Most businesses complain about the complexity (and resulting costs) of their Information Technology. In this short video, Harvard Business blogger Ron Ashkenas, author of Simply Effective, taps his longtime strategic consulting experience to explain how CIOs can identify the main causes of complexity in IT organizations–and how IT leaders can overcome them.
http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Features/Cutting-Out-ITs-Complexity/?kc=CIOMINUTE04162010CIOB
There’s been a number of engaging articles and books written about the uneasy (at best) relationship between IT and the business. Volumes are written about “aligning” IT with the business strategy and objectives. For years, CIOs have been fighting for the same respect and credibility as other “C-level” executives, and I’m still not sure they’ve made it. In her Business Week article “8 Things We Hate About IT” and in her book, Susan Cramm summarizes some of the key issues that foster the hate-fest between IT and the business. And she also points out that the hate-fest is a two-way street (turns out IT doesn’t care much for the business either).
This week’s CIO Insight newsletter features the results of a survey of IT and Business leaders on a number of key issues. Here’s our take on a few questions from that survey.
Q: Do you think IT is overly bureaucratic and control oriented?
Business leaders: 51%; IT leaders: 37%; Difference: 14%
Our take on this one: Wait until you see the next question…
Q: Does the business make half-baked requests and is clueless about enterprise impact?
Business leaders: 49%; IT leaders: 63%; Difference: 14%
Our take on this one: Notice something? On the one hand, the business thinks IT is too control oriented, on the other, IT thinks the business doesn’t understand the impact of their requests. Both sides need to work on this one. IT needs to demonstrate a greater willingness to respond to the business (this doesn’t mean just saying “yes” everytime). The business needs to understand their request may indeed be more complicated than they realize and that creating good IT solutions is not easy (translated: it takes time and money). In the end, IT needs to service the needs of the business, so we think the onus falls on IT to get better at communicating with the business (in straight talk, no techno babble) why a request may be complicated, how it can be done and what it will take to accomplish.
Q: Does IT spend money irresponsibly?
Business leaders: 16%; IT leaders: 13%; Difference: 3%
Our take on this one: This one surprised us. A 3% difference is negligible, but the real surprise is that 84% of business leaders feel that IT does spend money responsibly. Good news there for IT.
Q: Do you think IT doesn’t deliver on time?
Business leaders: 44%%; IT leaders: 49%; Difference: 5%
Our take on this one: It’s not great news when everyone feels that close to 50% of IT projects are not delivered on time. The surprise here is that IT is actually harder on themselves than the business is on IT. On the other hand, we understand that it’s IT under the spotlight here, but it does make us wonder how many non-IT projects are delivered on time? Projects like strategic plans, new building construction, financial budgets, etc. Hmmm…
Q: Do you think the business doesn’t give IT enough credit for working tirelessly behind the scenes?
Business leaders: 71%; IT leaders: 67%; Difference: 4%
Our take on this one: If 71% of business leaders feel they do not give IT enough credit, that tells us that the business actually does recognize the hard work that IT is doing day-to-day. The business is paying attention, keep up the good work gang!
Some final thoughts on the uneasy relationship between IT and the business. All businesses exist to provide their customers with quality goods and services at a profit, we’ll call that the core mission. And most businesses have a similar set of functions to accomplish that mission, including sales and marketing, manufacturing/operations, finance, HR, IT and so on. The closer that every business function gets to supporting the core mission the more successful the business will be. So is it totally up to IT to make that happen? Of course not. Whether it’s a marriage, a sports team, or the relationship between IT and the business, all successful relationships require the patience, effort and cooperation of all parties involved to make it work.