Cross the Business/IT Chasm

There has been a widening chasm between Business and IT, an adversarial relationship that has existed for far too many years.  According to a recent CA Technologies study, nearly 35% of those businesses surveyed classified their relationship with IT to be 'combative'.  Why is that?

For far too long, business has perceived IT to be a support system, the 'go-to' fix it solution for when technology misbehaves. In reality, IT needs to be a partner in the growth and development of a business. Equally true, IT has always carried itself far loftier than their business partners. Often, attitudes that speak louder than words, damage the relationships just as much as any lack of partnership.  Does anyone remember the Saturday Night Live skit with Jimmy Fallon as the IT guy?

This was such a funny bit because it was so true (and is even very true today).  This is exactly why a lot of business people view IT as a necessary evil rather than a valued partner.  But there are things that IT and the business can do to help bridge that chasm, it's relatively easy as well as quite painless.  But it does take effort.

First and foremost - dialog/communication is critical. Once you have base of open communication established, all else will fall into place. Just as much as the business needs to understand the technology, IT needs to understand the business.  That is not to say that the business folks have to be MS Certified or the IT folks need to understand the Balance Sheet; but they both need to understand just how each piece functions and relates to the other. In every business meeting there should be a IT representative (generally a CIO/CTO/VP or Director) in order to fully understand the needs of the business and then relate it back to the technology team. Additionally, a business representative should be involved in all IT updates as well. Whether that is a project/implementation update or even simple annual budget setting; the business needs to understand the impacts.

When business plans are developed or new initiatives designed, IT needs to be involved. There are unintended consequences to all initiatives, all parties being involved will only help eliminate these consequences. For example you may want to grow your business by 12% this year and you know exactly how you will do that. First, you will hire 3 more sales people and with new sales people come support people and so on. Without IT there, you may not realize the impact that could have to: hardware, software, licensing, network infrastructure and so on AND all of the costs associated with it.  Perhaps you want to leverage the database more? Without the benefit of IT input, you may never realize that the existing system is simply not designed the way you want to use it.

When planning and/or making decisions, it is critical that IT think in terms of business impact. Critical.  The business should never be driven by any application/platform that IT specifies without benefit of business input (trust me, I've seen it more than I care to). I cannot say this enough, the needs of the business drives the needs of IT. Therefore it is critical that IT understands the organization, understands the people in the organization and understands the business of the organization.

The distrust that currently exists between the business & IT needs to be eliminated. When IT commits to a demand, deliver 100% of the time. When IT cannot commit to a demand, do not simply say no, rather, present an alternative plan, and turn the 'no' into a 'yes'.

Finally, IT needs to become more servant leader focused. IT always has 2 sets of customers; the external customers (those that buy your products or services and help to pay the bills) and the internal customers (your co-workers). Each must be treated with equal respect. In this way, IT must embrace the End User experience, and not just from how an application works, but from the perspective of how they were treated. Lets face it, none of us like bad customer service in anything that we do; why would we give bad customer service to our own co-workers?