Business/IT working relationships have been troubled since the dawn of the information age. Poor working relationships have a high cost to the organization in many ways. As the interdependencies of business and technology grow, the cost of failed relationships also increases. It is essential that business/IT working relationships undergo fundamental and systemic change as data and analytics become core competencies of modern business management. 

Now, more than ever before, it is essential that business/IT working relationships become cooperative and collaborative. The self-service revolution, the trend toward business autonomy in data analysis, and the high stakes of modern data and analytic applications make this a critical issue. Data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation require cohesion, continuity, consistency, and quality that can’t be achieved with tenuous and fragile business/IT working relationships.

Business and IT people seem to speak two different and somewhat specialized languages. Even when we use the same terms it is frequently with a different meaning. It should come as no surprise that communication is a central theme of improved working relationships between business and IT. 

The Business/IT divide is a long-standing problem and we have all experienced efforts to bridge the gap—usually with limited success. Today the solution is no longer one of “bridging the gap” but of eliminating that gap. In the words of Howard Smith and Peter Fingar “Don’t just bridge the business-IT divide – Obliterate it!” (Business Process Management: The Third Wave, Smith, and Fingar, Meghan-Kiffer, 2003) Communication and understanding are fundamental to removing the gap. Common concepts, terminology, and goals are essential to new business/IT relationships. Getting there will not be quick, and it won’t be easy. It is a journey, not an event. The first steps of the journey depend on two essential premises: 

• IT people must become more business skilled, and 

• Business people must become more IT skilled. 

These two premises work at the individual level, but to “obliterate” the gap demands that we change the way we think organizationally. The distinction between business people and IT people is a barrier to necessary change. From an organization point of view: 

• IT people must become business people, and 

• Business people must become technology people. 

Getting Started

The requirement that business/IT working relationships undergo fundamental and systemic change is a tall order. Getting there is sure to be a journey of many steps that unfolds over time. But the journey doesn’t begin without taking the first steps. A good first step is to evaluate the current state of business/IT relationships in your organization. A quick assessment using the ten-question survey below helps to judge the size of the effort.

Mark one response for each of the ten statements below.

Now total the numbers in the cells where you selected responses. Use the scale below to roughly assess your position.

Understanding this position helps you to know how to take the next steps. If you’re on the right track or only slightly at risk you can make a lot of difference with individual efforts—encouraging business people to become more tech-savvy and IT people to become more business knowledgeable. For those with lower scores (perhaps 25 and below), you may need a more formal approach with sponsorship and managed cultural evolution. In either case, the goal is mutual understanding—seeing the world through the eyes of others.  

New IT Skills

IT people need to know more about business! They need to understand the disciplines and the terminology of business process management, business performance management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, financial management, human resources management, operations management, etc. Lacking that knowledge, communication with business people and understanding of business requirements will forever be troubled. 

Superficial knowledge - using the terminology without truly understanding it - is not adequate. It may, in fact, do more harm than good by amplifying a lack of business knowledge, causing business people to feel deceived, and placing a greater strain on business/IT relationships. To develop, deploy, and sustain high-impact information and analytic systems IT people must understand: 

• What is business process management? 

• Who performs business process management? 

• Why perform business process management? 

• What are the key metrics of business process management? 

• What are the major activities of business process management? 

• What are the issues and challenges of business process management? 

• How does business process management support the mission and goals of the business? 

Repeat each of these questions for business performance management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, financial management, human resources management, and operations management and any other management domains that are important in your industry and your enterprise. When IT people know the answers to these questions they have a good foundation for effective communication with the business. Perhaps more importantly, they gain an appreciation of the challenges and complexities of business management.

New Business Skills

Business people need to know more about information technology! As with all communication and relationship issues, this is not a one-sided problem. Just as IT people need to become more business-savvy, business people need to be more IT-savvy. They need to understand the roles and relationships among the many different kinds of technology upon which their information systems depend, and they need to understand the dependencies among those technologies. Business people need to have a working knowledge of the technology stack as it affects their capability to get information, perform business analysis, and make informed business decisions. 

