To deliver the best service to the organization, your IT staff needs to understand how the business works and how users do their jobs. This ebook offers six practical suggestions for helping your IT team become more business savvy.

From the ebook:

Put it on the agenda
One way you can help your IT’ers build their knowledge of the end business is to devote time during IT staff meetings to the business itself. You can use this time to go over end business goals (which may or may not directly relate to IT), revisit recent company announcements, and go over quarterly reports of earnings and expenses. By doing this, you illustrate by example that understanding what the business is all about is a mandate and that you expect your staff to be cognizant of business goals and how they’re tied to IT’s daily work. The more that IT staffers at all levels understand the fundamentals of the business, the better they will be able to empathize with end users and produce great applications that meet business needs spot on.

Let IT staff work in a business area
Create opportunities for IT application developers to work directly with business areas or to spend some time in them to gain familiarity with the business. This may be a touchy area for CIOs because it can mean losing the services of a business analyst or an app developer for four to six weeks if they spend that time in an area of the company. However, the investment is well worth it if the developer comes back with an on-the-ground understanding of what the business actually does—and with relationships with end users that have been solidified from working alongside them.