up into two groups: ‘business people’ and ‘IT people.’ The business group discussed and identified desired behaviors from their IT partners, while the IT group focused on the behaviors that they would like to see from their business partners. After sharing their findings with each other, participants then compared their results with findings from ten other international workshops.
The consolidated findings from all of these workshops are as follows:
Business people should:
- Articulate strategy, needs, and expectations clearly and early-on to BRM and all involved stakeholders
- Specify desired outcomes, not specific solutions
- Set priorities, accept risks, take decisions, and provide funding and other resources
- Understand IT’s capabilities and limitations
- Own and take responsibility for organizational change
IT people should:
- Present clear, business-like points of contact to the business
- Understand processes, culture, and outcomes, and IT’s impact on these factors
- Discuss benefits, costs, and risks—not systems and features
- Proactively suggest improvements to the business
- Don’t say “no.” Think first and say, “Yes, if…”
On an international scale, BRMs echoed the same needs and desires again and again—in addition to these complementary ‘wish-lists,’ participants felt that the enterprise should foster a culture in which business and IT share a joint vision and are part of the same story.
The key to developing this culture? Maintaining ongoing dialogue, having mature conversations, striking balances, and enjoying working together.
It’s time for the pendulum to swing back and up—back and forth between processes and people, organizational performance improving with each swing.
What’s significant about recognizing the need to improve organizational culture is that culture is one of the strongest drivers of behavior. In the past five years, there has been a noticeable shift in IT improvement initiatives from processes to people. While processes do need improvement, it seems that people have been neglected in IT’s enthusiasm to structure activities.
It’s time for the pendulum to swing back and up—back and forth between processes and people, organizational performance improving with each swing.
Gone are the days when IT just threw solutions over the proverbial wall and left the business to their own devices. The nature of the relationship between business and IT is co-creational.
The increased importance of IT demands a more intimate approach, not only as an operational resource but often as a strategic differentiator as well. In this new setting, business and IT collaborate not as service consumer and service provider, but as colleagues working towards common goals.
Mark Smalley is an IT Management Consultant at Smalley.IT and is specialized in Application Management and Business Information Management. Mark is the ASL BiSL Foundation’s Ambassador-at-large and is also affiliated with APMG International, BRM Institute, GamingWorks, IT4IT Forum, ITPreneurs, Taking Service Forward, Topconf, and Van Haren Publishing. As ‘The IT Paradigmologist’, Mark has reached out to thousands of IT professionals at more than 100 events in more than 20 countries.