The Technology Stack

Every business person who depends on information technology to do their job (and who doesn't today?) needs to know for each layer of technology: 

• What role or purpose does the technology serve? 

• What can I do when the technology works? 

• What can't I do when the technology fails? 

• What other technologies does it depend upon? 

• What are the difficulties and risks of technology? 

Twelve layers of technology, when intersected with five kinds of questions, yield a total of sixty technology questions for business people. When the business knows the answers to these questions they establish a strong foundation to communicate effectively with IT, and they develop an appreciation for the challenges and complexities of managing information technology. 

New Imperatives

Effective business/IT relationships are ultimately a question of alignment. All of the previous discussion—new IT skills, new business skills, and new perspectives that are acquired with new knowledge and skills—sets the stage for business/IT alignment. But it doesn't assure alignment. To achieve real alignment there are several things that must be done - some by IT, some by the business, and some collectively. 

IT Imperatives

To close the gap, remove the barriers, and work effectively with the business, IT organizations must: 

Maintain good business/IT relationships at the line management level. 

Good relationships at the executive and senior management levels may achieve strategic alignment, but tactical alignment depends on line management. Strategy without tactics is an undeniable recipe for frustration and unsatisfied expectations. This is described as an IT imperative because IT must take the initiative to rebuild troubled working relationships. 

Create a federated IT culture. 

Acknowledge that information technology exists virtually everywhere in the business. Stop the ebb and flow from centralized to decentralized IT. Recognize the need for a strong central IT unit while welcoming the abundant resource of IT capacity (knowledge, skills, software, hardware, etc.) that is distributed throughout business units. Approach analytics as a federated discipline with three kinds of services: central services, shared services, and self-service.

Operate transparent IT programs. 

Business units must be able to see what their IT services consist of and have a clear picture of the cost and value of those services. When the business can't "see inside" the IT organization, uncertainty and distrust are natural results. 

Define and communicate technology strategy. 

To business units, most IT organizations appear to operate in a reactive mode of fixing problems, responding to immediate pressures, and slowly chipping away at a growing backlog of unfulfilled needs. Alignment is difficult to achieve in the absence of a forward-looking technology plan. 

Business Imperatives

To close the gap, remove the barriers, and work effectively with IT, business organizations must: 

Align technology with business processes. 

Understand that process changes have technological implications. Think, speak, and operate based on defined and repeatable business processes. When changing business processes, consider what it means for implemented information technology systems. When changing technology, consider the process impacts. When introducing any new business process, design the process with information technology in mind. 

Embrace the right technology for the right reasons. 

Recognize when and how technology helps to achieve business goals. Take the lead in describing the business value to be derived from technology. Where practical meet new information technology needs using products, skills, and infrastructure that are already familiar to the IT organization. When entirely new technology is needed, involve the IT organization from the very beginning to ensure compatibility and sustainability of technology choices. 

Define and communicate business vision and strategy. 

In many companies, the strategy is poorly defined and even less well communicated. Strategic alignment without defined and documented strategy is impossible to achieve. When individual business unit strategies are not integrated, IT systems and organizations are certain to be challenged. 

Mutual Imperatives

To close the gap, remove the barriers, and maximize value, business and IT organizations must work together to: 

Align strategically in two directions. 

IT strategies are aligned with business goals and strategies. Business strategies are aligned with technology initiatives. 

Align tactically in two directions.

IT projects are aligned with business tactics, and business tactics are logically matched to IT projects, resources, and capacity. 

Align temporally in two directions. 

Business plans and IT initiatives are time-synchronized. IT projects are completed when needed by the business. Business plans understand and respect the constraints on IT capacity. Business units recognize peak periods when IT workloads are high and resources are constrained. IT organizations recognize the peak periods when business workloads are high and resources are constrained. 

In Conclusion

Conflicts between business and IT organizations have existed from the very beginning of computerized information systems. We have advanced in so many ways both in business and in technology. Yet the problem still plagues most companies. The business/IT gap must go away. The cost is high; the value is null; and the barriers that it creates grow bigger each day. The problem can be fixed, and the time to fix it is now! 

Read - Bringing Business and IT Together, Part II: Organizational Alignment