"What Business wants from IT"

IT without fuss

As far as business is concerned, this is the ticket to the game. It's the part that establishes IT's credibility and builds trust. But here's the thing: Business wants IT without fuss. They want IT to run the engine room of the business without business even noticing the noise.

Business sees IT people in this way:

IT people usually love noise. They make lots of fuss. They have conferences which push acronyms around like chess pieces on a board. "I love the smell of IT in the morning!" But it is so complicated, you wouldn't understand." Sound familiar? IT people do technology. That's what they do... often for its own sake. And business, in spite of our protestations to the contrary, is the carrier of this parasitic behaviour.

IT do however have some right to expect something from their business: 

Business usually switch off to IT "noise" being insensitive to what's important and what it the usual IT techno-babble. Obviously IT can't (and shouldn't) operate in a vacuum. They need to agree a mandate between business and IT - Not an SLA (that's just another noisy acronym). A mandate is where parties really agree their roles and responsibilities in delivering IT without fuss. (All four of these words are important).

Get involved in business improvement

The important word here is "involved", and it is the word that creates the most distance. Because to business, IT involvement should be an ongoing, day-to-day interaction at the business coal-face. To IT, involvement may mean "demand management" at best, and requirements specifications at worst.

Business wants IT tp understand the business imperatives of the organisation and interact with them on a daily basis business to produce better business results. The word is results - not processes, or IP or capacity. Those are output words - business wants outcomes.

Here's the problem - business changes, often on a monthly basis:

It's a matter of survival (and yes, sometimes just poor discipline). But that's the reality. Business needs to be fleet-footed and agile.

There is a mismatch between business change cycles and IT cycles, and this causes much of the friction at a business improvement level: By the time IT delivers, business has either changed their objectives or expectations, or in some cases, has forgotten what it asked for. Often business does not have the will or capacity to implement the IT change.

Here's the thing though: In the 80's IT applications were 70% IT and 30% business change. Now it is 30% technology and 70% business change - so IT involvement goes much deeper than technology, it MUST be about business.

IT wants business to decide what they want and stick to it:

Not going to happen though. So IT needs to set up an environment in which the disparate cycles can work in harmony. To do this, they need to agree a mandate (yes, that word again) with business in which their responsibility for IT infrastructures is mapped out, and business commitment to defining what they want is more diligently delimited.

The more technical IT gets, the less agility business gets. And the more agile business gets, the less disciplined and more risky your IT gets. 

This is not easy to solve, but a clear mandate, deep involvement in business and a focus on business outcomes will go a long way to solving the problem.

Provide appropriate information leadership

Appropriate leadership is not about technology - it is about business.

We avoid using IT here because provide "IT" Leadership is already too technical a take on leadership. One Managing Director said "Leadership is about new products, markets and channels... Full Stop. (No technology for its own sake there!).

Technology for business sake is about new products, markets and channels using technology where appropriate. And if there's no technology in IT's leadership, it is still leadership.

Business sees IT confusing cool with useful. Cool can have all sorts of flavours:

Architecture, ITIL, PMO, SOA and SDLCs are all cool and useful. They mean nothing to business, and are not appropriate leadership.

Very few technologies are ubiquitous - that is generically and persistently useful to the business or its customers.

But business doesn't see IT being concerned with generic or persistent. Rather they see IT deeply mired in the features, standards, integration and coolth of the thing.

IT needs some space. But to get this space, they have to earn it:

So again, we're back to the mandate. Business will be leery of IT speaking about technology pilots, proof of concepts and feasibility studies - especially if they cost money - so IT needs to start small and build trust in their appropriate leadership.

IT really do want to add value. They need to understand where their business is going and what new products, markets and channels need, or will be enabled by, technology. Then they need to deliver on their leadership promise.