Business goals and IT

I have always seen a disconnect between IT and other departments. The disconnects always center on not understanding the other department's perspective.

Ideally, all IT professionals would have first been experts in other departments who then cross trained into technology. I agree, it isn't going to happen.

A workable approach might be to become puddles instead of silos. I am sure we have all seen those silos of expertise supported by some business consultancies. I say baloney. Puddles touch and blend at the edges, there is an exchange. Silos isolate and seperate.

I figure my real value is that after 30 years of puddling around, I am a regular mud hole that can get into anything and everything.

Hello There ,
I will tend to differ with the view that a person per se is needed to facilitate communication between the IT department and users .

The fact of the matter is that effective communication is one of the key performance areas of any head of department with his her clients . Also if regular communication is needed , then this role can then be acquired by a business analyst based within the IT department .

That is all .

Sandile

There is a need to bridge the gap but the IT department may be the wrong place for it. In 20+ years of managing IT implementation and support operations and 4 years of IT consulting I?ve seen a consistent dichotomy between developers and users. I've seen only a few companies avoid this gap. The typical scenario where this gap exists is where the IT department is given the responsibility and authority to automate information and data. Hence, anything the IT department does to that end is perceived as an attempt to change the way everyone does their job by a group of software developers who know nothing about the users? jobs. It does little good to add marketing professionals to the IT department. They are still sent to the users by that group of software gurus.

The scenario where this gap does not exist is where the company puts the responsibility upon the business entities (users) to improve productivity, profit, and stability by employing information technology. The IT department is a tool for doing this and is responsible for reliability, standards, and volume purchase/lease agreements instead of being a source of adversity or a marketing function. Most importantly, the IT department should be chartered to help the business units be successful.

Given these scenarios, the place to market and communicate is within the business units using people who are recognized as having done the work before. They are more likely to be trusted to have the best interest of the business unit in mind. Most likely they will have to live with the automation tools that they promote after implementation and the users they promote tools to. This requires an investment in the people, change management techniques, and training resources. In an adverse environment this could be a user support group responsible to the same level of management that the business unit and the IT are responsible to.

Certainly, a case can be made for any and every department in a company to better understand and utilize other departments effectively. To single out IT as the poster child of misunderstanding and miscommunication accentuates the stereotype of IT asthe antisocial nerd. What is really needed is to be sure each of us in IT understand the business needs we are supporting so well that we have anticipated their needs and built the appropriate infrastructure for useful solutions. If we try to focus inter-departmental communications through a single focus, we miss the big picture and continue to embrace the gap between functions.

One of my sisters is a very successful services marketer and I know something about how this works.

IT is a service that if marketed internally well can really thrive. I handle this somewhat on my own for our department. We have gone as far as developing and distributing a departmental log, mission and value statement and are living by it. After our current hardware roll-out, we are going to have logowear T-Shirts and Polo's to increas visibility. We also plan on doing some fund-raising forneeds that our employees have, but do not have funds to do as an agency (we do social work) by selling our logowear and thus building rapport and buy-in for our projects. A lot of people really like our logowear, it has a flaming mouse on it with the company logo. It comes in both short and full length flamed sleeves.

We cannot really afford a seperate marketing person, but if I was in a large company and could squeeze it in, I would hire someone to do this, even if it was unofficial. Basically marketing really improves the visibility and cooperation IT needs to thrive in my opinion.

The book "Selling the Invisible" is really good on marketing services IMO. I also really really really recommend "Orbiting the Giant Hairball" as required reading for those that want to successfully operate within an organization in an unconventional way :)

I really liked what Oldefar said in that we can't isolate ourselves in any department and expect to succeed. I like splashing in puddles still. :)